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

Got the mural over to Dick Woodland's museum last week. Photos of the finished art and some of the cars in the museum.

 

How bout a name to go with that Bio???

 

unbelievable collection !!!!!

 

Welcome to the HAMB!! It's still the best way I can think of to spend my morning coffee. Mike

 

My name is Mike Whitcomb. Lifetime San Fernando Valley resident, with a couple short stints out of state, MO an NV.

Very first open wheel race I saw was at the old Craig Rd Speedway outside of Vegas when I was living there after High School, 1978 or 79, and it was a sprint and midget deal.

My mom called and said that Sonny was going to be racing, so I went to check it out. Almost got run over in the pits because I had no idea of how the cars worked, and unfortunately saw a driver killed in hot laps, but it didn't stop me from dreaming of driving a sprint car one day.

I was also friends with photographer Walt Mahony, and still talk to his son Dan on occasion. I have seen a few of Walt's photos in here, but he never stamped his pictures, and as such he often doesn't receive credit for them.

 

this is for cmfracr84 Speedway Bikes are the Sprint Cars of Motorcycles, so here is Sonny Nutter

 

I still see Sonny spectating at Costa Mesa Speedway during Speedway season. He was also involved with the WRA here on the West coast a few years back.

 

Cool. Last time I saw Sonny was about a year ago at his 60th B-day party. I have quite a few Speedway pictures from Whiteman and Costa Mesa from the 67-68 seasons. I was at the first Speedway races they held at both tracks!

And if Speedway bikes are the Sprinters, Flattrackers have to be like the Big Cars. I have a small collection of late 50's-early 60's mile and half mile pics.

 

That picture of Sonny Nutter looks like he has the Ventura Sharks speedway team leathers on, lived just up the road from Ventura and went almost every Tues. night. Remember him racing against Sammy Tanner the Flying Flee, and the Bast bro's At Whiteman, Do you know of any speedway riders that ended up in sprint cars? Keith Crisco did, who else?

 

Spent many a Tuesday night at Ventura watching speedway myself, listening to a couple of the best announcers around call the races on different occasions, Bruce Flanders and Larry "Motormouth" Huffman. As far as speedway riders going to sprint cars, Sonny himself was one, and Jim & Steve Gresham. Stu Morley's son Tom got at least as far as running TQ's and midgets. One rider who went from speedway to midgets to Nascar Southwest was Sumner McKnight. I'm sure there must have been more.

 

Don Hawley
Crocky Wright

 

John Aden rode speedway at Costa Mesa in the 80's-90's and is currently with USAC/CRA on the West coast. He also maintains the track at Victorville.

Bart Bast [related to Steve and Mike Bast] drove sprints in NorCal at Placerville some years ago. He is a regular at Gold County Fair Grounds in Auburn at "Fast Fridays" speedway.

 

It looks like this is the last sprint car picture I have to share unless we can figure out a way to go back about 50 years so I can take some new pictures. I started taking racing pictures in 1966 but it only lasted 2 years until marriage and 3 kids ended it. I now look forward to going to EMMR every August to a least get pictures of the restored cars. Every picture I have uploaded for your pleasure, ( I hope) were taken by me, some of them were pretty bad since I was just starting in photography in 1966 but I hope everyone enjoyed them.

 

Thank you for all of your photos. Hell, just post them all again! I think this photo is one of the best. Hopefully somebody can print all of this thread and offer it for sale (text and photos) to the rest of us. This has been a great time and your photos have been a big part. Bob Easter

 

Tom lives just a mile or two from me. Still has his TQ. Stu was going to the Micro races with me, and a lot of times we would camp out afterward. On Sunday morning it was kind of a wink wink deal where we could get out on the track and do some laps. I'd put Stu in the car and he would just have a blast.

He ended up buying the car when I moved to a 600, he ran for a couple seasons, but he was wearing out fast. Finally, one night he showed up at the track after a 2 hour drive and was too worn out to even unload.

He was gone within 6 months

 

daveww1, Great job, Thanks for the memories. Denny Z

 

I think we all LOVED them, Dave. Would your last name be Nichols?

 

Thank you daveww1 for the great photo's. IMO these last pictures are of sprint cars at their finest.

 

Okay, sorry for all the hijacking.

I have a AAA dash plate that someone gave me, it's just been lying around. It's from 1941, driver is Tommy Phillips and the car was the Lyle Special. Anyone know anything about this car?

I'll try to get a picture of it, but it might be a little while. I'm pretty much a caveman.

 

.....'I'm sure everyone shares the same sentiments as the 1971 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year and Mr. Al Consoli that we all say to daveww1; job well done! Wow! What a collection of photos!

And, a question for the experts, Rootie, etc. This last photo posted by daveww1; this car has a very strong resemblance to the Wynns #1 car from 1966. 'Could both those cars be built by the same "fiery" guy??? And also, at what beautiful race track were those last photos taken? Thank you!

 

That beautiful track was formerly known as the Reading Fairgrounds....Rich,