I hear that the Ford v-8 ruled up to the late 40s, long time ago I worked with a old machinest and stock car racer that said he did well running the Chevy 6. A lot of speed parts and modifications were made by the owners, not much was available or affordable for the regular working weekend racer. Speedy Bill and other speed parts houses were just starting up One of his speed modifications was that they would shave up to a 1/8 off the Chevy 6 head to raise the compression. Then he would machine spacers to raise the valvetrain 1/8 so pushrod length would remain correct. Must have been fun times for racers thinking out of the box. Norb
I saw Chevys with Hi-Lift rocker arms, split exhaust and dual and triple carbs that would slay the flatheads of the day. Thin copper head gaskets were also cheap and popular.
Track Roadster Racing was pretty much dominated by Flatheads until Wayne Horning produced 12 port-cross flow heads for the GMC and Chevy engines. This car, built by the Spalding Bros, with a Wayne Chevy, Hilborn Injection, and ahead of it's time suspension, changed all of that.
Steve Danish Blue Flame 6 racer and a class act he and his crew wore uniforms in the 50s!- 1953 NY State NASCAR Sportsman champ 235 powered Danish switched to 261 Chevy truck engines wand was still winning against Small Block Chevys! Note still a Chev 6 engine and the Falcon racecar in the background.
And even into the 70s on the dirt here in the NE. Tommy Athanis ran late model Chevy 6s, with injection until banned and then 3 Weber side drafts, and who knows what on the inside. He raced a lot at Accord NY (a 1/4 mile track, if you measure in the 6th row of the bleachers, I swear...) and was really competetive there. Al Dewey from Lenox MA raced a Chevy coupe (37-38 I think???) at the Valley with a GMC 302 engine in the Limited class. This was in about 73-75 time frame near the time he stopped racing. I wish I knew what happened to his stuff, as he had a Horning head and Hilborns that I don't remember him using. As mentioned above those were the days when people still used effort instead of expenditure to win races.
As far as the inline sixes go... and they do... The name Dick Bertolucci comes to mind. High-winding screamers.
In 1967, we went to watch the son next door run at Holland International Speedway (1/4 mi dirt lol), and the class he was in let you run a flathead Ford V8 or a Six. He had a 57 Chebbie with a 235, Crane cam, shaved head, twin carbs etc., painted lavender with purple fogging, just like his much- customized 60 Sunliner. His body shop was pretty behind on projects and in money problems so he was running incognito. There was a fender lizard that hung around the shop, so his name went on the roof of the 57- Harold Debucey Bigelo. About the last four letters ran down the rear pillar lol- the announcer settled on "Harold Decker". I got all excited and yelled at my dad hey look, Dan is starting on the pole! Of course I had no idea what an "inverted start" was... The Late Model class actually had some pretty decent iron, I remember a 66 Chebbie with a 427, a couple 67 Galaxies with 427s, and a 66 Toronado that the owner had converted to rear wheel drive (?) that was a front-runner
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