60'-70's Vintage Oval Track Modifieds

The yellow 18 is possibly Jim or Cliff Tyler? I'm surprised the Long Island guys haven't answered,yet!

 

I think the yellow 18 is Mike Deroma-sp?. He raced under the name of Mike Dee. Just a guess.

 

Jonker is right about Mike Dee. He has since passed away.

 

Geoff Bodine tried independent rear suspension under his #99 Valiant using a Halibrand Q/C center section.

When I was at his shop in 1971 he showed me the broken parts. Twisted splines on the half shafts. He changed to an open tube rear.


At Lebanon Valley Billy Young and his crew tried Ford twin I-Beam under the John Warren sponsored white #28 coupe. Kenny Goodermote was the driver at the time. It didn't work, so they changed back. Shortly thereafter, Tommy Correllis started driving this same car.

 

Here's a couple of shots of Bob Knox's Buick modified, when restored as his original ride, and as found as the 1. Don't know who installed the twin I beam suspension, but it was one of several so equipped at the time. These ran at Plainville Ct.

 

By Geoff Bodine's time, they were using independent front suspension though, so I could see that kind of combination working pretty well, IF they could have made it live.

The deal with the beam front and the independent rear, is that the roll centers are ass backwards, as your roll axis is gonna be running uphill forward. IIRC the corvette IRS has its roll center at or below ground level in stock form, while the beam axle will have the roll center height equal to the height of the spring eyes. That would require a very stiff rear roll couple, and a very soft front roll couple, just to match the roll angles. Thus the "push like a dump truck" comment.

Anyway, it's a minor point.

Please, continue apace.

 

I ran a Corvette in GT1 and depending on the drop block for the lower arms you could be right at ground level. I'm not surprised they tore up those rears. Even the Trans Am high nickel stubs would twist on just road course tracks. It wasn't until we got them from Strange Engineering that we could get them to live and that was years after Bodine would have been trying this.

 

Back in the 60's Tommy Leeson had a twin I beam front end on a modified that ran at Spencer Speedway and at Lancaster,it didn't work too well.In the mid-70's Gary Ilug drove Dick Kulak's Corvette on dirt,I remember that car ran decent at Weedsport.Bob Dini had an independent rear suspension,inboard disc brake dirt modified that he ran at Orange County,I don't remember too much success with that car either.Back then technology was try it see if it works if not try something else.We didn't know how to figure roll centers.instant centers,and alot of technology that is taken for granted now.We did figure stuff out though and produced a great era of racing that led to today's high tech high dollar racing of today.I miss the innovation and variety of those days as compared to today's cookie cutter racing.

 

I agree with that wholeheartedly.

The problem with advanced technology is that it hones the field down to the sharpest edge very quickly.

All the cars look alike now because that is what works best inside the current rule package, and the guys buy their parts instead of making them because it is more cost effective to spend the money to buy them from a guy who makes them by the hundreds than to spend the hundreds of man hours it would take to build them from scratch for yourself. Since your car is just like 90% of the field, you've got that option. Back in the day, it was all one-off, so you had to build it for yourself.

I'm going back pavement racing next season, come hell or high water. I've gone through the rule set with a fine toothed comb, and I'm going to build a car that pushes the envelope to the breaking point. Since I'm doing it on a shoestring, I'll be building pretty much everything from scratch. It's gonna be a lot of work, but it's kind of liberating to build exactly what you're after, instead of trying to make someone else's idea work in place of your own.

However, all of that doesn't mean that my new car is going to look a hell of a lot different than all the other cars in my class. A modified is a modified, more or less, especially when you're fabricating body panels out of flat sheets (instead of using road car panels). There's only so many ways to hang a body on a car with no front fenders, ya know? And the rules visa vi aero devices are pretty much going to force me down one path with the body work, in order to maximize the useful downforce (especially in the front).

I wish that I'd gotten to race the modifieds in the hay-day of "cut and fit" engineering. That would have been something to witness first hand. The one part of modern racing that I wouldn't trade for anything is the more advanced safety equipment though. You just cannot beat modern helmets, fire suits, fire bottles, HANS devices, seats, and belts. In that regard, the progress has been a very positive thing.

The trial by fire attitude of the past isn't entirely dead though. This little track out here in BFE Missouri still has a lot of guys doing a lot of random stuff in search of speed. Well, that, and the rule set outlaws a lot of the easy but expensive stuff that other guys default to, so we've got to work smarter and find another way.

There is still R&D going on at the Sat night level, you've just got to look harder for it than you used to.

 

Good guess, as you're right on.

The car was built by Hank Kleban (formerly of Bilstein shocks) and driven by the late Mike Dee (DiRoma).

In it's day (the early 70's, if I remember correctly), it was a VERY innovative car.

Mike also drove midgets & TQ's.

 

To help with some history, Geoff Bodine was one of the first to use a purpose built oval track independent front suspension for modifieds. Others may have used independent suspension before him, but they were usually Chrysler torsion bar front clips or other late-model frames under a coupe, coach or Pinto body.

Geoff designed his own front end, had plans for it on paper and hand crafted the entire deal using coil-over shocks.

Some credit Dutch Hoag with the innovation. Geoff gave Dutch his design and plans. At the time, Dutch was a high visability guy and many said he was the first, but that's not the case. Everything I just told you came from Geoff himself. In '70 & '71 he and I were in the Army together and frequently had long conversations about racing.

I have other stuff I could talk about, but we'll save that for another day.

 

Jimmy Reed always has a smile and a kind word for everyone he talks with..I gotta make the trip out to visit him and make it out to Riverhead next season.

 

BINGO!!!


One other thing that has always bothered me is that people talk about how "cheap" it was in the old days, because nobody "bought", they "built". True, but they NEVER consider that their time was worth something. I'd rather spend $25-30 for a CNC manufactured part, than spend $8-10 for the material, and 5-6 hours of my time to attempt to fab it, time that I could be spending more constructively somewhere else.

Something else to consider is NASCAR's influence on the short tracks, as NASCAR seems to like everything "the same". That way they can enforce the rules more easily, as everything is supposed look identical; find something looking different, and of course, it's illegal....

 

Good point!

If I remember correctly, Geoff had a mechanical engineering degree from one of the central New York colleges, and was considered by many, quite the "chassis guy", as well as quite an innovator. He pioneered power steering of Winston Cup cars, back when he first went "big time". He also had the drive, energy, and focus on racing, to see that his plans came to fruition.

 

All quite true.

I buy whatever I think I can't build myself for less money (taking my time into account, of course).

The tech thing is not to be undervalued though. It has been my experience that most tech guys don't really have a good grasp of what's going on. They have a set of carb gages that they have been shown how to use, a tape measure to check whatever dimensions they've got a hard-on for, an ancient set of scales someplace to check overall weight, and that's about it.

Every once in a while, you'll run across a super sharp tech guy, but by and large, those super sharp guys either move up to bigger things, or they're the kind of guys who'd rather be using their smarts to circumvent the rules, not enforce them.

I'm from the second group.

Most of my prep time before going to a new track is spent doing recon to see what the tech guys pay attention to, and what I can get by with.

Then, on our first trip there, I'll usually pick something that they check religiously that's easily fixed, and make it a little wrong on purpose so they've got something to pounce on right off the bat. A little argument, a quick fix, and they totally overlook the more useful infringements.

Houdini ain't got nothin' on racing rednecks.

 

Hey Cool Hand...sounds like you've got it figured out...it's called "unfair advantage".....ha ha....go for it. Denny Z

 

Indeed.

If at any time you should find yourself in a fair fight, you have failed to properly prepare.

 

Hey my Knickname was Houdini in my raceing days dont know why
but i sure subscribed to the show the illegal part and let em bitch and have 4 others that they missed
used a K mart plastic bag around the quick change rear to cover it, dont show you dont got one!!
I still had PTSD from nam and was ready to scream at any and all officials most of the time and on a BAD nite push a few off the track, did not have any friends that raced after that, but when they heard my 180 headders usually pulled over and let me by, or they knew i was coming through
and did not dare to go to many competitors shops, they usually threw me out, did not bother me much

 

I agree that now the safety is far better than the old days and am very thankful for that.I understand why and how we reached to where we are now but I still miss the old make it yourself days,you can't stop progress and if you do life becomes boring.I don't remember the problems with tech then as much as today,maybe I was too young.The more sophisticated racing inevitably gets the more tech is an issue.It is a huge problem that short track racing is facing now.Finding qualified non-invested people and promoters investing in quality tech is a major concern for the future.
I really enjoy all of the old pictures and if I can find the time I will have to pull out my collection of pictures.In my attic I have thousands of 1960 and 1970s modified dirt and asphalt and latemodels.I also enjoy other places and cars from the past.

 

Going along with what has been said I can speak for the way Bernie Miller built his cars. 1 piece @ a time. & when ever possible, build that piece. He found much enjoyment building, maintaining & driving all his cars. I can remember as a young boy he would be out in the garage all hours of the day & night, when he wasn't @ the track racing. & sometimes if he wrecked, he would be out there when he got home from the track finding a peice or part that he thought he could make a race car part out of, fashioning it & putting it on his car. He felt a sense of accomplishment doing things that way beyond the fact that he made his living racing. Doing things that way was what made it possible for him to make a living racing. If he didn't do things that way he would've had to have another job & he wouldn't have enjoyed racing the way he did.

 

Real close to being correct.

He went to a technical college (I think Elmira) and am pretty sure received a 2-year associates degree, but never received a 4-year mechanical engineering degree. He took the courses to learn what he needed for racing. Plus, as you mentioned, he was smart, innovative and focused. He sacrificed a bunch to do and become what he is.

 

Agreed!


I have a close friend who has acquired a few old race cars for his collection. These are cars from the mid-late 60s, and exist today, pretty much as they were raced back then. For the most part, they're SCARY!! Some of the welding work looks like a 1st grader did it, and dinged and bent up tubing......I can't believe that any sane person would drive it down a public street, let alone around a race track at speed!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=562BZXVk8-E

Good video of OCFS