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

Jimmy Bryan, Indy 57.

 

Hi Rootie,
One of our local old timers has brought home an old time race car as pictured below. I am looking for a picture of it in action or with one of the drivers sitting in it posing. We have our annual Victoria Auto Racing Hall of Fame inductions coming up and Gord is going to have it there on display. I am working on the program booklet. I will also add the little write up to be included. If anyone else has any pictures they would be much appreciated, thanks.
This is a brief introduction for the Rolla Vollstedt built #16 Indy Car which was recently purchased by Gord Alberg.

The car was built in 1965 and had a new quad cam Ford engine installed for, the driver, Len Sutton. After Len’s retirement, Billy Foster was given the ride. This car is a very special car, known as “Old Bess”, and was the second rear engine car to be built in all of North America.

Gord is very knowledgeable on the history of this car and we understand he is thinking of writing a book on this gem “Old Bess”

 

Rootie saw this in the UK a few years back.....is this older than the car in your photo ?

 

Rootie....loved the rear tail grill....never seen any other car with one...

 

I'll bump this for @Marty Strode
Good chance he has some input.

 

And somewhere along the way, it got some wire wheels in the rear, Rudge?

 

Bill Sheffler and friends at So. Ascot circa 1940. I believe 2nd from left is Aggie, on his left-Mel Leighton (?) and to his left Sam Hanks, unsure of the others.

 

Troy Ruttman Trenton 61.

 

Looks more like Johnny Parsons than Sam Hanks.

Hoyt liked the feel of the wire wheels on the rear. Softer in the corners.

 

That is Mel and the car is Bruce Bromme's first sprint car and it still exists.

 

It's Johnnie Parsons, not Sam Hanks.

 

...here is the front wheel....love the knock offs

 

4th from the left is definitely Johnnie Parsons

 

These days race cars, like TVs and toasters, are often disposable as it more cost effective to replace rather than repair. Of course it wasn't always that way and a prime example is the Wergland sprint car that Bobby Marvin crashed and was killed in at Langhorne. To my eye it looks to be a total write off, but t was just a matter of weeks and it had been patched back together and up and running at a URC race, Hatfield Pa.

 

That is bud tinglestad being escorted away from the wreck. He got collected in the accident and tried very hard to get marvin clear.

 

That is very true.
By design.
Cars are designed to shed parts to dissipate impact energy and drivers are tucked away in cocoon-like enclosures of pipe and carbon fiber. I have a fondness for the old stuff and a disdain for the cookie cutter rule book cars of today and respect the drivers that drove the vintage stuff. I wince when I see fatal wrecks. I guess progress means we have to sacrifice some chassies to keep their drivers around to race another day.

"Progress was alright at one time, but it went on way too long"
-author unknown

 

Wasn't there another driver killed in one of Wergland's cars?
I'm thinking at Eldora in the late 60's or early 70's.
Carl Berkevist?

 

carl bergkvist 10-21-73 eldora wergland new grant king car(saw prev. @ rdg).
info hungness sprint history.
mlight9

 

Bardahl teammates Hanks and James Indy 52.

 

Bobby Marshman Reading 1962.

 

I'm working on my own version of one of these early racing cars and appreciate all the history, knowledge, and pictures in this thread! It has been a great resource for inspiration as well. I'm shooting for a '34/'35 era car.
Thanks to everyone that has contributed.

 

Larry Crockett, Hoosier 100, 1954.

 

Andy Linden trying to blow up the Offy in the Chapman Spl. Indy 1956.

 

Bobby Marvin after a win in 1961 at Portsmouth Speedway in Ohio..Photo by Tony Martin..

 

Joe Sostilio in the Bardahl champ car at Langhorne anghorne

 

Very Nice!

 

The old Portsmouth Speedway is now part of a campground. But the track layout is still there and a vintage event was held there several years back.

 

Bob Veith and Wally Meskowski and Ernie Ruiz's Travelon sprint car, mid 50s.

 

Major work going on with the Belanger car, Indy 56. Appears 'Atomic Knothead' AKA Tony Bettenhausen qualified it at 144.951 mph.