Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
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To All,

Been along couple of weeks, jury duty this week and alot of work going on at the shop.

Sure saddened to hear about Charlie Gastineau passing, when your at the track there are certain individuals that don't make much noise but are real saints in there actions, the number is few most of us wheather we want to admit it or not are petty and egotisticial, myself included. Charlie was DEFINATELY NOT one of those people, he was always friendly and would speak to you or help you or loan you anything he had including the shirt off his back!!! I would rate Charlie right up there with Bill Bishop & Leep Jr. as real men in the racing community, they were all good father's, brother's, racer's and had hearts of gold!! It not the measure of a man how many races or championships you win but your actions in how you compete win lose or draw, in this Charlie was a WINNER & CHAMPION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure happy to see MP win that NCRA race in Nebraska a couple weeks back and he beat some strong guys doing so coming from behind.

Talked to Keith Roller about his Edmunds car and gave him a contact # for Danny King to see if maybe it really is one of Issac's cars, wheather it is or not it is a nice looking car in the pic's that I've seen and he should be proud of it a finish the restoration. Also alot of talk about the Hampton #94 and it's restoration hopefully they can get it back fairly orgininal. It looks like in some of the pic's that it is in fair shape and with my old friend Stone and my very good pal Moss still alive and kicking they ought to be a way to restore it fairly orginial as they both drove it for a period of time. Hopefully will be making a trip to Paul Martens shop soon to look at some of his cars, I'm very interested in the Parson #10 that belonged to Tommy Sampson and want to get some pic's of it and measurements if I decide to under take remaking a copy of the Old Mans #76, I'm kinda in a dilimmia as to remake it as the #13 which it was when Benny drove it or the #76 that Leep Sr drove or make a hybrid and build it with late style modern equipment just to show how fast that style of SUPER MODIFIED would be to day, bet you would be surprised!!!!!

David,

You are absolutely right about Silent Saints such as Charlie Gastineau, Harold Lloyd Keep, Jack Caxton, and Bill Bishop. This list should also include Mary Carson. In fact Mrs. Mary should top the list, without her we would have nothing.

I too am guilty of running off at the mouth before thinking. It's the nature of the beast and few are able to see the big picture while in the heat of the moment. But like you said, it's not your accomplishments at the track that makes you notable, it's your actions.

Please keep it up with your post David, Luther, Ray and all. Believe it or not these lessons in history you are passing along are very important to our sport.

I agree, Charlie Gastineau was a great person, he would help you in a moments notice and lend you whatever you needed and would speak to you anytime. J.D.

DVD is due on Friday.

Thanks

David,

Gil Johnson has the molds for the tail and nose section. I have both pieces and they are great work.

My vote is for a car that would be fun to look at and drive. Of course I like the 76 personally. jmo

I like modern inner(usually used parts that work, regardless of era), vintage outer. again, jmo

David I do not know which one to make. I remember Benny flying in the 13 and Harold winning everything in the 76. You might have to flip a coin to decide.

Brian enjoyed our conversation and you got me started on a story, about an average night at the Tulsa Speedway. I am going to just pick an old program and write about that night. That was the best time in racing here 40-50 supers with that many or more modifieds and 10,000 people in the stands more later.

Mike was 59 in August and still running great

Ray

I have a question Bkcr, Did the old Tulsa Fairgrounds back in the 70's early 80's run full bodied stuff on Friday night and Openwheel on Sat. or was it just Openwheel only on Sat?.

Like the track north of town did in the 80's and 90's. I was talking to Phil Pace the other day from Tulsa and forgot to ask him if they did.

I enjoyed our conversation too. Especially the empty car lot story.

DVD is done. I'll get it tomorrow.

The street stocks would run on the 1/4 miile track on late Saturday afternonn before the supers and modifieds that evening. I think that they ran the street stocks on a Friday night for a little while but it did not work out.

Brian when you get a few minutes call me and I will tell you more.

David Who built Don Engels' car, was it Walker, Parsons or Darrell Cleveland?

Ray

Bkcr,

I'm not sure if it was a Walker but it diffently was not a DP car, now Darrell maintained that car so he might have actually built it, I'll try to call him tomorrow and get a correct answer!! I ran into Darrell earlier this year in Waco TX at a USAC midget race, also ran into him at Wooley's funeral. I know one thing for sure it was fast any where he went and they had that cool reworked horse trailer that they towed the car on. Darrell is also one of those great machinist/ fabricator's.

 

To All.

Just thinking after talking about Cleveland, who would you guys rate as the best Super Modified/6cyl. Modified builder's and as the best 100" Champ Dirt builder's??

Good to hear from you David.

Just my opinion, but in supers & modifieds, the Walker cars won a lot of races. The Hillenberg/Walker cars were super fast; & the Plunkett/Walker cars with Gilmore engines were plenty quick. Of course in the super era; Jelly & Nance were right there. Wow that's a tough call. Course there were plenty of others also; Parsons/Lusk & plenty of one of a kind. Still kinda partial to the Walker cars, we ran ours for 4 years; Aaron ran it for 3 years before we had it, & it was still a good car. Lets see some-body run a car for 7 years these days.

The 80's; the champ car era was awesome. Starting off the 80's I believe Nance/Copeland pretty much had the deal covered, but 84' up was surely the Gambler era. It was really, really cool when at weekly races we had house cars for Nance/Gambler/Stanton here every week. And again Gilmore built a few cars that were pretty swift. There were also a few Rich cars around; so there were still choices.

Sure miss the days when a little imagination went a long way. Now every thing is pretty vanilla/all the same. It was fun when Engle started racing, that crew was the class of the modified pits. Sure didn't last long though.

David,

I have a question for you or anybody who might know about the original 501 racecar. I do know the first one was a 1937 Chevy Coupe black and gold in color and ran at Taft. Did Bob Brotherton drive this car? The next one was a 1934 Chevy Sedan also black and gold with Mike Kuepker driving in 1966. Roy Patton drove it in 1967 repainted to a gold paint job. Ronnie Brotherton drove it in 1968 and went back to the original black and gold paint job. This number 501 has lots of history behind it. Where did it go to?

Mike

David that is hard to answer. There were so many fast cars, The Zink cars were built by Dennie Moore except one by Jackie. When is a Nance car a Nance and When is a Jelly a Jelly, in Wichita a lot of the fabricators worked for both builders and on their own, an example is the 25 car of Jerry Wilson in December of ' 75 I was with Norman at the Nance shop and I saw that car being built there, I was back at Wichita in Feb. of '76 and the same car was at David Moore's garage to be finished. He had to bend the top frame rails down on the right side for the 180 degree headers that Jerry wanted to run, and hang the body. Norman's 117 was built at Jelly's shop but not by Jelly, I'm sure this went on everywhere.

With all this said I think that Mr Nance should get the vote for the most influential person in this area. He was one of the first builders and one of the most innovative.

Ray

Jack Walker (volume of success)

Denny Moore (caliber of success)

HM

Very good point you made when you said when is a Nance Car a Nance car.Or whatever car. I like to look at the guys like Denny Moore that biult the coupes and sedans and then biult the Supermods and there cars were fast in both.The guys that could biuld any type race car and make it fast.

Like in 1975 Roy Bryant went to Nance and got a Kit. He took it to Al Weiland to his little one car garage in Iola Ks. Al was know for his Red and Black 37s he biult all through the 50s and 60s. Al made his own trademark changes to the Nance car like everybody did. Roy went to Witchta 81 Speedway and won the title that year. You just didnt go there and win very easy. Roy liked blue so Al got the 37 on it and Roy got the blue color.

I got to give Al Weiland a vote on this topic. His cars won in Tulsa in 60, 61 with Jack Belk,, 66 with Ron Fowler, and then in Muskogge in 69 were first and second with Belk and Chick Shaddox.and 5th in Tulsa in 69.. And his cars won the Muskogge Nationals in 69 with Belk and then Ok city Nationals with Bob Williams in 70. These were the only years he went there and ran a full year.Pretty good win percentage. All them cars were biult in a little one car garage.

It was hard to go there and win if you were not from there. Al also won in the other years when he didi not go to Tulsa.Places like Kansas City ,Bellville Ks ,,Topeka,,JoplinMo and there were others.

I think your right with Nance ,i think they had more to do with the success and influentail part of racing. You could go get a Nance car and be somewhat competetive without having to build it yourself.That helped the Sport more than anything.

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

Mike,

Sorry to take so long to get back on this, been on jury duty this week and has me way behind!! When you go back to Mike Kuepker and the black & gold #501 I was only 11 or 12 years old and we sat in those green wood bleachers between the grandstand and fence, eat a ton of dirt there. Ol Mike was a rocket that car was fast and handled good on that orginial 1/4 mile track with guard rail. if I remember right Mike left for the service and Roy drove it the next year and they just flipped the color's, when Ronnie drove it it was back to black and gold again and Ronnie was a rocket again man he was fast in that car, I don't know for sure but would bet a dollar that Bob Brotherton built the engines at least when Ronnie drove it, I would bet another dollar that there was something trick about that engine, I still remember the sound of that engine it had a different pitch about it. I don't know where that addition of the #501 went, or the #501 that Don Engel drove, seems if I remember right somebody from Kansas bought it but I'm not for sure, I do remember Frankie Lies borrowing it one time at an NCRA race after his car broke and if I remember right he started on the back of the A-FEA and ran 3rd or 4th with the 6 cyl, I think it was at Whicita. I tried to get a hold of Darrell Cleveland yesterday but his phone just went to voice mail I'll try again this week and see if we can find out a little history about the Engel #501.

Talked to my old friend Lyndon Moss yesterday for about 45 minutes we were in a heavy discussion about old Ford tractors, he restores them know and has 67 N series or 100 series Fords. He has just finished a 8N with originial Funk V-8 85 engine and is going out to Hutch to a big Ford tractor show!! We discussed the #94 Hampton car and he said he has some of the old original pic's of it with the Weber's, he kept the Weber's and used them on his Late Model when he ran it but unfortunately when he sold it he didn't keep them and he doesn't know what finally happened to them. He difinately says the restoration should be with the Weber's!!!

"If I remember right somebody from Kansas bought it but I'm not for sure"

Duane Cain #58 drove that car and his father in law was Hap Looney. I believe Lonney Snowden told me he used the #58 for his purple and white #99 vicky restoration?

That trailer was almost the first enclosed car hauler around here. Well 1/4 enclosed.

Don Engel won the modified A feature and then Frank used it for the super A Feature. It was at Wichita.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

RFTP,

I thought Duane had drove it some but wasn't for sure so didn't post it, wasn't it a 2 tone blue similar to Haps earlier #58 that several drivers drove? Your right on Don winning his race and then Frankie using it in the A-FEA. I always thought that trailer was way cool it would still be neat today!!