60'-70's Vintage Oval Track Modifieds

One of Shampine's coupes:




And here's another shot of the "Hemi-Cuda":

 

I think the trick back then was to use a 53 to 54 chevy frame,,,but get rid of the stock chevy front suspension and go with a straight axle,,, LOOK real close at the frame side rails,,they are NOT earyl ford,,, Please correct me if i am mistaken,,,

 

I remember watching Bobby Allison in the #312 32 sedan in the early 60's at Medley & Hallandale speedways in the S Florida area & West Palm Beach as a teenager, usually with Red Farmer there too. My buddy in Daytona has a plaque for pulling Richie Evans out of the car the day he died when the throttle stuck wide open I think at Martinsville but I could be wrong. Gary Balough I was in the Air Force with, unfortunately he wont be getting out of where he is now. Great Days !!!!

 

Yeah, '53/'54 Chevy, then a lot of '55/'57 Chevy, later a bunch were built on International Scout frames - after that they went to the 2 X 4 tube. A lot of the cars I was familiar with used "trailer bar" suspension - trailer hitch equalizer springs.

 

that sounds ok , as long as they didn`t use trailer hitches to attach the suspension to the frame

 

Neat stuff. Watched a 'few' modifed races at Nazareth Speedway and grew to love the sound and smell of 30 or so cars taking the green flag for the feature race. I have to go to '3 Wide Vault' every so often and have a look at the pics from the late 50's and early 60's. Specialized 'hot rods' that would raise the hair on the back of neck. Thanks for the post.

 

Saw this and immediatly thought of one of Dave Kniesel's earlier cars, now owned by Jimmy Walker and street legal. This car is seen on the streets around here all the time.

 

Can't leave out the NCRA mods and supers of the 60s-70s. While they didn't quite get the national exposure of the USAC and east coast racers- with owners/builders like Nance and Zink, and drivers like Leep, Hahn and McWhorter, they were second to none.

 

Give Tricknology a cigar because he's absolutely right!... When the '37-40 Ford frames became hard to find in the mid to late '60s, the '53-'54 Chevy became the frame of choice for the NE racers because they were fully boxed. Most would cut the frame right behind the front crossmember, run channel iron forward and either install parallel leaves or if allowed by the rules,an early Ford straight axle with a buggy sprint. The BEAUTIFUL 00 coupes of Buzzie Reutimann ran a '54 Chevy chassis quite successfully well after the tube frame cars became commonplace.

John has done a great job of explaining our NE mods' evolution along with some fantastic pics!

Now where'd I put that CD......

Jan

 

Rootie, thanks for the pics and the memories.....this was my favorite period of time in racing....when the wings went on we definetely lost some of the asthetics....even the totally fabricated bodies still had some of the "character of the coupes"....fats

 

fats-I stole most of those from http://www.racingfromthepast.com/ which you probably know about already, if not you're in for a real treat.

 

How about #99 in the background- what is it? It resembles a square-body Falcon, somewhat.

#666 is an "evil" Falcon. I've gotta dig up a pic of another dirt track Falcon.

EDIT- Alright, here it is. Can anyone guess who the famous driver is?

Thanks,
Kurt

 

Nice Pics!

The pic of Geoff Bodine Valiant was taken at the old NJ State Fairgrounds in Trenton. They used to run the "Race of Champions" for Modifieds there in early October. It was a 1.5 mile track with a dogleg right on the backstretch. Some of the older NJ maps still show the outline of the oval off route 33.

You can't really tell from this pic but the Charlie J #1 coupe was right hand drive. The entire drive train from the engine back was offset significant;y to the left side for better handling on the asphalt ovals. The driver sat just slightly right of center in the car. Similar to a super-modified but not as extreme. This car along with the X3 of Jimmy Hendrickson pretty much dominated modified racing on Long Island in the early 70's.

 

Ive always loved Falcon Sportsmans

 

More Falcons



And here's a Valiant and Mustang:
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Here's one of Allison's #312 coupes...this one's a 1933 Chevy. It seems as though the Chevy overhead engine was allowed in the lighter 30's body in Alabama, while at many tracks the larger 1955 and newer body was mandatory if you wanted asmall-block...that's why the flatheads remained so popular for so long.

 

The 53 & 54 Chevy frames were very popular on dirt and pavement in the 60's when both styles of cars ran similar suspension and ride heights....mostly leaf springs. The asphalt cars began to go towards the 55-57 frames when independant suspension started getting popular while the dirt racers liked the lightweight and simplicity of the Scout frames...still with solid front axles though.

One of the cool things about oval racing in the 60's and 70's was that there were a lot of different ideas floating around the pit areas of the American tracks. The trailer bars were quite common for a while, as were quarter eliptic leafs. The "Flemke" frontend incorporated transverse leaf, but with two short springs instead of one long one. Coilover shocks were just starting to gain acceptance by oval racers and there were also quite a few torsion bar cars too.

 

I think those mid-West Supers were a bit more advanced. The Northeast Modified scene didn't catch up with the level of technology for another ten years.

The later years of the Supers appear to be almost a Sprint with a body. Did the Supers fade away in favor of Sprints?

 

The trailer bars seemed popular on dirt because they weren't attached to the axles. When the cars got bent up, which seemed like always if you were working on them, the axle would slide under the bar, usually without hurting it. Coilovers were expensive and often got trashed in a crash. You're right, lots of innovation. But just like the drags it got more and more about spending money and a lot of interest seemed to go away - I know it did for me.

 

Yeah...around here the local level racing took it on the nose when the bodies went from stock "cut-downs" to fabricated sheetmetal. They are still works of art, but they lack the character that the older style cars had.

 

Here are a few links for fans of vintage oval racing:

http://www.vintagemodifieds.com/

http://www.3widespicturevault.com/

http://www.junkracer.virtualave.net/

http://www.racingfromthepast.com/

http://www.danbury-racearena.com/index1.htm

http://www.rfrhs.com/gallery.htm

 

Here's an interesting photo showing the interior of a 60's era Modified race car. Not many pictures were taken of the inside of these cars, but the photographer was evidently intrigued with the damage to the right side of this cockpit.




Notice that the driver position has been relocated to the center of the car. There are several reasons to do such a thing...safety being a major one. This particular car had a kind of odd-ball arangement that just may have saved the driver's foot or leg from serious injury....notice that the throttle pedal (the $ sign) is mounted to the left of the brake pedal. This was not uncommon and I've heard a few drivers describe wrecking cars by stepping on the clutch instead of the brake in "reversed pedal cars".

 

K9Racer asked me to put these up for him:

 

I'm with you. #13 is my favorite of that bunch. I might have to find a crustier Falcon to make into a ...

Thanks,
Kurt

 

Cars of this type did it for me.

The one with the dumb "wing" was one I built for a friend.

 

After the death of Richie Evans, my best friend and I bought his shop contents and and went into bussiness building NASCAR asphalt modifieds here in NY under the new bussiness name of R.E. Speed and Fabrication.

Richie was a great driver to say the least.

Here is a more recent mod from the shop

 

The v2 was orignally built in the early 60s driven by Bud Lunsford, and a host of other drivers..I was told the car had over 150 feature wins. This car was light years ahed of the compition.This was a Georgia Skeeter or modified.. Every thing was light weight even down to the aluminum roll cage which I still have..It was a pleasure to drive.. The no 5 I have had for 15 years and I do not know the history of. It also is a good handling car and lots of fun.

 

No thread about modifieds would be complete without this car. Her driver, Gerald Chamberlain of Everett, Pa was arguably the most popular driver on the Pa/NJ circuit. He still is with many of us oldies, if you look through the photos and read the chatter over at 3 Wide's Picture Vault.. Owned by Joseph Bullock and wrenched by longtime friend/ crewchief Gus Frear, this Falcon is powered by an injected 427 Ford and was a fairly low budget homebuilt tube frame racer. Gus's brains and creative use of stock Ford parts, rather than big money made the Bullock/Chamberlain team unbeatable in the '70s.

She and her stablemates won wherever they ran! Gerry won 91 features at the now closed Reading(Pa) Fairgrounds, second only to the equally hard charging Kenny Brightbill and 3 point championships. Reading paid $1000 to win a weekly modified feature...BIG money at the time and the team had several $50K winning seasons. Gerry also was unbeatable at Flemington, NJ, where I believe this photo was taken. He won The Eastern States 200 in the mid '70s at Middletown, Ny which is John's home track at least once, the NYS Fair race at the Syracuse Mile and more big money races at other tracks throughout the NE that I can name.

Sorry for rattling on, but Gerry and Gus are lontime friends of mine.. Eventually, I'm gonna add a #76 Falcon tribute car to my racing stable.

Jan