Great photos Gene...... One thing I noticed about this car is it is very professionally done. Look closely at the side of the body, it appears that they bolted a piece of 1 1/2" x 1/4" steel? along the length of the body to stiffen it up and keep the doors shut. That is a 30-31 body and they also tended to crack vertically from the top of the reveal down in the area about 10"-12" behind the door where the two rear moldings meet. ******I went back and looked at the first photo and it indeed does look like it is cracked. The other thing I noticed is they filled in the wheel well with a piece of sheet metal to cover the indentation where the fender used to go. Slick..... these guys were a step ahead.
T-Head, My notes don't mention a race in 1908. From the info i have of the June 18. 1909 race only eight entries were recieved. Those being : Harry Grant - ALCO. D.O. Hayes - Midland *added to the program after a protest was lodged* L.B. Lorimer - Chalmers-Detroit. Herbert Shaw - Stoddard-Dayton. Hughie Hughes - Allen-Kingston. L.F. Cameron -Chalmers-Detroit. S.L. Rodgers - Welch. Ralph De Palma - Fiat. Charles Basle - Buick. De Palma won the 25 Mile Free For All from Lorimer then Basle and Grant.
All of the talk about the Algonquin Hill Climb going by bore size probably has to do with the A.L.A.M. They pretty must set the standards by which engines were rated at that time. They could have copied another foreign organization when they adopted their rules but they strictly only used bore size to rate engine horsepower. This resulted in lower ratings for most motors as it did not take stroke or anything else into account. An engine they rated at forty HP if it had a long stroke it produced around sixty in most instances.
T-Head, Thanks for the photos of the Herreshoff you sent me. I came upon those images in my search that is still ongoing. Below is an article about the soon to be released Houpt which is very similar to the Herreshoff.
The Mutual Racing Assoc. was an Indiana based track roadster group that ran at Mt Lawn, Montpelier, Ft Wayne, Lafayette, Winchester, Salem, Columbus, In, Dayton, Oh. and several other tracks within that area. They even ventured up to Soldier Field on occasion to run with the Andy Granatelli organized Hurricane Racing Assoc. A few names that were assiciated with the Mutual Racing Assoc that went on to bigger and better racing ventures, Pat O'Conner, Pat Flaherty, Bob Sweikert, Jim McWithey, Jim and Dick Rathman to name a few. The biggest local driver to get serious ink was a guy from Mooreland, In. named Dick Frazier. He won 3 MRA championships. Kenny Eaton, Tom Cherry, Red Renner, were some more names to come out of the MRA. The MRA lived from 1939 to 1953, then just faded away. Stay tuned for more Mutual Roadster photos to come. I also want to add that a fellow HAMBer, Dale Fairfax has been a great provider of dates, photos and information. He is a great track roadster historian of the MRA. HG ...vrooom
This is a curved dash Olds (missing most of it) in a NY to Portland Race of 1000 miles. I am assuming NYC to Portland, Maine in a long about way. Which one of you sleuths out there know more?
Here is one of my favorite Mutual Racing Assoc photos. It's Jocko Wise from 1940 at Mt Lawn Speedway. Jocko was quite the character. I had the privelege of working with him for many years before he retired. His mechanic in the background is Gib Heffron I have more photos of Jocko of less that good days behind the wheel of a race car. This photo has been posted on the HAMB by me about a week ago on another thread. I love the tie.... HG
T-Head looks like it says Portland Oregon on the side of the car to me. That sure is more than 1000 miles,though.... It says 1000 race without the word Mile,not sure of the meaning..... Photo is just too small for me to make out the details. Looks like some kind of Historical trail marker behind the car.
I can't imagine what the arms felt like after 1000 miles driving a tiller steered buggy on wheels. Two curved dash Olds left NY on the 8th of May 1905 for Portland, Oregon. "Old Scout" driven by Dwight Russ and mechanic Milford Wigle and "Old Steady" driven by Percy Megargel and Barton Stanchfield were the first motorists to negotiate the Oregon Trail. Encountering extreme weather conditions, mechanical problems and friendly Indians along the way, Old Steady finally made it to the destination with Old Scout arriving eight days later. First prize was $1000. Megargel would repeat the drive later in the year but on that trip he would go south into California before heading east. He was also the first to cross the Mojave Desert and Arizona. Thanks T-Head. There's a great read on Historynet.com if you can find it.
I do not think I have ever seen a photo of this front drive Miller before. I found it with some other original Marmon factory photos and right or wrong it is dated 1928. It has some obvious Marmon styling cues in the rear body work. Who knows more about it and can fill in the details?
T-Head, That Marmon was basically a "badge engineered" Miller FD.Miller Engine and running gear. I don`t have details at hand,but I read articles about it before. Chassis was a Cooper. It did run in the 1928 Indianapolis 500-Peter Kreis was the driver.There was a team car #33 driven by Johnny Seymour.
Buildy's photo the other day of Milton in his Duesenberg prompted me to post the 1927 winner George Souder.
I have been a lurker here on this thread for some time. What a great thread. Massachusetts keeps getting mentioned. So, it's about time I add what I found out about racing there in the twenties. Some of it was done on short tracks desgned for horse racing. Which is pretty typical. A family friend did some local racing in the 1920s in a 1915 Maxwell in Massachusetts. I presented a quick write up about it in the Maxwell forum on the AACA website and an article. Here is a pic of Dick Saunders rounding a bend at a track in Massachusetts in his Maxwell. We found this negative in one of his old Packard Twelve repair manuals a few months ago. It may be Sturbridge. I'd love to hear from any of you about any other racing he did. Maybe some of the East Coast folks knew Dick Saunders. The url below is a small write up I did about Dick Saunders. http://www.charltonhistoricalsociety.org/CHSNewsletterFall2008.pdf Vintageride
Howard is an a roll. Locomobile fans take note! http://www.vanderbiltcupraces.com/i...010_the_amazing_story_of_the_locomobile_twins Part 2 http://www.vanderbiltcupraces.com/index.php/blog/article/monday_march_1
Thanks....so the whole chassis was not Miller? Frame and engine back was Cooper? Who was he? I know alot about the really old stuff and not as much about some of the newer race cars. Best. T-H
Speaking of Locomobiles I have this Photo of the Model I that Florida drove at the Fairmont Park Race in 1908. Robinson won the race w/the sister car. The Model I 40 HP cars were wonderfully built and are light, strong and fast.
While we are back to Fords here is another Fronty Ford. I have no info about it other than it was from the Indiana area. It also looks to have been run hard and to have had a rough life indicating this maybe be in the 1930s even though the roadster behind it looks late 20's. It also has a very thick back cushion indicating the driver was very short. Does it look familiar to anyone? The second photo is from the same area and labeled Pop Lewis & his Hal. Can anyone verify that?
No not this one. I one that I gave you a ride in is the #25 which was one of the Duesenberg team cars that is a 16 valve that finished 2nd at Indy. Here is a photo of Hughes on his way to the top. They must have gotten the gearing wrong for the hill. These cars came with ratios that are all above 3 to 1 which is way to high for hill climbs. The one I care for has a set of 2.6 to 1 in it and the others in the set that came with the cars are 2.4 to 1 and 2.2 to 1. They were geared for the very long board tracks and that is probably why they did not do well here. I have had the same experience with a good early Stutz Bearcat. They like the Duesey are a three speed so the rear end gears for a hill climb have to be right so that you use 2nd for corners but change back up to high which has to be able to pull well on the grade. The bearcat with a 3 to 1 gear ratio was a dog on Mount Equinox because the gearing was not right for the hill. With a four speed like a 13-14 Mercer has you have a lot more lee way. For Pikes Peak and knowing the power band of one of these after getting to know one very well and driving it on the hilly roads around here, I think they would have needed a 3.5 to 1 - 4 to 1 for it to work there. The second photo shows the #25 you rode in at Sheepshead Bay in Oct. 1916 with two Peugeots, that is Resta in the #4 and Aitken in the #10. It was driven here by Jimmy Benedict who bought it from the Duesenbergs. The car finished 2nd at Indy behind Resta.
Thanks David! That is the oldest INDY car I've ever riden in, I once sat in the 4th place finisher from the 1911 race. This leads to a question I've always asked, how many Pre 1942 INDY cars are there? Some had a long run up to 12 years and they changed form a lot. I should start some sort of organized list, restored cars, rolling chassis or just engines. I wonder if Ryan would allow a list to start in another thread?
Haven't posted for a bit - been swamped, but I do stop by. Thought I would get caught up with my favorite thread. Post # 1814 by T-Head - the great transcontinental "Old Scout/Old Steady" Olds photo from 1905. Fantastic image. I have never seen this one. Thanks to kurtis for being on the spot with the correct information about the image. As a follow-up, the structure in the background is the Ames Monument in southeastern Wyoming. 41 deg 7'52.97"N Lat. and 105 deg 23'52.73"W Long. using Google Earth will zoom you right down on top of it. A web search will get you all sorts of images and information about its history and construction. Here are two more. The top image was taken in March of 1908 during New York-Paris when the Thomas Flyer stopped for a photo. The bottom one was taken in August of 2009 by myself at just about the same spot. This thread just keeps getting better and better. Bob.
The AIACR were discussing it in Ostend a couple of months prior and it was adopted for the Targa Florio 1907. http://www.kolumbus.fi/leif.snellman/gpw5.htm
The Jalopy Journal
