Event Coverage What's the future of hot rodding? Returning to what started it, RACING!!!

I have seen several threads lately about where hot rodding is heading. I think the answer is simple, back to racing!!

Hot rodding came from racing whether it's the dry lakes, drag racing, or oval track, and it seem like more people (particularly the people my age late 30s to early 50s) are being drawn back to it.

There are more true vintage racing events every year. The Race of Gentlemen, The Hot Rod Hill Climb, The Pine Tree Jamboree, The Dash Drags, The Jalopy Hill Climb, etc..




There are also clubs and series for vintage race cars The South East Gassers, The Mohawk Valley Vintage Dirt Modifieds-Vintage Antique Class. I am building a car for this class.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=1007065236693697

My model A Tudor build for the Mohawk Valley Vintage Dirt Modifieds Vintage Antique class

 

Robert I'm going to have to visit your shop some day. I could see using bits and bobs that I have to recreate one of the cars Jim and I raced. Need a 37 Chevy coupe body tho...

I think the Pinto would be too new.

 

I couldnt agree more Robert. At this point when it comes to hot rodding all I care about is drag racing! Its awesome to use these machines to their limit and sometimes beyond haha

 

Well done Robert! Seems to be alot going on around here lately and I couldn't be happier about that.

 

I built a T Roadster and a '31 Model A Coupe and now I'm just getting started on building a 60's style front engine dragster from the ground up. Plans are to bracket race when the mood strikes to spend an evening at one of a couple fairly local strips.

Decided to build a FED for a several reasons.
*Fairly simple cars.
*Lots of fabrication and fitting of parts to build one, and I love building things.
*No title, license or insurance to mess with.
*Awesome garage art!
*They just say "Racecar"!!
*Never had one.

I'm still trying to locate a few parts and pieces, so if you have any FED related parts send a PM so we can talk about what you have that I might still need,

Lynn

 

As long as someone out there tinkers and builds hot rods & customs they will not disappear from the landscape, it is inevitable that the numbers will dwindle in the future, as long as the hobby keeps infecting younger guys hot rods & customs will be around for many more years to come. HRP

 

Im sure Robert will have an opinion about this haha

 

Yep, 2022 is going to be nostalgia drag events for this dude.

 

So what are track roadsters if not oval track hot rods? Many who made it to Indy and a few Indy 500 winners got there start in these cars! Troy Ruttman and Pat Flaherty to name a couple.


Future Indy 500 winner Troy Ruttman

Frist off many the cars used for stockcars were pulled out of junk yards and were heading to the crusher! Stockcar racing gave them a second life! Just like the dry lakes/drag racers did.

Marv Riffchin M&H racing tires was an oval track tire manufacture and applied what he leaned about compounds from oval racing to drag racing!

Where do you think quick change rears came from? The need to change gears for the type of track tight 1/4 mile bull rings to 1/2 miles, or even miles, and changing track conditions though the night, heavy tacky early dry slick late.

A.J. Foyt's first stock car, a 32 Ford with an Ardun and Hillborns?! Absolutely no connection at all to hot rodding.


Bill Smith the founder of Speedway Motors was an Oval Track racer and said in his book in the early days the oval trackers were his main customers, today it's 50/50.




Which was the same here, our part of NY Albany to Binghamton the speed shops main focus was oval track racing. Frank's Speed Shop (Frank Trinkaus) in Flycreek as well as L&R Speed shop in Malta NY. main customers were oval trackers

Steve Danish with Frank Trinkaus #62 and Miss America 1958, Marilyn Van Derbur at Fonda


Lee Millington in Frank Trinkaus #62.


L&R speed shop car


My friend early day hot rodder and stock car builder/racer LeRoy "Bud" Hinnman


The hot rod Bud built at the age of 14 now owned by Eli English


The first Stock car built by Bud


Bud's 1969 Mid-State Speedway Championship winning car Yes it is the same 34 Ford, So I guess that means hot rodders cut up cars to build stockcar? That can't be right!

 

Its funny ive probably wrecked more early Ford parts drag racing in the past year than some guys go through in years and years of hot rodding. But what are we saving this stuff for? Id like to thank all those HAMBers who have sold me gear sets and transmissions haha. I promise I use the shit out of them.

 

The speed parts were designed/engineered for racing not puttering around on the street, and I am glad to see them put them to use for their intended purpose.

 

I agree with you Robert.

The "Real-true-Hot Rods" that were created and driven everyday to work, Sun-Rain or Snow .... were about function and form, not necessarily pretty, .... hard-core in todays terms.



Drove them to a local area and raced when money and time permitted, it was a passion which became a obsession.




My love has always been with the Hot Rod that was for the most part the only transportation of said guy or girl, that was "Hopped-UP" ..... "Engine Swapped" for the obvious of better performance and fun, and was driven to a place to race from time-to-time. For some, it turned into a transition for creating a track only car, for others it didn't.

 

@hotrodjack33 How do explain Nolan Swift's 10 Pins Super Mod built in 1960 for car Oswego Speedway (The Steel Palace) Oswego N.Y. raced and winning until the 1970s and just pulled out of storage and restored to its 1961 glory, Charlie Jarzombek's Bug the chassis was long gone but the body was found and restored and the chassis recreated, or Steve Danish's NASCAR sportsmen (the photos of Steve are not all the same car) all three cars were kept as neat as a pin and were meticulously maintained. If all they did was beat and bang and knock each other out of the way shouldn't the Swift and Jarzombek's cars have long ago been destroyed on the track?

Nolan Swift's 10 Pins Super Mod


Charlie Jarzombek's Bug







Note the 8 NASCAR win stickers above the rear window and the straight as an arrow body


As for aerodynamics how do the Studebakers built by the weekly short trackers for the Late Model Sportsmen (now Xfintiy) race at Daytona fit your theory?

 

I think these newspaper captions from the 40's tell the tale ! They were running in front of large crowds before drag racing began. Track Roadsters, the first true Hotrods. Many were street driven in the beginning. BTW over 60 Roadster pilots made it to Indy, and 11 of them were winners.

 

This thread has gotten some what off topic. The intent of the future of hot rodding, I encourage anyone to post photos of current vintage (is that an oxymoron) racing events, cars, or builds.

 

The Winter Drags 2018 Port Crane NY

 

You are more than welcome, but I am a little light on extra vintage parts right now most of my vintage stuff ended up in my build.

 

the vintage grass drags in Roundtop NY

@adam401 racing his 34 Ford

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=544051050187835

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=261791992084643

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=297926305459064

 

I've been drag racing for 42 years. I currently have a drag car with a 615 BBC, Clutch & 4 speed lenco. I'm having more fun now with our car club going on cruises with 30-40 old cars, mostly street rods. I have the coupe in my avatar & a Model A 2 door sedan. Biggest decision is which one to take on a cruise. We will cruise the country back roads sometimes putting in 100 miles or more in a day. My wife goes with me & she has also drag raced for many years. We also attend a lot of car shows. Yes I agree racing is fun especially the nostalgia drags with the old gassers but cruising in these old rides is a lot of fun too. My take is as long as they get used either raced or cruising will keep the hot rodders future alive.

 

I drove my altered wheelbase Chevy II from AZ to MI to go on Drag Week this year...fun drive there and back, and ran low tens all week. Best of both, with the same car.

 

Now that's the ONLY way I'd ever want a 33/34. Sliced and diced a few 32/33/34's during my Super Mod days. The more solid the body, the easier it was to cut up to fit my tube frames. The Sat. nights spent in those 'butchered'' cars were way more fun than any seat time I spent in any hot rod I ever owned.

 

I still have my 53 Chev. street car currently resting and will never be sold, likely to get a complete rebuild remaining a street car.

Period correct hot rodding is in a very strange place right now. When it first started to gain momentum a in the late 1990s early 2000s it was mostly guys young guys 18-early 30s (now in our late 30 to early 50s hard to believe we are that old isn't @adam401?) or real deal old time hot rodders from the 1940s-1950s. There was a real comradery back then. Guys would help each other build cars, find parts, or just flat out give someone parts

Over the last 10 years or so period correct hot rodding has become the cool "it" thing and the trend chasers have invaded, and are passing their personal options based on their own limited knowledge/experience as fact/history. There is not sense of friendship/comradery there once was.

That is what lead me back to oval track racing with vintage cars. There is real comradery, if someone has trouble the fellow competitors in the work will help work on the car in the pits between the heats and feature.

Jim Fugel long time racer/builder and 2019 Champ of the Vintage Antique class of just give me three old steel wheels I need and told me he has more if I want them come get them!

George Palmer (back to camara no relation) helping Frank Blanchard (kneeling).




Frank Blanchard (in front of tire) Jim Fugle (in fire suite to the left) helping Mike Wheeler (back to camara)

 

So where do Comp Coupe/Alters from the golden era of drag racing fit? I see gutted cars, with wheel wells/cowls cut, wheel wells moved ahead in the bodies, a couple of them 33/34 Fords are they butchered or is it O.K. because they are drag cars and not stock cars?






Wayne 12 port powered 34 Ford with the firewall moved and the cowl cut with a torch to clear the zoomies.


I have a great deal of respect for all forms of racing and hot rodding and there are definitely parts of the golden age racing/rodding of it I don't care for. However, I am not going to bash on them simply because I don't like them because they are the history of the sport.
As I told you before my knowledge comes from an 83 year long family involvement in racing, studying every book, magazine, hot rod, drag car, oval track survivor I see and making friends with old time racers and hot rodders. People like Bud Hinman who I mentioned early in this thread, Pat Cramer who owned and raced Rebel Rouser flathead dragster.


My Great Uncle Don Weyl. Uncle Don crewed for Sam Craft's A.A.A. Big Car pre WW II. The engine is a Ford 4 (we think a Model B) with a dual overhead cam conversion


My Great Uncle Leslie Kellerhouse (Right) was chief steward at Fonda speedway (Fonda NY) presenting Lou Lazzaro a trophy.


My father Willard Palmer (73) fabricator/chassis builder

Dad's first late model


One of several chassis built by dad-


My friend Pat Cramer and the Rebel Rouser the car was a U.S. Nationals record holder

 

The Hot Rod Hill Climb Georgetown Colorado.-

Cal Kenndy in the T-33 Wayne 12 Port

 

The RPM Nationals-

 

The Legendary Flathead Ford racing series

 

^^^^^^^
What you call wasted, I call SACRIFICED to the gods of speed in the pursuit of fun.

 

^^^Frist off this is in England the right-hand drive should have been a clue!^^^

Next these cars were pulled from junk yards they were headed for the crusher if not for stock car racing, they would have scraped years before. Racing gave them another shot at life.

The 10 Pins car was built in 1960 the 34 Ford body was 26 years old. Do you really think
there was must demand in cental NY in 1960 for a 26-year Ford body?


If all the stock car guys cared about was beating and banging, how do you explain jack bolts which have been a part of stock car racing from almost the beginning used to adjust ride heights and cross weight You know chassis tuning!!




Or the Flemke front end?


Just like the last time you burst into one of my threads, you came in pontificated passed your own personal options off as fact and when presented with the facts and history changed your story.

 

I don't need to say a thing, you say it right on your profile-


You no longer need to reply I won't see it you are on my ignore list.