History Vintage "Cageless" Midget Picture Thread

Don Edmunds and his favorite race car, together again

 

Next sunday august 28 noon to 6 pm Flemington Fairgrounds 5 miles south of Flemington Circle on Rt 31 to rt 179 south They are looking for anyone who ran open cockpit cars at Flemington Speedway.

 

I'm no expert on things like this so this is just a theory based on what I see in the pics. I think you're onto something when you said it might be a display piece. It looks like there is an air cooled engine in the rear with no suspension. I believe the exhaust is just for show as it exits the body where your legs would be. If there's no suspension, the rear radius rods are also for show. The knock offs don't look functional either. That doesn't mean there aren't any real race car parts there. I'm just saying in it's current form, it looks like a really cool display piece from what I can see.

 

Here's some pictures from EMMR on Saturday.

 

The Edmunds midget is finally done except seat covers and numbers.

 

To any midget historian: Please clarify the 'B' class feature. I've heard several different explainations.

Thanks to all who helped me obtain midget photos of Sparky Belmont.

 

It is possible there was a flat head ford division that might be called the B class.


With that said,there were some very fast Flatty Fords like the Edelbrock car,and others.

 

More from EMMR

 

This "was" my 1951 Hillegas Big Car. It was driven by Lucky Loux to the 1951 NARA Championship. At that time it had a rail frame and a 4-port Riley. Sometime in the latter 50's it went back to Hiram Hillegas to be refitted with a tube frame. Somewhere along the line the 4-port Riley was swapped out for a Chevy 283 motor.

I sold the car about 10 years ago to a gentleman from the Lake Havasu area. Not sure where it is now.

The picture was taken at the Vintage Celebration at New Hampshire Motor Speedway which is a 1.06 mile oval track.

Joe

 

From what I can tell, the "B" main was for cars that did not qualify via the heats and semi finals, for the feature. In most cases, the "B" winner, and possibly others, would advance to the consolation race (made up from non qualifiers in the semis) for a last chance at qualifying for the main event - or feature. That's from the midget days here in the east - the '40's.
Don't be surprised if you get more responses that differ from mine!

 

The B feature or Bozo Race (that's what we used to call it) is for the slow qualifiers and heat race losers. Still like that today as it was 60 years ago for the most part. Where I lived,in central California, as a kid, there was a Red and Blue midget circuit which might be what you are refering to as a B class. One was for Offys and the other for the Fords or what ever. That was the days when the car count was high, but a some races they all ran together. Some big races have a A, B, C and D main event when the car count is way up there.

 

Back in the old days (when I was first hanging around race tracks) the B class was indeed the stock block cars, usually Ford V8-60s and outboards. They could not keep up with the Offys and helped fill out the field.

We did not call it the B main in those days. We called it the semi-feature. Well, that was the official name. The racers usually called it "The Hooligan" as it was a brawl for the last slots in the feature.

From 1946 through the late 70s, at least in the Mid-West, a midget program consisted of:

Hot Laps
Qualifying
Fast Car Dash - Top 4 qualifiers, 3 laps straight up
4 Heat Races - 8 cars each, inverted Top 4 to feature, bottom 4 to semi
Australian Pursuit - Top 10 or 12 qualifiers, inverted. If passed you were out.
Semi Feature - Cars not making the feature through the heats plus the fastest 4 to 8 other cars. Straight up, top 2 to 8 go to back of feature. (Depends of size of track)
Feature - 18 to 24 cars with fastest 10 inverted by time. When Bob Stroud was running the USAC midget division, he would invert the feature back to the first car and/or driver who could reasonably be expected to not keep up. Thus we sometimes had fully inverted features.

Doc

 

Still more from EMMR.

 

this is so nice..........great job

 

EMMR / WGOT Convention, 8-20-11 Lincoln Speedway track time. enjoy!