I'd give my left nut for one of those engines, or even the top end of those engines. Aw, screw it, you can have the right one too if it makes any difference. Awesome pictures, thanks for sharing. Capture as much of the old timers stories and knowledge then keep spreading the gospel!! Amen!
screw the race cars... haha... those trailers RULE. Johnny cola and were coming up with some rad ideas regarding race car trailers on the way down to texas one time- I would love to build a custom single axle... those trailer pics are neat to study-
Wonder why they had the small front wheels on the trailers? Looks like the would pull like shit... They look really cool though.
Ryan,cool stuff!!! Let's see, the cars(four banger fever),the trailors,especially the one's with the small tandem wheels under the tongue, the tow vehicles, and some of the neat things in the background. Thanks, Cat
I can remember going to Latrobe Speedway and Bedford fairgrounds to watch the Offy powered cars running back in the lat 50's/ early 60's. Nothing like sweet sound of an Offy at full throttle!
Spent many a day watching sprint cars on the Springfield mile track... Brings back some fond memories of my Dad.
Josh is the other most interesting man in the world, I'm not sure if he's wrestled sharks or climbed Everest, but I think he's done everything else!
How long did the wheelbases get on the longest big cars? The reason I ask is that I am using an inline six w/ auto trans on my replica big car and the wheelbases on some of these cars look every bit as long as the 112" wheelbase I will use.
Great pix, thanks for posting. You are right about simplicity in the old days. A good friend of mine, Paul Cantarano, built an Indy car for the 1950 race. It was powered by a WMD, forerunner of the Wayne Chevy. It was running speeds that would have easily put him in the race but pre-race magnafluxing found a crack in the stroker crank and he was forced to replace it with a stock crank which cut down his cubic inches, and made the car an alternate. Paul says it is still the fastest unblown inline 6 to ever run Indy. I think it was running in the mid 120's?
For any of you guys above who aren't sub'd to the oval track threads here, you might want to know that USAC still races Silver Crown cars at some of the big old "State Fair" mile dirt tracks in the Midwest - Indy, Springfield and Duquoin. And there are probably a few others still going, too. But the haulers and trailers are not quite as unique. Gary https://www.usacracing.com/silvercrown_index/news_sc/5125.html
my first trailer was like that..small airplane wheels that turned on the front,kinda scary but it worked. for the "why" part..the hitch that attached to the ball was on pins..no tongue weight. great pics thanks!
W/B on the USAC champ cars is around 96". The longest w/b on a open wheel car, that I'm aware of, was the 100" supers that were popular in the southwest some years ago.
Great pics, there,s a resurgance of vintage speedway here in South Australia, I know of a few offy powered cars in town but rarely do they see action. Would love to get hold of one but the prices are way up there, they call vintage races Spirited Demonstrations, Ha Ha, bloody full on warfare, those old guys still have it.
Great pictures from the past. Many look like every rainout I ever attended. Can almost feel walking in the mud.
Thanks for the kind words fella's. Glad you enjoyed them. Upon studying the pictures closely my dad and I found a REALLY cool "aspect" of one of the pictures. The 24th picture of the White 98 Champ car.. shows an Ivory Colored Box on the trailer between the Trailer wheel and the car. You can only see half the words on it but it reads: "Agajanian Enterprises" 98 How do I know what it reads?? Because I have THAT box!! NOT one like it.. I found, and have that exact box! I bought a batch of Offy Spark plugs off of a guy one time, and when he brought them, he said "By the way, you'll probably like the box they are in too" Well, YES! I did!!! It was super cool seeing our old "Aggy box" in use, in it's element! Thanks! J Shaw
So did the guy with the box bring you the car too? That is a cool bit of history to own, especially seeing it in its native environment.
Sweetness....pure and simple. Middle class people could still race at a fairly high level back then. I'm especially drawn to the trailers. My ultimate goal is to build an 29 on deuce rails and haul it with my 54 tudor on a small trailer like the ones in these photos. It's been years since I've seen one of these simple, single axle trailers. I think I'm gonna have to build one.
Of all the trailers we have owned, or own now (Open and enclosed) for transporting cars... This litlle open trailer is EVERYONES favorite. It pulls the best, looks the best and is SO easy to deal with. I go through drive throughs with it regularly! J Shaw
This story reminds me of my uncle Byron Robertson who used to build these cars and they raced at I-70 speedway and a whole bunch of others in and around Missouri. He also had a '64 Nova SS with a 327 4 bbl. that was white with red interior and was fast.
Amazing. I had one like that a few months back. A friend sent me photos of a race car I crewed for back in 1974... and I was in the photo! Perhaps more creepy than the box, but it did strain the brain awhile. Now, back to your regularly scheduled thread. Gary
Is that Lil Al Unser posing in front of the Blue #2 Car? If so...he is in the background against the wall in the picture of the white/red #87.
The Jalopy Journal
