I grew up watching this kind of racing at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, the fat fendered Fords were preferred race cars. HRP
Notice how courteous they are driving...even the ones trying to jockey out of last place? They don't want to scrape the shiny paint off the fenders I guess that's why I like open wheel racing
Wow, that brings back a lot of memories of going to Riverside Speedway in western Mass. with my Dad, a small track with plenty of action, great cars & drivers. Like most tracks gone but not forgotten. Thanks for posting this Ryan
High boys are neat, no doubt, but I have always been drawn to the cool, Art Deco lines of Fat Fendered automobiles, such as these two examples ! ( YMMV )
They, the cars almost look like match racers, they ran in a large group. Could you imagine this group of vehicles on the large ovals of todays tracks leaning bodies in the curves and sucking down on the slopes??? Todays Nascar's have NOTHING on fat fender racing,,,, nothing,.
Yup. I watched Jalopies on small tracks all over the New England/New York area and have a soft spot for that genre for sure. In race trim or street trim they were cooool sleds in their day.
Remember those cars as my dad started racing in fat fender cars. We always had monday night as fender fixing night or replacement as there was a lot of bumping in the pack, it wasn't as polite as that film seems to show LOL
There is a series called Legends in NASCAR now which is 5/8 size bodies and they are replicas of chevy, dodge and ford from the 30's
I have a little story about my selfish self concerning Jalopy racing. My younger brother had friend, who had a sister my age, their mother drove a '37 Ford Coupe with the men, (she was the only full time women racer to run with the men. This was the early 50's. Brother says he and I are invited to go every weekend if we have the admission money. There was no dad, mom prepared and maintained the race car herself and had a male fiend that helped her at the track. So..................I decided to pretend I "liked" my classmate so as not to feel stupid hanging out with her and getting to go to the track. We had to stay in the stands, could not go into the pits but it was still great times. "Mom" did pretty good but was not allowed to drive in the "Powder Puff" races because of her racing with the men. Her car was black and white, painted with a brush and she mostly ran in the "B" races. I was an impressed kid seeing her trophy display in living room. When she stopped racing and going to the track the next year, I stopped the pretend "puppy love" routine. They moved not long after that and I didn't have to face what ever name was at school and in class. I never will forget the excitement, smells, (gas, grease, oil, burning rubber, mixed with popcorn) and running wild around the stands. The track was paved and there were no serious injuries as I can remember. My Mom was long gone and dad had a neighbor lady (??), who always seemed to be home when my brother and I came dragging in well after dark, dirty, tired and hungry. Just great times and memories. BTW the pic above was not her, I swiped it off the interweb.
That is cool...the only thing that would make the video cooler is to skip the music played on instruments, and listen to the music of all those flatties at full song at the top of second gear!
Raised by a father who did this, but he liked 6 cyl Mopars in modifieds more. Still, for those who wonder why coupes bring a premium today just remember this is but 1 track using up those cars, along with the commercial wide 5 wheels. Untold numbers of each ended up wrinkled, twisted, burned and battered.
Over the decades of both witnessing these races and seeing photos of them, I have long thought it is AMAZING there are coupes left ……. Ray
I was involved in this from the early 50s, in my teens, first as a "gopher" for an older friend who raced and was a pump jockey at the corner gas station a few blocks from home, couldn't afford to build to build my own so I messed around with hot rods on the street after I turned 16, and went to the races as pit crew for him and others from my town. Progressed later to building my first car in '67, but the fat fendered cars were gone by then, and first was a '55 Chevy. I was moderately successful long enough to earn my nickname of "dirty old man" There was nothing polite about short track racing on dirt
Amen. Haul ass and turn left. Spent many a night at Dixie Speedway in Woodstock GA and every class was take no prisoners.
This post resonates with me, as a kid growing up in New England in the sixties we attended races at Waterford Speed Bowl, Riverside Park, Lebanon Valley etc. My uncle was a regular at Seekonk for a while.
Only once... in the early sixties... when I was maybe four or five years old, my dad took me to a dirt track race. The memory is fuzzy... but still resonates. It was evening. I was the only child among all adults. The smell of beer and cigarettes and exhaust. Lots of chatter and laughing. And of course the roar of the engines. One of the more heady moments of my young life. I didn't see any rollovers in the video. That's good. I wouldn't want to do that in a Highboy.
The Jalopy Journal
