The car in the background was a 1960 sedan delivery, White with red panels and junior stripes on the roof. I don't remember what class it ran off hand but it was a junior stocker, I'd guess from the Easton, Pa area because of the Sabatine's Speed Shop on the side. I did see it run at Island a few times. This was in response to the picture of the Chieftain back on 213 or somewhere there abouts.
Gary, Tony and I will be racing in a Stock/Super Stock combo in Fontana this weekend. Guess we'll keep racing as long as they keep renewing our licenses. I'm a damned poor spectator anyway. Have fun! c
Really? I only remember him early on with the big Pontiacs. Okay, a little help knocking the carbon from my valves. Did the Dr Destructo Corvette belong to the Locke Bros? Also, I know John Hoffman drove it but did Ray Allen drive it before him? I know John drove John Zibor's(could be wrong on that last name) John (or Johnny) Law camaro before he built a Super Stocker. Pat McVickers sat in the camaro seat for a time too, after the Fun Fun Fun Biscayne found a boulder along side of the road going to York.
Not much info here. All I know pic is from Austin, Texas strip 1967. Maybe it's a street car...I dunno. If so, it still looks like a Junior Stocker. Pete
LOU!!! I love that picture from Indy! I did not recall that you won class that year. I do like the Cuviello-Simon-Biebel-Toewes lettering on the front fender! I remember how that came about though. Those were some fun days..... Joe Simons name needs to be added to the list of Jr Stock drivers. We raced a 57 sedan delivery 283/220 and a couple years later a '68 Chevy II. The '57 won Jr Stock II at Island Dragway a number of times.....was class r/up at Indy in 1966 before being DQ'ed along with the class winner. We also won a big Jr Stock meet at Island in 1966 and were very close to setting the record that year a couple times. The 57 was Omaha Orange and called Simple Simons Pie Wagon. We raced it at Island usually.....E-Towns very first WCS meet in 1966 or 1967 and some other tracks in our area. York, Vargo, Capitol, Indy, Muncie are some I can recall. Joe Simon drove the Chevy II to two wins in 2 days at two different tracks.....Island and E-Town beating many of the best from our area both days. We set the NHRA H/S record at Atco in Sept 1970 with the Chevy II. The Chevy II was formerly raced out of the T/K shop by Andy Spaziani as a 396 in Super Stock. Ralph Truppi built the 350/295 engine and the car went 2+ tenths under the existing record on it's first hard pass at a test session at E-Town in the spring of 1970..... I still race even after all these years, I got my start in Jr. stock and have had other Stockers and also a SS'er........The old days were fun for sure......Rich Biebel
John Zibor was a cop and that's where the John Law name came from. I bought some parts from him when I returned to racing after a long layoff. The Dr Destructo car was the Locke brothers car as I recall. I was often up in the stands watching my partner drive and talking to the Locke that did not drive. Ray I think was his name. Ray Allen drove many cars as he was known as one of the best with a 4 speed. He drove our car when we set the class record to minimize any chance of driver error since we were running out of chances for the year to get that record.....Anyone that wanted to see if they were doing a good job driving could just ask Ray to drive for a run or two and he also could give you a lot of feedback about how your car was running. Pat McVickers was a real fun loving guy......The Biscayne mentioned was Bill Izykowskis orginally.....We were friends......Billy I. is the service manager at a local Chevy dealer and has been there for many many years....
Thanks Rich, a big help. Here's some more for anyone who is interested. There was a 62 Chevy wagon called the Dog Catcher. The spelling could be screwed up here, but the team was Whitney and Kutsavich(?) I think. I thought this was a 409 car. Also, the True Blue 57 wagon that I think ran out of Corbo;s Sunoco. Think the drivers name was Steve? Did the Ronca Bros. run stock or super stock with the Moonshine 56? You answered the "Pie Wagon" question I was going to ask. I remember the car well and when I saw the team name another valve cleaned up. Are you sure Pat's car was once Billy I's? I remember them running a match race at Island before McVickers crunched the Biscayne and they both had 66's running in B or C stock at the time. Leave it to the Kowalick's to match race stockers. I liked Kate Kowalick so much I named my own daughter after her.
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=5 cellPadding=5 width=500><TBODY><TR><TD class=ContentText colSpan=2>Gearhart Chevrolet is proud of the excellent team of experienced automotive professionals that we have the honor to work with. Stop by and meet our friendly staff in person. We look forward to serving you! </TD></TR> <TR><TD class=HeadingText vAlign=center colSpan=2 noWrap> OUR MANAGERS <HR color=darkblue SIZE=1 noShade></TD></TR><TR><TD class=contenttext vAlign=top><HR color=#990000 SIZE=1 noShade>Service Manager Bill Izykowski Phone: 973-627-0900 ext. 229 (Bill Holmes photo) Hey Bill! How 'bout you joining in the discussion? Pete </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Billy I. built a second Biscayne I believe and Pat bought the first one. I worked with Billy's partner...Stu Rogers for a while at Tony Feil's. Stu was well known in the area as a smart guy with racecar stuff and was a Pontiac guru of sorts. I do recall all the names you mentione....Corbo, Ronca. I also liked Kate very much and she was always nice to me and I do recall Ed as well. I used to race my '58 Pontiac and one day they were looking for two cars for Ed and Cousin Bruce Marrow ( yes, Cousin Brucie) to drive in a best of 3 match race deal. They asked me if I wanted to let Cousin Brucie drive my car......I said NO, tell cousin Brucie to get his own car! LOL. It was my only car and I drove it to the track! I also used it to tow the pie wagon sometimes. I won a few dollars with it and even went rounds in Stock a time or two. Thanks for adding Joe Simon's name to the list......Rich
Thanks again, Rich. I'm trying to sort through some old memories to make a request to add some of the names I remember, so if anyone has any info feel free to correct me and add what you know. I definitely think Pat McVickers (66 Chevrolet) Division 1 could be added and I can't remember the year of the Locke Bros corvette. I know it was between 58-60. I think John Kutsavich drove the Dog Catcher 62 wagon but I'm not positive. If anyone can help with my previous post, please jump right in. I remember the Cousin Brucie match races, I think Eddie let him win. Rich, I'm still trying to picture your 58.
The Locke Bros. Corvette was a 1960 with a 245 HP Hyd. cam. and P/G when Hoffman was driving. I have an old Cars Magazine with an article on that car.
My '58 Pontiac was white with a blue cove and roof. It was a 2dr Chieftain. I raced it a few times in G/SA and got my butt kicked usually by Bill Diggles.....He had a '59 and it was black with a tri-power. My '58 had an AFB and I was trying to get a tri-power on it but never got there. It went some 14.9's street driven with 4.56 gears and stock exhaust with some dumps. We also had a '58 Pontiac wagon as a tow car for a while and a '57 Chevy wagon as a tow car too. The '57 Chevy wagon had a duntov 30-30 cam in it with a glide. We had a heck of a lot of fun in those old days and I can recall seeing the stands FULL on a saturday night at Island for a full slate of racing..... T/K had a lot of cars running and for many years the old 55-56-57 Chevy's and Corvettes were the best out there. Once some of us built the newer 350's in Camaro's and Nova's the older stuff was not so good anymore. The 350/295's were usually faster than the old stuff right away. Then some people tried the 350/255's and they took advanatge of that favorable HP rating and were very fast. John Novak pretty much buried that record in I/S at 12.20 as I recall and not many people could run anywhere near it for a long while. We dropped our own record a full tenth in 1970 and that was not a good thing to do but!!!.......well we were trying to get it all summer and had it twice before but circumstances worked against us and we also got into a little challenge match with another car at that race. We came away with the record and went faster the following year a number of times....
The owner driver of the 57 "true blue" wagon was Steve Bellomo and he was out of Corbo's Sunoco in Somerville. I believe it was was a 283 fuelie and ran either G/S or J/S..remember riding in it once over to the staging lanes...loved the growls those Stahl's made. I kinda remember Steve movin up/over to a sponsered Mopar later on. Here is a link to a classracer page (need to copy/paste) that has a pic of true blue (4th down) and a few other goodies from Island. Also anyone remember the announcer at Island back then Leo Samuels....he did a good job and was a friend. www.classracer.com/classforum/showthread.php?p=105622
Thanks! I do remember Leo John Samuels! He and Hank Dinger were the regular announcers before Leo left (never knew why) but I had heard he was announcing at E-Town only after he left. He was replaced by Nick Reuter who did a great job but how do you replace (at least at the Patch) a legend? I remember his beer mug being a pitcher. Nick at one time had a purple 55 or 56 Crown Victoria. Steve Bellomo is the guy. So I would like to see Pat McVickers(66 chevrolet) Division 1, The Locke Bros(60 chevrolet) Division 1 and Steve Bellomo (57 Chevrolet) Division 1 added to the list if that's okay with Steve. Thanks x-Tech for the Locke Bros. info. Still hunting for the Ronca Bros., I know they were a T-K car. and the Dog Catcher. Thanks for the mental picture of the Pontiac, Rich. Still battling some cobwebs.
A little Island story - This picture shows Charlie Gifford on left who built this 69 Pro Stocker bored 454 w/ tunnel ram and Hollies. He was a good friend of ours and we used to pit together. The body shop he worked at (KnL Auto Body) painted the II Timer, truck and trailer. Charlie was a real no sweat guy...the fella on the right is Butch Vreeland. Charlie let Butch take the Pro Stocker for a time trial. Butch was used to some street machines....when he rolled back into the pits we noticed his lip quivering....we asked How was it?! He says well all was cool until he hit 4th gear and it was pulling as hard as 1st and 2nd! Thats when he got a little concerned. I guess thats why he is still holding on to the fender in the pic LOL. Big difference from street to big block geared brute horsepower.
It's done ... Thanks! See ... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4295039#post4295039
How about adding Bill Casler 59 chev Div 7 and Wiley Cossey 59 chev Div 7. 1962 to 1965 for each Thanks old-old timer
A few locals add to the list: Tucker Reynolds-1957 Chevy 150 4dr Sedan "Candy Stripper" K/Stock 2x4 283ci/4spd, Essex CT. Tony Gauvin Jr.-1961 Chevy Impala Sport Coupe "Red Bullet" C/Stock 2x4 409ci/4spd, Middletown CT. I talked some about the "Candy Stripper" in a recent post, but new to the thread is the "Red Bullet". The car was purchased new and raced at Connecticut Dragway and in Virginia throughout the 60's and 70's. It was retired for some 30 years before being brought back out to race about 5 years ago. The original owner/driver currently claims 758hp out of it's 409. It certainly sounds stout enough, but how one could manage so much power from a W-head mill I do not know? -Dean
Wow, what a small world! And funny story! A good friend of mine, Bob C., used to own this car! He bought it from Charlie "Butch" Gifford in 1972 for the grand sum of $5000.00. Actually, he traded his 1969 Chevelle SS + $2500.00 cash for it. According to my buddy, Gifford's car was an original Z/28 Camaro with only a few thousand street miles on the odometer. At time of purchase it had a different paint job; Chevy Butternut yellow with green letters that said on the doors: "Pro Pain." Car also had a full cage, 4-link rear suspension (he believes Race Weld did the work), 12" wide slicks mounted on Appliance chrome reverse-type wheels and Cragar Super Tricks up front. Engine-wise the 454 was gone, replaced with an Booth-Arons 432 cu.in. Rat motor. That alone set Butch back $3500.00 according to the receipt which he gave to my friend along with dyno sheet which showed 687 hp @ ? rpm. Bob sez: "It sounded like it was running on nitro when it was idling." Charlie aka Butch refused to sell the car with his name and paint scheme and insisted on a (free) re-paint as part of the deal. My buddy being the big Bill Grumpy Jenkins fan that he was, and still is, opted for the same color as the Grump's cars. Sometime in 1973, my buddy took it down to Raceway Park a couple of different times to "try it out." His best time was an 'inexperienced' 9.98 @ 143 mph in B/Gas where the car was classified. Though Bob was an experienced street racer and pretty good handler of 4-speed big-block supercars, this car was an entirely different animal, just like Mssr. Vreeland 'quickly' found out. Outside of those couple of outings at Englishtown, and the few times he snuck it out on the street in Milltown, NJ. (did ya ever see or hear about it, Verne?), it was basically a conversation piece and sat around for seven or eight years while he fooled around with other hi-po cars on the street. "he rolled back into the pits we noticed his lip quivering....we asked How was it?! He says well all was cool until he hit 4th gear and it was pulling as hard as 1st and 2nd!" "As fast as you could shift it, that's as fast as it would go."--Bob C. Butch told Bob if he ever decided to sell the car to let him know, which later on he did, sans Booth-Arons engine. He later sold the engine out of it to Jerry Campora (Pat Musi's cousin) who needed an engine for his Super Gas car. Pete P.S. If you have any more photos of the car (and info) I'd appreciate seeing and hearing about it. Ditto my buddy!
I remember this car, too. Maybe Butch also discovered how much shorter the shutdown area at Island gets when you're really rockin'. After the catch net, the Delaware and Hudson railroad tracks (gone now) and then some greenhouses if you cleared the tracks. Another thing in the picture that brings back a lot of memories is the yellow Toyota pickup next to the concession stand. Many nights spent in the back with my feet on a broom rubbing in rice hull ash on an oil spill. THAT is some nasty stuff! Hey Steve, if you would be so kind would you please add Dennis Kutsavage (62 Chevrolet) Division1 to the list. Thanks Paul B. for the correct name. Still need to know if the Ronca Bros. 56 was a jr. stocker to start with. They were from the Scotch Plains area , thought their names were Tom and Butch. Probably ran a lot at E-Town. Was Butch Vreeland related to Ronnie who ran stock cars at Flemington?
Ray Whitney, the original partner of the late Dennis Kutsavage, has recently restored the "Dog Catcher".
Thanks guys ... It's done! See it (freshly updated) here --> 3962 I'll 're-post' The LIST later. By the way -- anyone like to take a count and see what the second most popular car was. I think we'd all agree (without counting) that the most popular year/make car was variants of the 1957 Chevrolet.
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