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

Charlie Musselman Williams Grove 57.

 

George, McWithey, Branson, Easton Salem 58.

 

Is that trailer for sale?

 

Van Johnson Langhorne 57.

 

Bobby Marshman, Hoosier 100 62.

 

Spider Webb in the Vance #2 Williams Grove 48.

 

It is being reported from several sources the Bob Trostle passed away this morning

 

Jack McGrath Milwaukee 1952.

 

Troy Ruttman Sacto 62.

 

Emil Andres 1946

 

Rootie...I think the McGrath photo is 1953

 

The brand new 1964 Ronnie Duman "CLEAN WEAR SPL." built at mac miller's indy garage is almost ready to leave the PainterGeek shop sporting its new pink & black "Justin Welling" paint job!
mac miller in INDY

 

That is quite a car would be cool to see a pic with the lettering on it too

 

Bob Tattersall-Mataka Bros. sprint.

 

Bobby Unser's Pikes Peak car circa 1960.

 

Cleaver Brooks turbo Offy, Edmunds, 1968, Bobby Grim up.

 

What is that thingie sticking up behind the front wheel - a coolant reservoir? odd

 

Most likely an oil radiator.

 

Oil cooler or turbo intercooler would be my guess.

 

You would think it would packed solid with dirt ?

Don't see no screen in front , very strange to leave it open ?

 

Is the trailer for sale. I know a person in the family who might be interested

 

pontiac powered!!!

 

Cleaver Brooks actually had two of these turbo Offy dirt cars at one point. The cars were around for several years but the turbo Offy experiment never really amounted to much as the throttle lag was always a problem. It took George Bignotti to finally figure out how to really hook one up and that culminated in Jackie Howerton holding off the Viceroy Fords to win the Hoosier Hundred in 1974.
Of course, USAC responded by banning turbo engines for their National Dirt Track Championship Division (it wasn't called Silver Crown until the 1980s) soon after.

 

Johnny Thomson Williams Grove 58.

 

Bob Tattersall, Phrommer offy circa 57.

 

Bob Sweikert, Iddings sprint circa 53.

 

Interesting.

I wonder what led them to that decision?

"... They don't sound like race cars."
"...too expensive to build."
"too much potential power for a dirt track."
"...technology will scare away some teams."
"...the fans hate them."

Are any of these reasons correct, much less justifiable?

 

For decades the mile dirt races were part of the Championship Trail and engine rules were the same for dirt as on pavement. When the National Dirt Track Championship was made separate starting in 1971 the rules stayed the same. However, fewer and fewer "big name" Indy drivers and car owners were taking part since the races no longer counted toward the USAC National Championship.

Since more and more sprint car only drivers and teams were starting to make up most of the dirt track fields it's likely that USAC simply used Howerton's turbo Offy win as an excuse to change the rules to insure that the Chevrolet based cars kept taking part in the series. Soon after the rule change most of the racing only engines like the Offy and Four Cam Fords were gone and the dirt cars pretty much all ran pushrod engines. That's basically the way it is still today.

 

But they didn't have a problem with supercharged offies. See Howard Walcott's cars 1955ish onward.

 

Thanks.

Man, reading through this thread is like taking a college course in Circle Track Racing History 101. I appreciate everyone's contributions and have learned a lot. I am sorry if I ask innocuous or otherwise lame questions, but I want to fill out my knowledge base on the subject.