Hot Rods Do you ever wonder how our forefathers did it?

The 'cost vs fun' formula was the reason I started in Mods and quickly jumped to Sprints. I noticed that at the end of the night, 90% of the Sprints rolled onto their trailers, where 50% of the late models/sportsman were dragged on. Seemed the Sprint boys didn't drive by the 'touchie-feelie' method. Now, that's not saying they were better drivers, but they seemed to respect the bodywork a bit more. And being 100% self-sponsored, and having no regular crew, I appreciated that subtle difference.

As far as the weekly payout thing was concerned, the only big ones I ever saw was me paying out for tires, with oil running a close second. I realized early on if you had no bite, all the horsepower in the world wouldn't get you around any quicker and the oil made sure you got to keep the horsepower you had.

 

Few things come to mind;
the cars they started with were most likely not junk, just discarded consumer items. They just gutted out the unnecessary stuff and added the safety stuff plus wheel swap etc.

Community! When I was building my shit boxes back in the 1980’s/90’s, friends would stop by with their cars and we’d have a wrenchathon and get some things done .

Also like others have said, unlimited energy at the younger ages

 

My story is somewhat the same as the rest of you I had 2 or 3 1957 Chevy that I had an worked on and race even a 1961 Impala 409 but when wife and kids came along I gave it up and just had my dreams.
Along the way working with farmers and rancher I would notice there junk yards and
Picked up many ford parts and even mercury flathead engine. Now that I am older and kids a gone and I lost my partner. I thought guess I had better get rid of this stuff . But then decided to go to working on the hot Rod of my dreams. When I was a kid there was a well know racer in my home town of Morton Texas on the back of his Hot Rod was the saying . Remember Me
In his honor that will be on my hot Rod ford

 

How they did it was the same way I did it back in the late seventies! We were young! I worked all year building a car and really got pissed when some squirrel would bend it! Luckily it made it through the year! But I did see a lot of fights in the pits over stuff like that! I thought I was going to get into one two years ago in Virginia….but it calmed down! Getting too old for that kind of stuff!





Bones

 

The rule for my car was, if the car owner doesn't get mad when the car gets wrecked, the driver has no say in the matter. Learn a lesson and move on. If some guy intentionally wrecked you, learn what and how he did it and never get into that position again. If you can see a problem starting to repeat itself and you are not smart enough to avoid the issue, you probably deserve to get crashed again. Race track confrontations have never solved any problems. If one of my drivers used my car to wreck someone else, they faced a bigger problem from me then they did from anyone else. My drivers understood how I felt about these things before they ever sat in the seat of my car. I probably stopped more fights then I ever caused, and many considered me a hot head.

I had the perspective of watching the action from outside of the car. There really wasn't too many times someone actually crashed you out. Usually both drivers, mistakes happen, sometimes the best instant plan doesn't work out well, or something that was out of someone's control caused the wreck. Educating my drivers always turned out better then a fight would have.

Had a driver that was intentionally crashed out once. He ran side by side with the same guy for about 5 laps. Every lap, that guy hit my guy at the same point in the corner, the same way, but a bit harder each lap. He finally hit him hard enough my driver lost control. My driver was mad until I asked him, "You ran side by side for 5 laps and he hit you at the same place a bit harder each lap. How could you not understand he was going to keep hitting you harder until he spun you? In 4 laps time, you couldn't figure out a way to take the corner so he couldn't hit you at all? Who exactly is at fault here? Him doing the same exact stupid thing for 5 laps, or you doing the exact stupid thing for 5 laps? Which person's action did you have control over? We will fix the car and be back next week. I don't expect to see this happen again."

 

Did you keep that driver? Five times the same thing? Wow! Usually with us it was some guy coming out of a turn slightly behind us and taking us out like a Highway patrol pit maneuver! If it was just racing, it was ok, rubbing is racing! But sometimes it was a bit much!






Bones

 

Only intentional rubbing I did in my Sprint was with my right rear sidewall and Eldora's back wall looking for extra bite. Unintentional rubbing usually resulted in a car that didn't need a trailer to get it home when a few garbage bags would handle what was left.

I always found the pit fights rather amusing. Never figured out that helmet toss though. I kept mine on and reached for a breaker bar. And if I did take it off, I sure as hell hung on to it till things cooled down.

 

Yep, 5 laps in a row in one race, and it was obviously intentional. Driver education, I knew how my car was set up to go through the corners. For nearly 20 years I put a brand new driver into the seat of my car every year. If they wanted a free ride in a competitive car in our class, they followed my rules. (the last 15 we ended up in the top 10 in points each year with a new 1st time driver). They could do whatever they wanted in their own cars, after they got out of mine.

I was pretty good at making my old junk pretty stable on our local track. The cars were rock solid coming out of the turns because we could usually drive deeper into the corners, which often got us off the corners faster then the others. The center of the corner was about the only place they could get us, or towards the end of the straights where we lacked HP (and $$$ for the HP). Anyone intentionally trying to take us out at either of those two places probably was not going to do well through the turn if they missed us. Not many spinouts in all those years with all those drivers.

 

Some ‘uman bean cut out a section of my ‘41 IHC firewall with tin snips!