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History So all Stockcars were crudely built junk? You better think again!

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Robert J. Palmer, Mar 13, 2022.

  1. I have seen countless times here that all stockcars were crudely build junk by people who didn't care about things like areodymaics cut big holes perfectly good bodies for no reason and didn't understand handling and just beat and bang and destoried perfectly good bodies.

    The truth is that yes some on the outlaw tracks car were poorly built, but many were built well, and the big holes/enlarged windows were to release trapped air in an effort to reduce drag and handling was a something they know and understood early on.


    As the cars became obsolete they were sold off or hand down to people with less skill, run in lower classes, patched and patched again the result was cars that were once nice and well built became rough.

    A good example of what can happen to a well built car after being sold is my dad's the first late model my father a 64 Chevelle. The new owner changed it to leaf springs which raised the car and humped it up, knocked the grill and bumper out and replaced it with a 56 Chevy grill and bumper.

    Dad builing the car and finished
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    After dad sold the car-
    This is a staged pre season photo the car never won.
    upload_2022-3-13_15-47-42.png upload_2022-3-13_15-49-41.png

    Jim Reed of Peekskill at Rhinebeck, N.Y. in the early 1950's. The car is channeled over the frame. (McDowell photo. Phil Miller collection).
    upload_2022-3-13_16-24-1.png


    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. He was among the first to use a trailer which was such a novelty he was asked to unload on the front straight in front of the grandstands at Langhorn PA.
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG] upload_2022-3-13_14-55-24.png

    Note scoop in rear quater window
    upload_2022-3-13_14-58-1.png upload_2022-3-13_15-0-34.png [​IMG][​IMG]

    Billy Blum in the late 50'sa and early 60's. Photos three years apart 59, 60, and 61 (Last photo is an add from Hot Rod magazine) and the body looks the same no damage.
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    Nolan Swift's 10 Pins Super Mod built in 1960 for car Oswego Speedway

    Note full tube chassis just like the Indy cars of the day and 4 torsion bar suspension. Rear torsion bar suspension would the standard of northeast dirt modifieds until a coulpe years ago, but would not become common place until the mid seventies.
    [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    Charlie Jarzombek's Bug with the engine set back to improve handling
    upload_2022-3-13_14-46-52.png [​IMG] upload_2022-3-13_14-47-20.png upload_2022-3-13_14-47-47.png

    Note more engine set back to the following photo
    upload_2022-3-13_14-48-15.png upload_2022-3-13_14-49-11.png upload_2022-3-13_14-49-35.png upload_2022-3-13_14-50-24.png upload_2022-3-13_14-52-39.png upload_2022-3-13_14-53-0.png upload_2022-3-13_14-53-21.png upload_2022-3-13_15-58-54.png [​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]

    Note the addion of down tubes this. Why is this important to note? Because it shows the car in a latter stage and the body is not all beat up meaning they did'nt just beat and bang.
    [​IMG][​IMG]

    The car today not the same chassis but the really body! More proof it wasn't just beating and banging
    [​IMG][​IMG]

    Emil Reuntimann and WAYNE 12 port powered modified!
    upload_2022-3-13_14-27-21.png
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Mar 23, 2022
  2. Offset
    Joined: Nov 9, 2010
    Posts: 1,871

    Offset
    Member
    from Canada

    Some of the very best in those photos. Thanks for sharing. Missing Oswego, badly.
     
  3. As for aerodynamics they may not have fully understood all the priceables but they knew and cared about them.

    Many of the norther NASCAR sportsman discovered their late 30's/40's coupes with abbreviated front fenders that allowed for the use of wider wheels and tires created lift on the high banks of the Daytona speedway (The southern cars ran more fender then the northern cars.)
    Kenny Shoemaker talked about the front end of the cars getting light at speed.

    upload_2022-3-13_19-19-41.png upload_2022-3-13_19-21-22.png


    They like Bonneville racers they soon discovered the aerodynamic advantages of the 53/54 Studebaker on the high banks of Daytona, and the supper speedways Charotte, and Atlanta .
    upload_2022-3-13_19-45-19.png
    [​IMG][​IMG] upload_2022-3-13_19-43-59.png upload_2022-3-13_19-46-16.png upload_2022-3-13_19-35-25.png upload_2022-3-13_19-38-55.png upload_2022-3-13_19-41-43.png upload_2022-3-13_19-42-40.png
     

  4. It's didn't take very long for these guys to discover engine set back and in some cases take it to an extreme which often lead to rule changes!

    In an effort to get more rear traction Glen Wood kept moving the 361 Edsel engine further back in the car until in was in the front seat and he was in the back seat.

    The birth of the Glen Wood Back Seat Car.
    upload_2022-3-14_9-23-29.png
    upload_2022-3-14_9-23-0.png upload_2022-3-14_9-24-47.png upload_2022-3-14_9-24-10.png upload_2022-3-14_9-25-34.png upload_2022-3-14_9-26-6.png
     
  5. Love love those old race cars...it seems to me the nicer the car was built the farther to the front of the pack they ran...It seems the rougher cobbled together one would break or crash before the end of the race...[​IMG]
    the very first stock car driver I ever met was this fellow...this was top shelf state of the art for the 1960s...he won lots and lots of races back in the day...

    thanks for sharing all those great pics
     
  6. 51504bat
    Joined: May 22, 2010
    Posts: 4,755

    51504bat
    ALLIANCE MEMBER

    In the early '70's I was in the Army stationed just south of Susanville, CA in what us GI's considered the middle of nowhere. Not much to do when we were off duty but Saturday nights watching the dirt track roundy rounds at the fairgrounds were a good time. Your photos brought back some good memories. Thanks for posting.
     
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  7. dirt car
    Joined: Jun 26, 2010
    Posts: 1,045

    dirt car
    Member
    from nebraska

    Some great looking cars Robert, in the Omaha area & many surrounding tracks the wheelbase, engine location had to be as factory at least through the coupe sedan era, inline overheads, flatheads were permitted, overhead v-8's around 1965 & restricted to a single 4 bbl.& the inline engines as I recall could go all out to remain competitive.
     
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  8. Mike VV
    Joined: Sep 28, 2010
    Posts: 3,029

    Mike VV
    Member
    from SoCal

    RJP -

    You forgot..."warm and...", from above.

    Mike
     
  9. What do you do when there is an engine set back rule?

    Change the wheel base!

    Bill Smith (of Speedway Motors) and others got around engine set back rules by moving the front axle forward.

    upload_2022-3-14_12-10-38.png upload_2022-3-14_12-11-1.png upload_2022-3-14_12-11-51.png upload_2022-3-14_12-12-35.png

    Note the use of jack bolts used to adjust the ride height and cross weight.
    upload_2022-3-14_12-14-3.png upload_2022-3-14_12-16-49.png
     
  10. Not as sophisticated as the Nolan Swift 4 torsion bar suspension 33 Ford, Marty Robbins used (Stock) late 50s Mopar torsion bars on his Devil Women 33 Ford.

    upload_2022-3-14_12-19-32.png upload_2022-3-14_12-20-40.png
     
  11. WalkerMD
    Joined: Apr 24, 2020
    Posts: 77

    WalkerMD
    Member

    I wanna see a picture of that 64 Chevelle with a 56 grille and bumper!:eek:
     
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  12. dirt car
    Joined: Jun 26, 2010
    Posts: 1,045

    dirt car
    Member
    from nebraska

    I had seen the original 4x run a few times, the Lincoln area always leaned towards the modifies, sprint cars were more common as well, usually 4x would run when the local tracks had an invitational, open competition etc. A bit of fudging the rules by channeling a bit as well & recall a 33 Willys I believe slightly factory channeled, probably little to no advantage but it was legal as manufactured, & another 32 sedan that had the body moved to the left.
     
  13. Love em.
    I’ve posted a couple crude examples but the last one, a 55 Chevy, seemed not to fit the crude mold.
    Much better cage.
    I’m sure the crude ones at one time were much better when originally built.
    Sometimes we forget these things got beat to death, handed down, rebuilt and crudely modified.
    tech rules aren’t consistent/the tech guy was a buddy that let things slide for the locals.
    Different classes have different rules.
    At our local track it ranges from a plate bolted to a gutted beater to very nice, purpose built pro rides.
    A carb in the higher class can cost as much as an entire car in the lower class.
    I’d suspect it was similar before.
     
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  14. They are on there in the checked flag photo. You can just see 56 grill behind the grill protector, andthe end of the bumper on the right side.

    Dad cringes when he sees ether of those photos.

     
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  15. uncleandy 65
    Joined: Jan 14, 2013
    Posts: 4,140

    uncleandy 65
    Member

    Here is a picture of my 62 Nova we built during the winter of 65 IM002458.JPG
     
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  16. Oh yeah, cars and rules varied not only state to state but within the state. I live about halfway between Albany and Binghamton NY. Each on being about an hour and half away, but the cars that raced around Albany looked completely different from the cars that raced near Binghamton.


    The history of post war Hot Rodding, Drag Racing and Bonneville are pretty well documented thanks to Hot Rod Magazine in 1948, latter Rod & Custom, Car Craft and countless regional publications.

    However, the first national publication for stock car racing-Stock Car Racing magazine was first published May 1966 eighteen years after Hot Rod Magazine!

    Outside of a few newspaper articles, some random coverage in Hot Rod of NASCAR Grand National and a few big Modified/Sportsman races or full coverage of the super speedway Grand National races in MotorTrend, so much of the early days of stock car racing are undocumented.

    The first Modified/Sportsman on the Daytona Speedway was 1960 with 136 cars starting the race!

    These cars and drivers were the same people who raced the NASCAR quarter and half miles weekly and came from all parts of the United States to run the high banks. (A few Grand National drivers mixed in)

    Think of it as the U.S. Nationals of stock car racing, and it was only covered in a few newspapers, press releases and a couple news reels.

    So much of what people think early stock car racing was is based on some old grainy photo or a worn out beat up patched together that was on it's third life as a stock car before it was parked they saw in a junk yard.
     
    Last edited: Mar 14, 2022
  17. cheap-n-dirty
    Joined: Jan 28, 2002
    Posts: 896

    cheap-n-dirty
    Member

    Copy of jalopy 1956-b (800x577).jpg yes not all were junk. this was my dad's in 1955.
     
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  18. studebakerjoe
    Joined: Jul 7, 2015
    Posts: 1,136

    studebakerjoe
    Member

    Robert thanks for the pics.
     
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  19. dirt car
    Joined: Jun 26, 2010
    Posts: 1,045

    dirt car
    Member
    from nebraska

    That 33-34 looks freshly built would look right at home on the street today...with the required revisions of course!
     
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  20. nrgwizard
    Joined: Aug 18, 2006
    Posts: 2,514

    nrgwizard
    Member
    from Minn. uSA

    Hey, RJP;
    Could you ID the drivers n team in each of the Stude pics above? Those'r rarely seen or mentioned.
    TIA.
    As for the cut'emup deal, I suppose the attitude comes from you(my?) point of view, or at least reference. Unlike a lot of the dragrace bodies, from what I've seen(upper-midwest), there wasn't much left of the roundy-round-body to work with, iffen you wanted to streetrod it afterwards. Even in the 70s->80s, fixing an old circle-burner-stocker wasn't worth the effort. Too much sheetmetal cutaway n missing(even when "new, prior to its' 1st race), way too much sheetmetal damage. & no, I'm not suggesting that late50s->early60s street hotrods were mostly "pristine". They weren't. Not getting into any arguments, just my personal observation(s). Lots of nice looking racers there, that had care n effort put into them. Don't think anyone can argue that circletrackers didn't hotrod the mills/etc or weren't hotrodders. Still, to paraphrase a comment from an old StarTrek show; "we're going around in a circle, & at warp7, we're getting nowhere mighty fast. :D " . Stockcar racing wasn't a big interest of mine, although I'll read near anything on racing. Always something interesting, somewhere, & maybe can learn something new. :) .
    Any more family history on the early(pre`40) sprinters, boardtrackers. 2man indy, & such? Like that era a lot. Only "circletrack" info I have is an old club newsletter called "Castor Fumes" or somesuch(out of PA, iirc), dealing w/early sprinters/2-man/boardtrackers/some early Indy.
    TIA.
    Marcus...
     
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  21. Some sexy rides posted
    Thanks
    Killer subject
     
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  22. Dave G in Gansevoort
    Joined: Mar 28, 2019
    Posts: 2,598

    Dave G in Gansevoort
    Member
    from Upstate NY

    I agree Robert. Of course I am biased. 2 are cars I built, 1 was Jim Langenback's that I helped out on after meeting Jim when I was 19. IMG_20201013_0012_NEW.jpg IMG_20201013_0009_NEW.jpg IMG_20201013_0005.jpg IMG_20201013_0004.jpg IMG_20201013_0003.jpg First picture is Jim's Sportsman 320 ci car from 1974 before the first race of the season. It was a Tobias copy chassis built to resemble a Ford station wagon frame as the rules required a section of real car frame still for the sportsman cars.

    The second picture is my 2nd build, a modified using one of Jim's own design frames, similar to a Tobias, but definitely not a pure copy. Raced it with an injected 350 on methanol.

    3rd picture is Jim's coupe again after its first night opening night 1974 win. Look closely and you can see Jim's feet. The side panels went from the roll cage to the nose. The engine was overheating being closed in, so off they came for the night. The new side panels for the next week were 3 pieces per side, easier to remove for cooling if necessary.

    The forth picture is my first build, utilizing Jim's chassis, and an old body gotten from Haywire Harry Hughes. It took a lot of work to get it looking that good, and it wasn't that good!

    Fifth picture is another version of Jim's chassis with a Pinto body and the injected 350. We ran versions of that setup for 3 years before the chassis got cut up.

    I was allowed to use my mother's 4 car garage, and small barn rent free during my racing days, only stipulation: the car has to look good going out the driveway.

    These were low budget cars, believe me, but still looked good, no junk. So yes I agree with Robert, our cars up here looked good and weren't junkers. For further proof check out a web site, Lebanon Valley Classics. You will see some pretty bad cars, but most of the good running cars, like said above, were not junk!
     
  23. seb fontana
    Joined: Sep 1, 2005
    Posts: 8,442

    seb fontana
    Member
    from ct

    Plainville Stadium, CT.[​IMG][​IMG][​IMG]
     
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  24. saltflats
    Joined: Aug 14, 2007
    Posts: 12,592

    saltflats
    Member
    from Missouri

    Are car was always nice, we had sponsors to please. ;)
     
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  25. gene-koning
    Joined: Oct 28, 2016
    Posts: 4,040

    gene-koning
    Member

    Our local dirt track was fast, and paid pretty big money back in the day. The track was measured as a 1/2 mile around the inside of the track (most were measured around the outside), it had 2 long straights with wide sweeping banked turns on each end which provided multiple grooves. The track record set back in 66 (1st year for late model bodies, was a full body Chevelle) was a 24 second lap. They paid $500 to win the main event ($3,000 guaranteed pay out every week, payout posted at the pit shack as you entered the track), but the fastest cars started at the rear of a 24 car field. You had 25 laps to win the big money. The big money drew cars from 100+ miles away, but the local boys ran hard, you earned that $500.
    Were not many cars that didn't have battle scars, but many started the season as very nice cars. Most of the cars that made it into the main event were not junk by any means. That track was a great place to spend Sunday evenings for many years.
     
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  26. 327Eric
    Joined: May 9, 2008
    Posts: 2,116

    327Eric
    Member

    Most comments I see about "Crudely built junk" as the title states are more a reflection of a modern interpretation of an old build, complaints about how crappy an arc welded and torch cut car is. While they aren't built to modern standards, tig welded, and polished , they served their purpose and did their time.
     
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  27. The funny this is some of the stock car racers at the time looked down their noses at the hot rodders.

    I have a DVD copy of one of the 1960 Modified/Sportsman race with the narrator playing the part of a driver.

    They play up stock car racer as older, wiser, mature and hot rodders as juvenile delinquents.

    One line being "We're not drunks or Hot Rodders!"

    I have always found this funny as NASCAR had a ready formed it's drag racing division and was running drag racing as part of speedweeks in 1960.
     
    Last edited: Mar 15, 2022
    anthony myrick likes this.

  28. These guys were as sharp as the people in other forms of racing at the time however very few detail shots and even less build photos.

    There are a fair number photos of early stock cars but mostly on the track or glamor shots

    The Bob Whitbeck car (Pete Cory driver) is a great example there is a photo in the Fonda museum of the car being prepared for the races, the hood, grill and radiator are off. The car was Y-block powered the engine has a block off plate over the water pump mounts and coolant was circulated by a bilge pump.

    I have never seen that before don't know if it was common at the time or their trick to free up a little horse power.
    upload_2022-3-15_9-21-24.png
     
    Last edited: Mar 17, 2022

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