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

I was well aware of you and your cars back in the 70s/80s, but until I came across that Reading pic in a old Racing Pictoral, I had no idea that you were building them as far back as 67. If possble, it would be cool to see some pics as you go through and restore the 39.

 

Here is a shot of Ben and Bills first sprint at Nazareth, Pa. ernie McCoy driver Ben, Ben, Ben and Bill. they were 16 years old.

 

This is a photo of a Hillegass Midget that grandpop Ben and his son steched. A beautiful car. I have this one also. Cooks also have a Photo of Grandpop working on the streched sprint in their office.

 

If anybody wants to pay my airfaire Down Under, I'd be only too happy to take my tape measure and check it out!
I think the only "comparison" we were making was trying to connect the dots, that the Stahl Bros had a Champ Car numbered 36, and the Stahl Bro's 36 Sprinter bore similarities in the brush strokes & body contours of whatever it is that's over on the other side of the Earth. But I was hoping the conversation would draw out some of the guys like you, Mac, who'd been-there-done-that and may be able to shed some actual light on our musings.
"The fate of the Free World", Rootie? Nah, not nearly as important as open wheel history. Or as much fun...

 

You would have a hell of a time trying to find history on this 36 car I sent it to OZ and I did not know anything about it. So everyone is spinning their wheels. Honest!!! If I knew the history it would still be in my barn.

 

You would have a hell of a time trying to find history on this 36 car I sent it to OZ and I did not know anything about it. So everyone is spinning their wheels. Honest!!! If I knew the history it would still be in my barn.

 

Well that's something, innit? At least we know as much as Stan, who is as good an authority as comes on here, and we know who the seller was. You shake the tree hard enough...
Now, if anybody can find my old TQ...

 

I'm sure Stan is right, its probably just a compilation of parts that somebody gathered up over time and trying to sort it all out would be damn near impossible and really not worth the effort. But it is kinda fun kick'n this stuff around none the less.

 

I believe the champ car that the Stahl Brothers had, was the old Lindsay Hopkins car.

 

Which old Lindsey Hopkins car are you referring to?

 

Not mine !

 

Nor mine, Bob. But I would enjoy learning more about the trail Steve is following.

 

OK now I'm curious, did Lindsey Hopkins ever have a spring front Kuzma?

 

At least one -- the #2 Dowgard Spl., driven frequently by Tony B., formerly owned by collector Leon Hurd, and now sleeping in the basement of the Speedway museum.

 

In a way that's sad to hear. The car will likely never again see the light of day.

 

The one in the basement is the one I was referring to. I believe Stahl Brothers had that car then it went to Clarence Jordan in Cincinnati. It was referred to as the Hopkins Gray Ghost car.
Clarence was a pretty good motor builder from this area.

 

The Hopkins springer Kuzma was the gray ghost. Tony B won at Phoenix in 1959 in it. The Hopkins dirt car before that was the 1958 lesovsky first driven then by George Amick. It became the Joe Hunt car.

The 1952 Lesovsky became the Doug Stearly car, #78 then 42.

On the 336 car with no history, have all the Watson 1959 and later dirt cars been accounted for? Nose and front configuration looks like The 1959 Leader Card Car.

 

The Hopkins springer Kuzma was the gray ghost. Tony B won at Phoenix in 1959 in it. The Hopkins dirt car before that was the 1958 lesovsky first driven then by George Amick. It became the Joe Hunt car.

The 1952 Lesovsky became the Doug Stearly car, #78 then 42.

On the 36 car with no history, have all the Watson 1959 and later dirt cars been accounted for? Nose and front configuration looks like The 1959 Leader Card Car.

 

What I am saying is that the champ car that the Stahl's had was the Hopkins car, not a Ward. Their sprint car chassis looked like a Ward. I seen the car in Clarence Jordan's shop when he owned it.
Duke Cook could probably shed some light on the sprinter.

 

I'm with ya Steve.

 

There are many excellent, large-fomat period photos of the champ cars recently discussed in this thread in Scalzo's "The Americn Dirt Track Racer". I don't know whether #36 is buried between the lines, but the differences between Kuzma, Lesovsky and Watson cars is obvious. I've attached a couple of "today" photos of the #4 Watson Leader Card and the #99 Lesovsky Joe Hunt cars.

 

I just want to set the record straight about a car that was mentioned in post# 16679. An individual from Mt. Pleasant Iowa area has been building a COPY of this very popular "B" class car that ran right after WW2 on the Mississippi Valley Circuit. I want to stress COPY because his reasonable facsimile is nothing more than a moderate rendition of this car and not ONE part or piece is an original piece from this car!
My very close friend Denny Frye is the son of original owner and builder of the Farmer's Offy (Kenny Frye) and he's not happy that this individual is trying to now pass this car off as being the original! Denny doesn't do computers so I told him I would help get the word out. No one is upset over the fact this person is making a copy of the car but when you start telling everyone it's the original car that hurts! It's bad for racing history and its what has driven historical race car values down!
After talking this over with Denny he agreed with my suggestion we needed to tell whom ever is concerned that this indeed is no original car and no part of it is original either!
My racing family roots coinside with Frye's as my father raced with Kenny and my uncle actually raced against this very car. I have studied this group of cars and drivers of the Mississippi Valley Circuit and helped with as much information as I could to Ken Paulson's book on the sanctioning body. I too am disapointed, that this car, though not a Dreyer or Hillegas or Miller or Offenhauser is still a historical car and it deserves to be represented properly with no MISREPRESENTED renditions.

with respect to racing history,

Jeff Adams, Coal Valley, Illinois 309-235-7403

 

Does anyone know where the original Farmers Offy is? Who last drove the car?

 

Many thanks for the info! You are right, this is a historical car, and we should all care about getting its history straight.

I take it that Tommy Adams was your uncle, and perhaps Verne Adams your dad? Tell us something about their racing experiences!

 

And speaking of turkeys..... It's not often you can use the words Kuzma and dud in the same sentence, but this is an exception. Aggie had him build this rig for him for the 58 Indy and over several years and with several different drivers he never could get it in the show. In the end he gave up on it and traded it in on his new, and "slightly" more sucessful Watson.

 

Here is a shot of the "Chrome" and another car taken at Portland.

 

Rootie..thanks for posting these photos....I love this car...the tail section with ''roll over bar ''the ''zoomie'' exhaust....so cool.Why do you think it was not a sucsess?

 

And for 1960 A.J. Watson modified the car for his friend and new owner Norm Hall who intended to drive the car himself. Somewhere along the way Norm the owner/driver was "fired" by Chief Mechanic Bob Higman. Higman put Bill Homeier in the car and he qualified it and ended up going the full 200 laps finishing 13th. BTW, this particular car was the very first one to show up at Indy with on-board air jacks.

Also, could that be Troy Ruttman, Jr. in the second photo with his dad and Agajanian?

 

He was way off on the suspension geometry. Actually McGurk completely reworked the car shortly before Aggie traded it in but never got the chance to try it out. Watson didn't do much of anything with it after he got it, and in fact, was thinking about cutting it up into a dirt car. Norm Hall came along and worked out a deal with Watson to run it in the 60 Indy. With Bill Homeier in the seat they finished a very creditable 13th considering they were operating on a almost 0$ budget. If you look at the 2 pics of the car pre- 1960 and after you can see McGurk had reversed the location of both the front and rear t-bars and radius rods.

 

Aggie was apparently truly done with the car. IIRC, when Norm Hall went to get the car it was sitting outside at the dump that Agajanian ran with his garbage business. And Hall got the car for a song.

I knew Norm and worked on a couple of his later deals. He was a bright guy and a pretty sharp businessman as well. And he had some great stories about racing which at the time didn't interest me all that much. Now there are all kinds of questions I'd like to ask him.