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

I turned my old trailer into a junk/trash/tumbleweed receptical.

 

HOT DAMN!!! That the same trailer!! The guy I bought the OFFY plugs off of said they came from the KING-O-LAWN racing team auction!!!


......so, you wanna seel me the trailer now?

J Shaw

*****Edited****

(PS.. I just saw KingOlawn's post verifying it.. WOW! That's cool!)

 

Sorry to hear about Kenny,I met him at a vintage race up here in Oregon, quite a guy and a "hard charger"! Took this shot of his car at that event.

 

I sense a revival coming for open trailers. We used our almost completed restored mid 1970s trailer [ex-Hank Jeffries] to go to a test at Kankakee yesterday. Of the (9) midgets there three came on open trailers, including one towed by a new VW Beetle.
Ours needs another coat of paint, aluminum diamond plate on the deck, and lots more lights. 25% reduction in fuel cost over a box trailer.

 

Josh, re post #18074, pg 904. many thanks to you & Rich H. for these fabulous pix.
would anyone have info on the following,
#1 pic car # 27 Nelson
#12 " 81 ex Horstmeyer?????
#43 " 52 dark blue Vargo????
thanks,
mlight9.

 

A friend of mine is restoring an old midget from the Jackson, MN, area. The owner of the car has no information on this car, and is a bit curious as to its heritage.
Since this is my first official post on here, I hope the photos will show!
JR

 

Hi hughes993: Great post, it looks like your friend has a lot restoration projects ahead of him. My old racing partner John Leverenz was from Windom just down the road. We won our last two races togeather at Fairmont and Spencer Ia. with Ray Lee Goodwin driving our car. Bill

 

The big clues in "dating" midgets are:
1. Cages: bolt on indicates a pre 1970 build date.
2. Down tubes, if original are after 1989.
3. Tube size: 1-1/4 space frames are 1980 or earlier
4. Torsion bar size: 7/8" x 26" long was the standard four bar size before 1980. After that 1" x 28.

Thanks in part to the efforts of Brian Watson the VW era of vintage cars is getting better documented. Gregg Kishline is working on a 1976 Edmunds originally built as a Sesco 2x4 low bar for the Howard Linne stable before being converted to VW power. After a wreck Tommy Steiner started to convert it to a high bar arrangement.

The car you are asking about doesn't look like an Edmunds to me, Edmunds cars did not use tube gussets on the cages. Rolled sheet metal was used instead.

 

The same fellow that has the #71 Midget, also has restored a 1968 Beck machine, which may or may not have been piloted by one Jan Opperman. The car ended up in South Dakota, racing up to the 1984 season (If this old memory is correct). The late Jim Funell owned the car for many of it's later years, and was involved in the restoration process that culminated with the beautiful #7 pictured at the right last summer.

 

The cage doesn't look quite "right." Might be a optical illusion, but it kinda looks like 4 uprights welded into the halo bar, not common among most builders I know of. Been hacked on pretty good and widened to fit a V-? something or other, but that might help trace it down.

 

Fancy Jazz; that's it. Makes a lot more sense than "Indy Job", considering he was a Left-Coaster, but that's what it looked like to these old eyes...

 

Great stuff man! Welcome. LOVE the restoration on the Black #7. It's just right. Not Over restored.. but exactly like the car would have been.

I'll be the first to admit that I am guilty of "Over Restoring" a car or two!

 

Sorry to hear about Kenny Van Blargen, Great guy, Saw him drive his sprinter at Roseville. Left front in the air passing chevy V8s with his ford flathead, Super nice guy, talked with him at Woodland museum about his driving and he had a big smile going. Thats how I will remember him. RIP Kenny.

 

I sure hope so, gearguy. These enclosed trailers have taken a lot of the "romance" out of racing. You see a box go by, and unless there's a lot of lettering on it you don't know what's inside. Even then, you're not sure what it looks like. Back in the day, you saw a car go by on an open trailer (any car), and you wondered where they were going. Sometimes you even had to follow them. I also miss the days when every other service station had a race car sitting outside on sunny days.

 

How many times did you see a quick made sign bearing the name of a local gas station or garage taped to the hood of a sprint car? Some of the IMCA races would last a week or more at state fairgrounds, so teams were always looking for a garage to keep the car in. I remember riding to the track on an "off day" and seeing a sprint car at every gas station on the way. ("Off Days" were for midgets and stock cars) A gas station service bay was a dream location for working on your car: plenty of light, air compressors, work benches with a vice, restrooms, a hard floor (not gravel or grass), and some even had enough room outside to push start the car. And another thing about those open trailers: it was a lot easier to drag a wrecked car onto an open trailer - you could bring the tow truck right along side the trailer. Also, you could wash the car at the car wash while it was still on the trailer - of course that usually pissed the car wash owner off especially if you were coming from a dirt track! (And thank goodness no one ever dumped used oil in the car wash drain!)

 

Anybody remember "trailer tires"? Not tires for the trailer itself, but the skinny ones you had to put on the rear of the car for it to fit on the trailer. Some cars looked pretty bad with "street car" tires on the rear. Some of the real cool (and wealthy) guys had trailers where you could leave your big tires on the car. And how many times did you have to "bounce" the car over on the trailer because you loaded it a little crooked? You know, one tire was hitting the fender and the other was up on the lip of the runner? Bouncing a sprint car across a trailer was an art.

 

The trailer in my photo had just minutes earlier been operated on to remove the outer lower legs of the tire rack. We know our car is legal width as it just fits on the trailer. Had the car been equipped with knock-off front hubs we may have opted for ribbed front "trailer tires" instead of surgery. 59" wide was plenty back in the 1970s. This car has a legal maximum of 62".

Hard for some folks to realize just how skinny the old cars were. Up until 1982 the max wheel width for midgets was 8". Now our sportsman cars are accused of not being real midgets because we don't have 12" wide right rears on a 10" wide wheel.

 

I came from a little town about 60 miles South of Indy, Morgantown, and I remember being glued to the windows of the car going down the road next to a trailer. They seemed to be everywhere in the summer.
I got alot of satisfaction watching kids stare at my altered as we traveled down the road. It took me back to my childhood.
I really think that if the kids saw more of these cars traveling they might get that spark that starts a great career. A big white box might be secure, but it's just a....big white box.

 

A nice Edmunds in the Indy area. Former Sam Isenhower car.

Bob

 

Having a real hard time bleeding the brakes on my midget. I have airheart calipers on all four corner that have been fully rebuilt and a new 7/8 willwood master cylinder. All bleeders are facing straight up. The master is under the seat with a remote reservoir by the dash and a 2 pound residual pressure valve close to the master. I have bled and bled and it is just spongy with about 5 inches of pedal travel. Pedal is 4:1 ratio. I have vacuum bled from the calipers, I have pumped fluid into all the bleeders, I have pressurized the master and bled at the calipers, plus tried the 1 man bleeder, and the good old fashioned 2 man bleeding with nothing helping. I do not have any leaks, or puddles anywhere in the system. I am at a loss. I thought the master might be bad and be leaking pass the plunger, but I capped off the master right at the out let and it was firm with no leaks.

Any body have any suggestions? I have been at it for 3 weekends, I am at a loss.

 

We had the same issue with the Mongrel-VW and finally moved the master cylinder to a higher place out of frustration. It seemed to us that we needed to make the master cylinder higher than the caliper bleeders.

I'll face this on the Edmunds-VW in a few weeks. Maybe jack the car up so the MC is higher than the front calipers, bleed them and then repeat for the back? Or take the calipers off an secure them low on the disc for bleeding?

That is all I got...

 

Some years ago, I drove my '32 five window Ford, with an old Detroit V6-71 sitting top a 360 SBC, the 30 miles up to a little car show in Paso Robles (CA). As I backed my Deuce into my parking space, I saw a fellow walking in with me. When I shut down, he stuck his head in the window, and said: "Hey! You wanna sell this coupe? I been look'n fer one!".. I immediately told him that I'd looked 40 years for mine; but, if he had a 512 BB Ferrari coupe, I might consider a trade. He said he didn't have one of them; but, he had a nice '48 Merc Club Coupe sitting around the corner.

When I "un-assed" my coupe, the stranger stuck out this island sized hand; and, with a grin said: "I'm Kenny Van Blargen"! I was so flabbergasted that I didn't think of giving him MY name. All I could blurt out was: "Kenney Van Blargen! You were one of my heroes!!" When I settled down, I did give him my name; and I allowed that, when going to college in San Luis Obispo; me and my buddies would lay in some six-packs of cheap beer, go up to the Atascadero Speedway, and watch Kenny do battle with the other "wild men", driving one of his '32 Jalopies. He shared many a great story, through the years I knew him.

Every time I saw Kenny, he'd ask me if I was ready to sell him my "Deuce".

And, you know? He'll always be my hero. R.I.P., Kenny!

 

Here's a picture I'm posting for three reasons, The throwback paint scheme, I crew chief it, and it was painted by our very own RABS.

 

Trailer/s..........mostly the Benny Rapp #14 which ran 2 USAC shows as #82.

"Sandusky" labelled pic is the FIRST test day ever.

It's second race was the "Little 500" at Sun Valley (Anderson) speedway, starting from pole.

Car still has that same coat of pearl white/candyapple red scallops.

Sorry, no progress on model cos I'm "between jobs"

Jim

 

Hello BZNEIL. I will tell you what I have done many times and it works quite well. Attach a hose to the bleeder, and route into a container. Make sure you keep the reservoir full, and just let gravity do its thing. If your reservoir is higher than the calipers this should work. Work your way around the car just like you normally would as if you had someone pumping the pedal. Find something else to do while this is going on, as you need to give each wheel 30 minutes or more to do the trick. Good luck with it, hope you can get some pedal. Lonnie

 

I like!!!!

 

I've often wondered why the Race Tracks never took advantage of the advertising space that is surely available to them on the side of even the smaller(20-24 foot) boxes that the weekend warriors use to get to the track...?????

 

Easter.... I still tow my "410 Winged" car on an open trailer,and I can do "The Bounce" all by myself!

 

Here are a few more photos. The old helmets are cool, the mud on the open face is at least 35yrs old...

Enjoy!