History Historic Stock Car Photos

most of the pics are from the Dayton auto racing fan club site,,,they got lots more,,

http://darfnews.com/RacingHistory.aspx

 

mt clemens speedway, mich

 

Herschal was a racer's racer, he could build them, tune them, set them up, and drive the wheels off of them. Herschal drove Oldsmobiles in MARC (now ARCA) in '55 & '56, which were painted black & White. As a side note, Washington Auto Parts was a co-sponsor on "Farmer" Jack Harrison's MARC '55 and '56 Fords, along with Downtown Ford in Indianapolis. Harrison, who was a very colorfull individual and talented driver, passed away from hemoraged ulcers before the start of the '57 season at the age of 27. A great natural talent gone too soon.

 

Boy, we sure cut up some nice cars back in the days. I remember using some nice '55-56 Ford 2 door hardtops and one of the guys we ran against used '55-56 Ford Crown Victorias. Lots of '55-57 Chevys bit the dust too. I remember a local boy who had a nice '66 396 Chevele and lost his licence so he put bars in it and started running hobby.

 

My 1st race car was a 69 Plymouth Road Runner with a 383 4 speed. Bought it for $150 and drove it home to make it into a hobby stock car. Would have been about June of 1976. Took my buddy and I a couple weeks to get it together. The day we arrived at the track, they quit running the hobby class and we had to run with the late models. They split the car field in 1/2, the fastest 1/2 went into the feature, and the slowest 1/2 went into the semi feature. We finished 8th out of an 18 car field in the semi feature our 1st night. Our car had 70 series tires, a factory stock 100,000 mile motor, and stock shocks on our long straight 1/2 milt dirt track. There were actually a couple late model cars and all 4 of the other hobby cars behind us at the finish. I think we got paid $35 for our 8th place finish.

An interesting note, 1st in the semi paid better then 10th in the feature! Lots of sandbagging took place to be in the cut for the semi instead of the feature. Positions were set by time trials, the fast cars were running in the solid low 26 second laps and the cut off for the semi was usually around 28 seconds. Our poor old wore out Road Runner turned consistent 28:30s lap times. The semi paid back to 10th place, (I think the feature paid back to 15th) and we nearly always made the payoff window.

We really killed a lot of nice cars on that dirt track. Gene

 

There was a Hull-Dobbs Ford dealership in Cleveland. It changed hands about the time those pictures were taken. I don't think that any of the dealerships I can recall are even still around. Euclid Ford, in the Cleveland Area, sponsored Jimmy Florian in his win in a 50 Ford at Dayton. The first victory for Ford in NASCAR. They also sponsored Bob James and Mike Klapak at various times, but don't recall them ever sponsoring anything but the local Sportsman cars. The Dayton Speedway victory by Florian was in a Euclid Ford owned by Service Manager Skip Krauslock

 

Here's a recently found photo of the late Sparky Belmont in the Central Garage #37 (Frankie Blumm #21, Andy Anderson #86) at Thompson, CT. 1954.




Photo courtesy of racingthroughtime.com

 

The unknown #1 is Jay Sauter

 

The car behind, was #98 driven at that race by Ted Musgrave.

 

not being a ss here but those cars are to new for this forum. we have a forum to show all years stock cars at dogfight.com .... i think
sorry DOGFIGHTMAG.COM... my bad

 

As BAK says, we are also on DOGFIGHTMAG and posting photos, everyone wanted a place to post their later photos but very few have joined in there. I will post a few along to keep things going but could use a little help.

We can keep our older photos on here and still go over there for the newer cars.

 

I've been after my Dad to get me some of his old pics. Finally got some vintage South East Tennessee pictures to share. Here they are. More to come....

 

More

 

More.

 

More..

32 Jack Cunningham
74 Harold Fryar
6x Tootle Estes
47 Bobby Fryar
18 Truman Padgett
11 Bobby Richey
2 Wayne Fielden
48 Freddy Fryar
22 Walt Hartman
97 Red Farmer

Tell the rest....

 

more...

 

We used to race against Harold Fryer at Tri-County and other tracks in the area back when we first started. Harold was a character for sure. He had a blue #74 '55 Chevy at the time and we had a white and gold '55 Ford #21 that was driven by Fulmer Lance.

I heard a story once about a couple of fellows, I think I remember T.C. Hunt being one, who had a very built out flat head Ford engine at Tococa or Hartville one night and selling it to a slightly fortified (with the local liquid cure all) Harold. It was so built out that it blew in the first race it was used in.

Harold was later killed when a drive shaft came out of a competors car and hit him. Freddy went on to run asphalt with the AllPro and other such circuits.

 

Had the pleasure of meeting Freddy when he was running with All Pro and we had some combined races with ASA. A real gentleman as well as a terrific driver.

 

Great bunch of photos, thanks for posting. Glad to see this thread still cookin'.

 

Joy Fair has suddenly passed away this Saturday

SEE LINK

http://www.arcaracing.com/news.php?contentid=11977

 

Joy's Career Highlights:



-Born September 10th, 1930

-Harry S Truman was President of the United States when Joy started his career! Fair drove in six decades -- and has made hints he wants to try for his seventh!

-First race was Pardington's Pastures Speedway in Sterling Heights, MI (14 Mile and Dequindre area)!

-Won at the International Exposition Fairgrounds in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

-Champion, 1965 Baer Field in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

-Champion, six years running, Toledo Speedway, Ohio, 1967-1972, then again in 1974, late model division.

-Late Model Champion ten times, Flat Rock Speedway, Michigan.

-1977 Mt. Clemens Race Track, Michigan late model champion.

-Late Model Champion at Flat Rock, Mt. Clemens and Toledo, all in 1981 (at the time, Mt. Clemens was a NASCAR sanctioned track).

-Won inaugural Glass City "200" at Toledo, 1968 (Joe Ruttman also won this race, driving Joy's four-door Maverick). Joy won the race again in 1975 and 1976.

-Won nine out of 14 features at Flat Rock Speedway in 1969, including 100 lap invitational where he lapped the entire field; also won 10 of 14 features at Toledo.

-Won the 1974 Ohio State "500" championship.

-Won two ARCA Supercar (ReMAX) Series races at Toledo and at Sun Valley (now Anderson) Speedway in Indiana in 1972.

-Won over 700 short track features in 12 states and Canada. Winningest driver in state of Michigan with over 600 victories.

-Two NASCAR Grand National (now Nextel Cup) Series starts, both coming in 1956. Best finish ninth at Soldier Field, Chicago, IL. Other start was on Daytona's Beach course where he experienced a DNF (clutch).

-Won dirt all-star race inside the Pontiac Silverdome (former home of the NFL's Detroit Lions) in 1982, beating NASCAR greats David Pearson (second place), Neil Bonnett and Kyle Petty and short track ace Bob Senneker, among others.

-Inducted into the Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1987.

-Car #1 retired from ARCA competition in 1999 -- first and only driver in series history to receive such an honor. Also that year given honorary ARCA lifetime membership.

-Won almost every event he finished; dominant on various types of tracks rarely seen from any other stock car driver.

-Many articles on Joy in "Stock Car Racing Magazine", "Late model Digest" and others.

-Prepared cars for some of the best short track and NASCAR drivers in the country, including: Ruttman, Dave Marcis, as well as Rick Sheppard and Dick Price, to name a few.

-Best known as, "The Fair One".

 

MORE INFO ON THE PASSING OF JOY FAIR

see link

http://www.mstrc.com/index.php?showtopic=38292&pid=223997&st=0&#entry223997

 

JOY FAIR in a HEMI

 

JOY Fair's Pontiac Stocker and his Mod, My hero RIP

 

RIP Joy

 

#1 Joy Fair lapping sennecker ( he had an all aluminum big block)

 

R.I.P. One great guy and driver. Thanks for the memories.

 

Man at work, Nashville: '84-'85 I guess.