Always been curious when seeing the photos and video of past sprint cars. So, when did these things first show up?.....

1. Downtube frames

2. 25 sq ft top wings

3. Nose wings

4. Non-spindle wheels

5. Smaller fuel tanks (midget tanks?)

6. The move to wraps from hand-painting/lettering

7. Larger RR and LR tires

I think downtubes was 1987. 

Gary Allbuagh

25 square foot top wings were mandatory around 1985.

The downtube Gambler debuted at the San Jose half mile near the end of the 1987 season. It was the Steve Kinser 11 and he immediately won with it.

Didnt Andy Hillenburg have the first J&J downtube?  

Also, on a interview with Karl on Utube by History Mystery Man, Karl said they were racing at Santa Maria Speedway, they had went ATC riding in nearby Oceano Dunes. When out riding he noticed ATVs (Honda Odyssey) that are four wheel buggies and they had down tubes. This was the insperation for the down tube design. He also said he still has the car.

  From central coast of Cali.
   Peace, Out.

     I thought wraps came into vogue when Brian Somebody had the salad car at the Knoxville Nationals one year. 

You mean Brian Paulus

 Just did a Utube search and a 13 sec. post of that crash came up.......Wow!! He really plowed into that truck. Surely the down tubes aidid somewhat. Looked like the channel lock car prior to impact.

  From central coast of Cali.
   Peace, Out.

I think the 1st vinyl wrapped car I ever saw was the Holbrook 8h at the 1998 Knoxville Nationals. 

In 1989 Bobby Buehler had the steering break on him during qualifying at Calistoga and the car went straight into the wooden fence exiting turn 4. He walked away without injury but it only took looking at the severely bowed downtubes to see without them the outcome would have been worse. The car essentially embedded itself into the fence.

Question.  What did Sprint Cars look like the first time you saw them?  For me they were the cars of the late 50's and early 60's.  Open cockpit, a hoop behind the drivers head and no roll cage and injector stacks sticking out of the hood.  I even remember seeing some Offys and Ranger aircraft engines early on.  It would be interesting to hear those stories.

Roll cages appeared in the early 70's.  When I shipped out to the Navy in 1969 they didn't have them and when I got out in '73 they were everywhere.  Wings became mandatory in the early 80's and I recall seeing the first down tube cars as well.  I can't recall the exact year that the wide right rears became a thing but I am guessing late 60's or early 70's.  I remember they all ran the narrow knobby tires when I first saw them.  
 

Stan Meissner

My cousin used to have a guy that did the lettering on his cars by hand in the 60's.  

Stan Meissner

It would be interesting to see the evolution of sprint cars and how they got to what we have today. They pretty much evolved from modifieds in the beginning I believe. A lot of regular Joe's working in their garages in the early days to more manufactured today got us the modern day sprinter.

I have wondered if a group of engineers were to design the baddest dirt oval car would it even look like our modern day sprint cars.

Reply to:

I've posted these pic's before, I think thats Al Pombo and his winning central CA Hard Top from somewhere in the late 60s, note no nose wing.  If someone can date this pic it would tell a story.....

Another clue, anyone want to guess the date??

Great subject!

I wish SC&M did more about technical evolution of sprint cars.....

Slight digression, while we're on the topic of tech advances: Whats the difference between old fashion "in & out boxes" & what they have today?

Here's Fred Ede Jr and his Hard Top in .......????

Note it has a nose wing

Charlie Fisher ran a downtube car in 1986 all season, it was a yellow car and the number was 5 with an R&D in the 5. Karl may or may not have come up with the idea but I definetly seen Fisher run a downtube before Steve.

I went to the Eldora Nationals in 1978 and over half of the cars had nose wings, by 79 they all had them.

25 sq. ft. wings were around for awhile but it seems like they were standardized in the early 80's to help cut some cost.

The first midget tank that I seen on a sprint was Swindell in the TMC car but I don't remember the year

Nice topic.

The first time that I saw a sprint car I am thinking was late 60's. I am guessing about 67. As much as Pa. is known for sprint car they moved in here from the mid West. The reason that I think that it was 67 is that Mitch Smith was the Port Royal champion that year in the Regester #6. Lou Blaney, Gus Linder And Mitch showed up with one from Regester. I don't Remember Mitch running a sprint for regester full time so I am thinking he won that championship in on of the last bugs which we called Super Modifieds then. Anyway they would not let them run. They then put them in a ten lap $100 to win race. Mitch was running off with it and I think the rear end broke. I don't remember who won then. I was only 12 at the time.