Yesterday I took the day off from my shop and had a "gearhead" day. The morning started with a trip to Indianapolis Raceway Park (I refuse to call it O'Reilly Raceway Park at Indianapolis) for a couple of hours of hot laps with the vintage circle track guys. Then it was on to Mamitown, Ohio for the open house at Josh Shaw/ Wade Hughes' shops. Mid afternoon saw a group of us (maily Hambers) head over to Lawrenceburg, IN where we made some laps at a go-kart facility before going next door to the high banked dirt oval for the USAC sprint car show. I took pictures at all but the kart track where I was too busy getting smoked by Corngrower32 and Richcraft Mike. Roo AJ Watson, Johnny Capels and Roy (Racer 5C) Carruthers. Watson warming up his clone of his first Indy 500 car. The Watson GranCor car on the track Capels' injected flat head powered duece. A couple of Mac Miller's re-pops of Parnelli Jones driven cars, the Fike Plumbing sprinter and the Agajanian #98 roadster The Dick Cecil built flathead powered two seat Indy car--based on the Miller built front drive cars of the mid 30's. Richcraft Mike's latest 32 roadster Racer 5C's Triumph--just painted by Corngrower 32 A few shots of the cars at Shaw's (Corngrower 32) shop At the kart track And to close out the night (apart from the early morning drive back to Indy) here are a couple of pix from the bleachers at the Lawrenceburg track, one of the nicest facilities in the country
Thanx for the great pix!! The race machines are awesome and what a bunch of bad ass hot rods. The first chrome 32 grill shell I have ever seen!! Thanx again for sharing!!~Sololobo~
Thanks for posting the pix Rooman, wish I was there looks like it was a good time. I was working on my car all day. It's lookin' good.
I don't normally care for stationwagons but that flat black one is sweet...great proportions (at least in that photo). Any more pictures of it?
When I was growing up in Australia I used to go to the local short track every Friday night in summer. Later on I crewed for Jimmy Sills one summer when he drove for a friend/customer of mine. I also crewed for Leroy Van Connett when he came down with a San Jose modified. Not long before I made the move to the US I built and co-owned a circle track Corvette that we ran at the local dirt track. My shop is in the same building as Spike Chassis and for a couple of summers Dave Steele was in the shop next to mine with the Bob Gratton owned sprint cars. In the early to mid 90's I covered the short track action at IRP for an Aussie magazine so I spent a lot of Thursday and Saturday nights hanging out with Tony Stewart, Kenny Irwin Jr (R.I.P.), Tracy Hines, Danny Drinan, etc. Oh!, I also used to work on road race cars in Oz as well so I can do stuff other than go in straight lines. Roo
Jimmy "Buckwheat" Sills............one bad motor scooter!!! Him & Van Connett are from the greater Sacramento area, watched them race many, many times. I think Sills now runs a sprint car school in Marysville, Ca. about 40 mi. north of here. (?)
The Rooman ain't kiddin'. He can talk about any type of racing with some real authority. Surprised me the first time he asked for credentials for an oval race, but I found out he was a lot like me. Likes to watch ANYTHING race. He just talks funny, that's all.
The Jalopy Journal
