Features VINTAGE SPRINT CAR PIC THREAD, 1965 and older only please.

Josh, you really cranked up the old memory with those. WOW! Thanks to you and Carol. I'm already downloading some of them for my personal files. You ought to post a couple on the Vintage Trophy Girls thread. Like the one of Bernie and the one with Butch Wilkerson in it.

JP

 

What a cool thread! I was lucky enough to work for Blair's when Don got the number 1. Jimmy Oskie was driving-----------man,that guy could throw that car around.Willow Springs raceway is having a celebration of life for Walt James this weekend.Check out the upcoming events for the details.Great car show and swap.

 

Jim Cushman, Columbus Motor Speedway (Ohio), early summer of 1959. The Winged-Race Car that started it all.

 

jsprcn,do you have a photo of it in 69 with # 91. Would love to see it !

 

My Pics of Kenny Weld in the Roadster Style Super Sprint.



Next one is an Al Consoli photo of the 91 at Susky.
Not that anyone cares,but the other car in the photo was #15 The Joker, wrenched by my Dad and Driven by Larry "Butch" Hare.

Nor sure if that was 68 or 1969.....I think it was 1969 the more I think about it.



I don`t know when this one is....Maybe 1967

 

Buildy,first of all,your photos are great ! The 91 is NOT the roadster,its his mod.,soon to be made into a sprint.

 

I must admit I don`t know the details of Kenny`s cars as well as I should.

The person who does know is Ken Johnson. Not sure if he is on here or not.

 

Josh,
Thanks for posting all those pictures. And thanks to Blacki for taking them and for you and your Dad for keeping them. I was going to the Berg when a lot of those were taken.
Jim Graybeal

 

Yup...not only is he Bruce Jones...I am too. He's safely retired and living down in Lecanto FL not too far from big Bob Watkins and Doug Craigs' son Allen.

 

I remember Bruce running his Trevis sprinter# 25? in URC in the early 70s. Was that a Ralph Quarterson car? I think Bruce was a good TQ driver as well.

 

Great photos Josh.

Am I the only one who wonders why all the cars (3) sponsored by Ford dealers were runnin' SBCs?

 

It was a Ralph Quarterson car. My dad bought it on Trevis' recomendation at the tale end of the 70 season. He ran it as the 25 in 71 with URC. Then, it was the 9 from 72-75. He didn't run it much in 75 ('cause of money) He wrecked it at East Windsor during some point of the year in 75 and parked the car. He sold it Fred Berger who ran it as the #10 before wrecking it and burning his tush in the process.

My favorite car was the 9w TQ my dad drove for Tommy Williams. It was one of the last upright Crosley's running and ,if memory serve's, maybe the last to win a feature in the ATQMRA. It was a Trevis also and raced from the winter of 74' in Atlantic City to at least 91' when I saw it last running at New Egypt (although by that time it had a Polaris motor).

Awesome handling race car.

I heard its still up in the Northeast somewhere on the oldies circuit. I love to see pics if anybody has any.

 

Hey btjones, If memory serves me well, the wreck that Fred Berger had with that car was at Grandview during warm ups. Fred flipped down the front stretch and over the first turn. Fred said he got a little help from Gary Gollub.

 

Here's a query that I just posted on the "Cageless" Midget Picture Thread .. but since there's interest in midgets here too .. I thought I'd also post it here.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here's something I've wondered about for awhile. Maybe someone here knows the answer &/or has some pictures.

Joe Csiki drove a number of different midgets with the North East Midget Racing Assiciation (NEMA) two he built himself .. one was the Falcon powered car that he later sold to the Bennett brothers & campaigned for them as a team mate to "Dutch" Schaefer in the ARDC.

The one I often wonfer about is the other one he built .. the first one. Because of it's strange appearance (I believe) it was nick named .. "THE WORM".

I don't think "THE WORM" has ever resurfaced. Does anyone know what happened to it? Does it still survive?

Also does anyone have any pictures that they can post of it .. either of the cars he built in fact .. but especially "THE WORM"?

THANKS.

 

Ken- The 6 banger midget was a feature in 4/90 OW mag. here's some scans if you don't have it already:

 

The Stinger Ford ride was a PREMERE ride around these parts for a lot of years. They threw a good amount of money at Sprint cars in that time period. Dick ganines was the main guy, but upon his retirement Greg Staab took over the ride to Great success! Greg ran a lot of USAC and big races in The "Stinger Ford" that was CHEVY POWERED!!

The Chevy guys around here always teased the Ford guys about that!

 

Winchester 1962- P.J. puts the fine tune on the Fike car and promptly put it on the pole with a new record of 18.06. Of course records don't pay a lot of bills and McCluskey wasn't real impressed, so he dogs P.J. until he finally bobbles and drives on by to take the money.

 

Greg did run a FORD engine, I think around 86', 87', 88 maybe. If I remember right the Fords were too heavy to be practical.

 

Also, Tom Stenger was a Great Guy to have as an owner. Greg won a lot of races for him. Also, after the races Tom would bring his full size Bronco in with a cooler that ran the full length of the back seat packed full of Michleob beer. He got a little stingy with the beer if we didn't win. (Of course Tom was sipping on his beer throughout the evening)

 

I remember all the Weld cars well. I also remember Butch Hare, he was a wild one for sure. Great late model driver. The roadster was known as the bath tub as Kenny would refer to it. The last picture looks like one of the early cars maybe a year after he came east. I remember the night he towed into Lincoln for the first time with crazy looking street tires on the front when everyone else was running the tractor ribs. Knoxville champion was on the side of the car. Kenny had a unique style when he first got here of driving in hard and squaring the corner. He learned the local style quick and opened the eyes of many racers here. I would say he jumped central Pa light years ahead on technology.
You were right Buildy with the 31 being posted as the roadster. When Kenny drove for Don Rice. Kenny took Greg's roadster usac car for a few laps at Lincoln one night and later had the 31 hauling in on a roll back partnered with Don Rice who had great success with Gerald Chamberlin.

 

<!-- / message --><!-- attachments -->


THANKS Rootie .. but except for the Walt May car (a Kurtis) that is the second midget he built .. the one that most remember, because of it's outstanding track record. .. It's NOT "THE WORM" .... "THE WORM" was a very unusual looking car preceeded that one.

BTW .. In the first two pictures you posted there were a lot of changes done to the car over the years & by the different owners.

Joel Merksamer of Birchwood Towing changed the rear suspension from coil overs to cross torsion and changed the body parts to Trevis TQ parts. .. After that, when Johnny (Karklin) Action owned & drove it. .. he, his Dad (Big Carl) and myself changed the engine to a 300 cu. in. (straight six) Ford truck engine .. which was legal to run in the Super Midget Racing Club (SMRC). That engine still resides in the car today. .... It's also the same type Ford truck engine Csiki put in the sprint car he later built & was killed in.

The car in the pictures you posted is very light, when compared to Kurtis's, etc.. It can't be fully seen in those pictures, but that car also has a very unusual front suspension .. high mounted cross spring, etc. .. but I can't say unique, as I did see something quite similar on an earlier Ferrari formula race car.

 

Early 1950s Formula 500s,over in Europe, often used a similar setup, and Smokey liked it for his sidecar rig.

 

I did some marketing/PR work for Tom Stenger and Greg Staab. Tom just liked racing and helped a lot of people with sponsorship. In addition to Mike Smith, Gaines and Stabb, Tom sponsored Bob Frey in, I believe, Glen Niebels USAC sprinter, he also sponsored Frey in a failed Indy attempt. Tom and his B.U.F. (Big Ugly Fellow) Racing was fun to be part of. I remember "Evil, Mean, Wicked and Nasty" T shirts and an evening when he was handing women panties that were silk screened with "F$#% Housework". Tom could be crude, but he was always fun to be around and just flat loved open wheel racing.

Blacki-Suede

 

What Wheel is this on the front.. I am drawing a blank.. I am pretty sure I know where there is a pair just like this in NANCY KY! Help a wheel junkie out with some info please.. Ryan

 

It's a Weldwheel, speedway style.

Curt Grogan

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One race involving Joe Ciski and this car that I'll always remember .. an ARDC 100 lapper at Old Bridge (NJ) 1/2 mile. When the cars were sitting lined up on the front straight, waiting for the feature to be pushed off, someone easily picked the front of the car off the ground .. to demonstrated to the fans just how unusually light the car was. The announcer had been primed to point that out.

Ciski went on to lap every car in the field, except Ray Brown .. who was running second. Ciski won .. but he had the second place car well in his sights. If the race had been five laps longer, he would have put Ray Brown a lap down too.

 

actually it was the "Stenger" Ford

 

Thanks dad.. I typed that from Tyler Hiltons computer.

...always keepin' us in tune Roy..

 

I hope everyone has a

SAFE & HAPPY
THANKSGIVING !!!​