History Old Time Philadelphia area Hot Rods + drags

Nocentino and Kulp -

The driver, George Van, lived about 1/4 mile from me at one time.

 

Dave; Looks like we know a lot of the same people. I have another Charlie Gilmore story for you that I will post later.

I know Jo Jo Nocentino and Jack Kulp through my drag racing all these years. They ran other "OUTLAW" dragsters after this one, only on Nitro.

Below is a picture of me in the seat of my 1965 Logghe AA/FD called "GOOD VIBRATIONS". This car is from the same era as Nocentino and Kulps "OUTLAW".

 

Action Shot !

 

Dave, here is the story that I promised.

I raced at Vargo back in the day. Also I am probably the last person to run a dragster down the Vargo dragstrip. The aforementioned taking place in 1992 by myself and Charles Gilmore. Charlie Gilmore, myself and a few other guys founded Eastern States Timing Association which evolved into what is NETO and MANDRA today. Jake Vargo was one of our members.
I helped Charlie with his front engine D/Dragster powered by a Ford 6 cylinder. The engine had a special cylinder head, Hemi injectors by Hilborn, Vertex mag etc. I built the clutch-flite transmission for the car and we tried it out at the Vargo track on a Saturday afternoon.
Charlie was friends with the present land owner whom used the track for an air strip for a personal airplane. He gave us permission to use the strip that day. That was a real trip back in time !! It was erie to say the least, no stands, no people, no hype, just silence and a few birds chirping. But in my minds eye I could hear the roar of the crowd, and the chatter of the announcer!!
When we fired the dragster up it broke a silence held for decades!! I drove the dragster on that day, I staged, brought up the R's, and dropped the clutch and let er' rip. Vargo was alive again, if only for a couple of passes! Goldy

 

Some pictures I have from Vargo -I did not take them

Frank Bash's 34 Coupe is a scan from a picture I bought at one of the Vargo reunions. I went to school with Frank Bash jr. - I drove the push car one day at Atco. I gave the original picture to to his son.

The other pictures may have been downloaded from here at the HAMB - if so I hope not to offend the original poster.

 

Great stories and pics, Goldy. Thanks.

Really nice pics from Dave Downs, too. Thanks. I remember some of those cars and Bash's Speed Shop.

Since NJ is "phila area" I was just remembering how much I liked Norm Fryer and his Chevy "Fryer's Flyers". It seemed he could always squeeze more out of his Chevys than most other people. Even his big Impalas were really quick for such a big car. Not my pics, but ones I saved from elsewhere ...I still go to K&G Speed Shop which is right near my home:

 

Do any of you guys recognize these cars which have PA tags? I took the pics at New Jersey Motorsports Park at one of the Wheels & Warbirds events:

 

I'll go out on a limb and say the 521 roadster is an Allard...

 

Dave; Thanks for posting those great Vargo pics. I remember all of those cars. I've known Frank Bash Sr. and Jr. since I was a little kid. Keep posting, your stuff is teriffic !!

 

Great stuff here guys, I'm stepping back in time reading this thread. Keep them coming.

 

Talked with Dad this evening- he ran (Harbor Blue 57 Chevy con't) at Dopey Duncan's in Allentown, York, and somewhere in NJ (not Atco), was a member of the EHRA, and knew Grumpy Jenkins when he was known as Jiggs

Bayliss Thomas was the gentleman who owned the green Duesenberg racer at Lower Merion.

 

I remember Ed Hildebrandt running his red 63 426 Plymouth "Hustler" against a black 3 speed stick 63 Dodge for Top Stock one Sunday afternoon at Vargo. Prior to the Plymouth, he owned and raced a 57 Ford convertible that I think was McCullough blown. Long time ago and my memory may be a little fuzzy. I do know he chopped the top on that 39 Chevy. I believe it ran the Hemi drivetrain from a Superstock Mopar that he may have crashed at Hatfield. Again, may be more of that fuzziness.

 

270283 I remember Ed Hildebrandt running that 39 "chopped" Chevy with the Hemi at the 69 US Nationals at Indy. If my memory serves me well, it was candy red color then.

Your name - 270 283 is what I have in my model A hot rod for an engine, a 1957 version, although I took the wcfb's off and put a single 4bbl. on.

Here is a picture of the car that I crewed on at the 69 Nationals. I think you can relate to it because it is a 283-283 in a 57 Sedan delivery. We won our class as indicated by the picture. We also made it to the finals of Jr. Stock Eliminator. Joe Dougherty owned and drove "Docs Delivery". Joe is in the striped shirt, his brother is to the left and I am kneeling in front of Miss Nationals whom is presenting the trophy to Joe.

 

Goldy -

I was at the '61, '62 and '63 Nationals in Indy

Somehow I have misplaced about 50 pictures I took in '62, half in color, half in black and white. I have no Idea where they are.....

But, I have 3 rolls of 8mm movies from '63 - converted 2 of them to DVD (expensive!!) and for a time they were on the 'net through Byron's Gasser Madness.

 

Great thread!! Vargo was my first dragstrip experience around 1966,My brother had a 66 SS chevelle 396 325HP 4speed with white lettering BORN TO LOSE. But what stuck in my 12 year old mind was the flag starter and a rail driven by a 16 year old black kid!! What great memories!! Pete

 

There were a group of black guys - might have been a car club - that ran a dragster in the early '60s they named 'Green Onions'. I don't remember what type of engine it had.

For you youngsters, 'Green Onions' was a rock and roll song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-7QSMyz5rg

 

great thread !!! Looks like i missed out on some great times back then.. i always knew i was born in the wrong era

 

I don't think Carroll Hine ever made a pass without his cigar.

Goldy- I always liked the sound of a wide open dual quad 283. Always liked the Land of NED stockers too. Is that the same Joe Dougherty that ran the "Tight Nuts" cars? I don't know him but I saw the cars at the Maple Grove WCS meets for years. Those meets were absolute overload for drag junkies. One all day session of the top Northeast racers.

 

I remember the NAACP guys running their dragster at Atco. This is a post a guy made about them:

some other great local racers on the movie like carol hine and billy young. for those of you not from the north east billy young had a fuel dragter that he ran out of philly , bill young and his team were all black! Maybe odd for the day and the sport but they ran the hell out of thier dragster all over the pa/nj area. you can see an glimps of there box truck in the video . On the side of the truck it said "N.A.A.C.P" and under it it said "National Association for the Advancement of Chrysler Products"
I always thought that his and his teams story would have made a great movie due to the time period and there ethnicity? I think he put another driver in that was much younger and smaller (maybe his brother?) that went by the name "little Huck", I was told they stacked phone books up under his butt on the seat of the dragter so he could drive it!


This is a good video from the '60's, hope it isn't a repost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGJU6XP8KrE&feature=share&list=UUTCXvhYDLe37ACcxWc1gqhQ

 

521 is an Allard K1 with cycle wing fenders. The #39 is a road race special called the "Ardent Alligator" that won the first Watkins Glen Road Race. It started life as a 1929 Riley Brooklands, that was later retrofitted with a Mercury Flathead. Good stuff.

 

That could have been Jimmy Young from Philly. Saw him haul his short wb digger in the back of a Chevy panel truck at Island around '61.

 

Always enjoy reading this thread, Brings back alot of great memories of growing up just outside of Philly in the 60's and 70's.

 

270283 - Yes "Tight Nuts" is the very same Joe Dougherty. There were quite a few very good black racers that ran back then at Hatfield, Atco, Langhorne, Vargo, etc. Billy Young would probably be at the top of the list with his Hemi powered dragster. His " My Dear" was the only car that could out run my Nailhead Buick powered dragster to the finish line at Hatfield. Another standout black racer ran a 41 Ford sedan in gas class, I think his name was Louie Lieb, The 41 was powered by a small block Chevy with only one 4 barrel holley carburetor, not the norm for a gasser. That car would kick butt every week at Hatfield. The car was immaculately clean, black paint with no decals, no junk, just the name "Shag Nasty"!! And it lived up to it name! I liked those guys, they were real racers !

 

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The year is 1961, I am 17 years old. I purchased this 1937 sprint car so that I could rebuild it into a dragster using the Nailhead Buick engine that I built for my 48 Ford coupe. The picture is taken at the house of my friend Ted Kessler in North hills, about 6 miles outside of Philly.

 

Here are some pics of that dragster when finished.






This picture was taken at Langhorne, My C dragster coming off the start against Winterbottom and Corletto's state of the art A dragster powered by a 401 injected Nailhead.

 

Here is a picture of my dad and I, at an NHRA drag race held at Johnsville Naval Air Station in Warminister, Pa. in 1963. I was in the Navy at the time and I got off my ship and came home from Norfolk Va. on leave to run at this race. That sprint car/dragster ran a best of 11.73 @ 123 mph. in the 1/4 mile and 8 seconds flat in the 1/8 mile. That is funny by todays standards but it was competitive back then in C dragster class.

I am a lot older now than my dad was then at 58, he passed in 2006 at 101 yrs old. He is gone and I am still racin' at 69 !!!

 

Thanks, Goldy. It's nice rare treat to hear such personal stories and see your pics. You're a lucky man if you ended up with some of your dad's "long life genes".

I see you won a lot of trophies and had fun with that dragster but do you know if the '37 Sprint car had a valuable history?

 

this thread is awesome !!!!thanks again goldy and every one else for sharing your racing /hot rod history!

 

NickJT, I appreciate your interest about the sprint. As a matter of fact is does have some interesting history. I purchased the sprinter from a fellow in the plumbing business on Mt. Carmel Avenue in North Hills, Pa. just a few doors down from Kenyon's Diner where we all hung out. I lived on North Hills Ave a few blocks away.

The plumber told me that the car was built by Charlie Stevens, a race car shop in Willow Grove just across from the Willow Grove Park. Charlie Stevens was well known in sprint cars and midget circles. As the story goes, A.J. Watson was supposed to be the driver of this class B sprint. When I bought the sprinter it was complete and ready to race. The engine was a model B' Ford 4 cylinder with two downdraft carburetors, a full race camshaft and sparked by a Fairbanks Morse Magneto. There was an oil tank under the cowl that fed a type of dry sump.The crankshaft was coupled to a "Dog" in and out direct drive gear. The shortened model A' closed drive tube connected to a model A' rear with 5.00 to 1 Getz gears on a locked differential. The wheels were 16" Kelsey wires. The chassis was hand formed with an 86" wheelbase, the front axle was made from early Ford componants. The steering was a special center steering from a Franklin mounted to the chassis using V8 ford connecting rods upside down. The steering wheel was a champ car style flat spoke. The dash panel was engine turned aluminum with tachometer and oil pressure gauges. The seat was covered in leather and snapped to the body. The body was hand formed from steel and painted light blue metallic. The tail tank had the number 99 on it in silver paint. The only part of that car that I still have today is the dash panel.
For many years I looked in magazines for race pictures of #99 and only found one picture of it racing in the midwest on a dirt track.
In 1963 I sold the sprinter to Rocco Giovinazzo. Rocco continued to run it with Buick power for a couple of years. Rocco is still racing today with an 8 second big block chevelle.
In 1967 I had a Flying A gas station at Easton road and Patane Ave. in Roslyn Pa. That sprint car was behind the station and it was stolen from there, I never saw it again. If I had it today I would restore it. Stay tuned, there is more to this story.