"The next day while dad was a work, we took his hammer and beat the crap out of that pedal car. Then we got some paint and painted a number on it. When dad got home, he was really mad. We all got punished and put to bed. To this day, all us boys will always remember that day at the races."
A Time Gone By...
In general these questions were answered by a man’s personal tastes. He built the kind of car he like to build or could afford and ran the type of engine he knew how to work on. Even the car number had some personal choice behind it. Some of this is still alive today, but it is now big business instead of fun.
You got involved in racing because your neighbor carried you to the local track or your neighborhood gas station sported a coupe out front during the week. Or your dad worked with a man who drove on Saturday nights at the local racetrack. Or you mouthed off to your buddies that you could do as good as any of those guys out there and to everyone’s big surprise, including yourself, you could.
Racing was serious work when you strapped into the car to race. But in general it was fun!
You and your pals worked on the car out behind the barn or in one stall of that neighborhood gas station after hours or in a garage with a single 20 watt light bulb hanging down over the engine. You always found some place to work on the car.
There were no dreams of making the big time or if there were you jokingly talked about winning the Indy 500. You didn’t spend hours chasing down sponsors so you could go to the store and buy another wheel or radiator or fuel cell. You hammered out the wheel that got bent when you hit the wall on the front stretch last week and you soldered the radiator holes yourself because you couldn’t afford to go down to the AIA junk yard and pay $10 for another one. And fuel cells; if drivers had really known the time bombs they were driving, there might have never been any racing.
Not everything new is bad nor everything old good; but some things have been cast aside for no good reason other than we don’t do it that way anymore.
Nothing will ever sound as sweet as a 60 over with a one-sixteenth stroke flathead Ford with 3-Strombergs, a 304 junior and high compression heads with straight headers..... with a possible exception of a 302 Jimmy screaming down the back straightaway.
Hurt
It hurts to give up the racing life,
And you yearn to take the wheel again
It hurts to quit for the call of the pit
A couple of years ago, I located a fellow out of my childhood named Albert Huffman. He moved in next door to my folks in Charles City, Iowa in 1951. He chopped the fenders off of an old '34 coupe (with an axe) and went racing. I was nine years old then, and even though my folks weren't particularly fond of the noise, he soon became my hero. And now at 60+, I guess he still is. I remember him painting naked ladies on his car. The neighbors went crazy, the sheriff came out, and the next week they were properly dressed. Below are some photos of some old wooden racers us kids built because of our love of Albert and his racers.
Here's a great story...
The other day my wife was sitting in our store working on a puzzle of a collection of pedal cars. A fellow about 50 came in and stood and watched for a while. Finally, with a smile on his face, he told her that back when he was a kid in the fifties, his father bought his brothers and him a pedal car just like that bright red one over there. "We were really proud of it. Later that summer, he took all us boys one Sunday afternoon to the jalopy races in the city. It was full of crashin' and bangin'. We had never seen anything like that before."
Another...
Back to Albert.... After a summer of Albert watching me watch him over the
fence, he asked me, "Do you wanna come over here and help me load my car?"
Boy, did I. After looking to see if my folks were watching, I ran down to
the end of the fence and up the alley. I remember climbing up the trunk and
through the hole in the top. I remember the sound of the old 6 volt starter
grinding away. I remember the sound of the exhaust of the flathead popping straight out of
the block. I remember the smell of the blow-by, the conversation, the
tattoos on his arm, all this probably lasted less than 2 minutes, but after
50 years, I still remember every second. and yet, I can't remember what I
had for lunch. What's going on here?
Taken from Legends of the Dirt Tracks
Racing years ago had a different complexion than it does today. Not all the cars were cookie cutter styled nor all powered by the same small block Chevrolet. Variety in power plants as well as body styles was the norm. A coupe or a coach? A flathead or an inline six cylinder? 1933 or 1940?
Thanks, Stan Jones.
There's many an old time racing man
Who stays away from the track.
For it hurts to watch the sport he loves,
And he feels the urge to go back.
He isn't afraid to drive again
As he did in years gone by,
Though he thinks of his friends and their injuries,
And of those that he's seen die.
It hurts to make the break.
And it hurts to watch the youngsters drive,
For you notice each mistake.
To show how it should be done-
And ghosts from the past will beckon you,
And bid you, "Come back and run."
Is always deep inside,
And you would give the life you live
To take one final ride.
And final ride though it may be
You'd gladly take the risk
For the thrill of the wind-pressed goggles
And the feel of the wheel in your fist.