Features VINTAGE SPRINT CAR PIC THREAD, 1965 and older only please.

That is an odd looking rear wheel on the orange 51. 18 sprint style " ?

 

The reason the headers are different is the heads have been modified on the #22. George LeMay kept the finned, cast extensions on the exhaust ports for additional cooling, while most Ranger race car engine builders cut these extensions off like on Gene Cunningham's car. Cutting the extensions off changes the angle of the headers relative to the heads.

 

That you McHenry???

Do you and/or George's daughter still have the car? Able to do any vintage running with it up there? The Cunningham car is very actively being run by Scott Miller and Bill Scarince per Cunningham's last wishes but the opportunities have diminished with the shutting down of the AARA this year.

Post some pictures here for the troops of the LeMay car please.

 

Sonny Ates fighting the good fight 1968.

 

Jud Larson, John Pfrommer.

 

Don Freeland, Milwaukee 1958.

 

A pair of beauties from Latimore Valley during the WGOT convention this August.

 

Hey my greatgrandfather Earl Fleetwood, and grandfather Bill Fleetwood was part owner and mechanic on this car as well as my great uncle Bob Fleetwood. I do have a few pictures. Bob is still around he might be able to answer your questions as well. Thanks Jared

 

Eddie Sachs circa 1954.

 

Pat O'Connor 1957.

 

Bobby Unser, Indy bound 1963.

 

Rootie,
that looks like an Epperly, maybe the American Rubber and Plastic car of 1962. Bobby was in the Kurtis Novi in 1963.

 

Hi Rootie:
Great picture of Pat in action. Love the way his head is turned ready to straighten it out! TEB

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Yes, that is Chalick's Epperly, which was the car Unser was originally going to drive in 63. Turns out that it was pretty slow and the team was underfunded and didn't have much of a chance to qualify. So Bobby's dad, Jerry Sr., started to pester Andy G. to let him take over B. Marvin's seat in the Novi, which he did, and as they say, the rest is history.

 

I believe, Bobby did take and pass his rookie test in that car though. That is his dad leaning on the tail.

 

Boy those Indy Roadsters were works of art, dam fine work was put into building them by hand and now they come out of a mold that was in a oven

 

Bobby User shortens up a Novi.

 

It is curious that all the cars shown have a rear "bumper". I wonder if that was mandated. If so, they might have gone a little thicker on the wall thickness of the tube.

That Novi headrest is ugly.

 

Pretty sure this is George Amick who subbed for Pat in '57. Pat only ran 5 times that year. This driver is shorter than Pat and is wearing an old style Cromwell looking helmet. Pat was using full coverage McHal helmets by then. I have 3 pics of Amick in this car at Terre Haute in 1957 and I believe this to be him in the car.

 

The rear bumpers were mandated for the 1960 season. More to allow a push truck than protection from hitting a wall.

Rootie, I didn't know about the chalik deal. Harkey wrecking it may have had something to do with it.

Yes unser spun on lap 2. (1.25 laps completed!) He also spun there on carburation day, but didn't hit anything.

Ebb Rose going by in the 32, the car would win the race in 1964. Foyt stayed with the Trevis copy in 63.

 

It would take a lot of wall thickness to keep the nerf bar/bumper alive in anything more than a brush with the wall.

Roo

 

My one brush with vintage sprint/Indy racing greatness came when I visited Rodeck aluminum blocks in Paso Robles, Ca. prior to ordering my block. IIRC late 90's, they were showing me around the place, there was an area with a bunch of blocks awaiting repair, this was right after some big SoCal drag racing event.
Saw this old guy in the back prepping a block for repair(an Offy IIRC) that had the side of the block missing, I was introduced to him but I had no clue who he was, was told he was Quinn Epperly but did not know the significance until I got home and did some research.

 

Quinn was absolutely the best ever at block repair. He did one for Gary Densham that has 8 lifter bores broken out of it along with some big holes in the side. He also welded up a couple of "windows" in a Ferrari block for the resto shop that I worked at in the early 90's. We did not even have to machine the main tunnel--just dropped the crank in and is spun perfectly.

Roo

 

The Grizzly Brake Spl. 1962.

 

Rootie, is that Pat Flaherty far left in bottom photo? I seem to remember him doing something with that car.

 

Back in the 1970's Jim Ash had the remains of the Frank McGurk car, is it restored and is a collection somewere today? Bob

 

Yes it is, he was the technical advisor/spokesman for the team. After they gave up on the roadster they built a chevy powered r/e car and he did drive it a couple of times.

 

This is what it looks like today.

 

The rules called for a minimum 1-1/4" diameter .095" wall thickness 4130 bumper. And supposedly it was to give some protection to the fuel tanks as well. The rule was still in place until around 1980 or so and you would see small bumpers attached to the gearboxes on the rear engined cars.

To this day Bob Harkey says the the Chalik Epperly was one one of the best handling roadsters he ever drove. Barney Christiansen really had the car figured out by the time Harkey got in the seat. Harkey was turning 149+MPH laps in Practice. He crashed the car when Norm Hall pulled out of the pits in front of him and he went high to miss him and then lost control. He still kicks himself that he made the mistake of leaving the groove which he says was inexperience on his part.

Foyt's 1964 Watson also had a lot of Eddie Kuzma influence by that time. Kuzma completely rebuilt the car and made significant changes to the frame/body and the overall profile of the car; especially with respect to utilizing smaller 15" wheels.