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

Thanks, Buildy!

 

The IMCA oldtimers club have a display at the Minnesota State Fair this week. I snapped a few photos yesterday.
David.




























IMCA oldtimers President Gary Stein and his baby!

 

Tommy Dickson, (Larry Dickson's younger brother) Checkered last nite after a long fight with cancer. Good Racer,URC champ etc. RIP Tom and say hey to all our racin buddys.

 

From what I hear, that's true.

This forum is amazing when a reply shows up like this!!!!!


IF YOU ARE INTRESTED, I HAVE 2 OR 3 PHOTOS OF THE CAR WHEN I DROVE IT FOR "SPEEDY".

How much better could it be.<!-- / message -->

 

I don't want to burst any bubbles BUT, the Genesee roadster in the pic looks like the Mechanical Rabbit that Don Brown build and drove himself. He also built one for Greg Weld and one for Joe Saldana. Kenny Weld also built a similar one to Greg's for himself. Saldana's was recently rebuilt by Mark Randol. Don't know the status of the other three.

Also it amazes me how many pictures I see of Greg Weld on this thread and the poster says it is someone else, even though the pic will clearly show "WELD" on his helmet. Yes I miss the whole Weld family and wish someone with the resources would do a pictorial tribute.

 

Quote:
"Gregg is the BEST. He and Lance Turner just finished this Dreyerette for me this summer. (just received the original spinners from Mike and Junior Dreyer and need to put them on!). Sorry if this is OT.

Ebert "

Hey Ebert,

Can you fit in that Dreyerette ?

Tom in Detroit

 

Tom, thanks for busting my balls. YES I can....I am sitting in it right now and I can't get out!!!!!! LOL!

 

Grant King built the Genesee beer car that Sheldon drove, I worked there when it was built. That being said Don Brown lived in Indy, and Grant had a very close relationship with the Welds, Greg drove for him and I believe Kenny did too, part of the batmobile supermodified was built at Grant's and Don Brown was very involved in the construction of it.

 

Don Brown

 

Lil Joe, Oh and wait till you see the 1970 Knoxville Nationals winer T shirts that Joie Saldana had made

 

Would like to see them.

The thing that got to me was that when I first looked at the posted picture I didn't look at the caption but recognized the car as Speedy's. When I looked at the driver I thought it was Gordon Wolley. then I saw the caption only to find that the driver was Jerry Blundy. I never realized that they looked so much alike.

 

Kenny Welds car isnow owned by a fellow here in Portland, Oregon and I am doing a lot of the restoration on it. It should be done by next summer. Ther have been some pictures of it in my shop posted here on the HAMB.

 

I'm not sure I know "what it was then". Any help with a description and the car is 20 feet away from me, I can answer you. It is always great to hear more about this car that had over 50 drivers and did very well for itself.

 

As well as I remember. The rear of the car had paralell torsion that surported the car. He then added everything to make it a cross torsion but there was nothing to support the car. The car pulled from the fake cross bars. His thought was it got the sidebite of a paralell car and the forward bite of a cross bar car. Back then the thought was a paralell car got better side bite but cross bars got better forward bite because it made the car transfer the weight better. Just what I always was told, anybody know more on this?
Jim Graybeal

 

The Kenny Weld sprint roadster is alive and well in New York state. It still has the original paint and lettering on it . What car are you working on ?

 

Off to Calistoga Fri. Photos next week.

 

I'm the PR guy for the crew restoring the Ernie Fredrickson midget roadster & post updates on the vintage midget thread from time-to-time. The roadster has been to four vintage events so far this summer with very enthusiastic response. In the attached photo from Sun Prairie 8/29/30 the #82 Turner-VW is on a trailer with a very interesting history of its own. Here is Gregg Kishline's account.

As I looked at that picture, I realized the trailer carrying the red #82 is a
vintage unit, as well. It's a Watson trailer, with a dolly added later.

It was used to haul the Jones-Maley roadster - built by Quin Epperly - from
Quin's shop in LA to Indianapolis for the 1958 race. [Bettenhausen leds it for
40 laps.] The trailer stayed with the race car through three more owners, until the car retired to life as a supermodified - whereupon it was beat nearly to death.
Bob McConnell is restoring the Jones-Maley car.

We restored the trailer and added a hinged upper rack that carries two 1/4
midgets. Bolt-on, no mods to the trailer. We're using it to haul midgets.
GK


Chuck Schultz
Winfield, Illinois

 

Jim: About torsin bars. Parallel bars act like anti roll bars so yes they give some side bite & cross bars are for all practical purposes anti roll bars & thats why shocks are so important with them. The big thing is the cross bars make a long spring base & so are easier on dirt. Rememeber back in the 60s a lot of cars for pavement got cross bars in the back & a spring in the front. Now days they are putting anti roll bars on the front along with cross bars. I guess the big ? is how much weight do you want to jack around.

 

Torsion bars are springs not anti roll bars, an ant roll bar is connected to the axle on both ends, they are two separate and very different things

 

Ya I always thought a spring was the same as a torsion bar and a torsion bar was the same as a spring. Denny Z

 

Thanks for call today Steve,
See u there.
Jim

 

rich, this is in 1978 isn't it. i beleive we led the feature (#9) until the new titanium rod motor blew all to pieces. the pic of the car leading is on the cover of the 1978 indy fairground program. thanks rich....leffler/maude smith owner...

 

Chris,yeah it's from the may show on the mile at Indy.....Rich

 

Could somebody explain "side bite to me don't know how to get it.

 

racerbillyc,
To me sidebite is the amount of traction when you are sliding sideways or about to. there are a lot of ways to get it. I was talking about Speedy's car. about that time was when cross bars were first comming out. They thought cross bars got better forward bite [because it made the car think it was longer- because the way they were mounted, and it transfered weight better] than parallel bars. Speedy built a combonation of the two. The car was suspended by the parallel bars and was pulled by the fake cross bar setup [which was conected by heim ends and did not have any spring action at all] So he thought he was getting the best of both worlds. Remember this was before splinned rear axles, spacers, offset wheels, ajustable shocks, ect. Do not know if they were even running stagger yet. A lot of guys when they went from pavement to dirt would raise the cars up 2 or 3 truns to change the roll center and make the right rear dig into the track better and give you more sidebite. Roy, Mac anybody help me out on this.
Jim Graybeal

 

Jim,
Maybe I'm not reading this correctly but that doesn't seem quite right. If there was no spring action in the 'fake' cross bars, there really wouldn't be any weight transfer and it would just be stuff hanging off the birdcages. Unless he was only using one bar connected to both sides of the axle. It would then become a anti-rollbar, which would allow softer parrallel bars which would give better foward bite but still have good lateral control for better side bite. (?) Actually this is pretty much the same principle that the rear coil cars use nowadays.

 

Hey Uncle Billy, Is you bein a smartass again or startin the early stages of alzhiemers, or did you just guess on Nokie's setups in '95 and on our midget in '98, and with the sprint car too, Talk to ya soon .... Rich

 

What do you think old Uncle Bill is up to Rich. He knows his stuff thats for sure.

 

I believe Speedy's car only had 1 (one) cross bar, it was splinded in the middle of the tube. I don't know the theory of it but it seamed to work.

 

I could see that also, that would be much like VW beetle rear torsion bars. Essentially he then would have had 2 parallel bars and 2 perpendicular 1/2 bars. Interesting.