Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Who came up with the direct drive idea and what is the history of it development? What era of racing did this take place in?

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care what most of you think!

Actually, direct drive was the original way to run anything off an engine. Clutches and transmissions and all those other breakable parts were invented later. Sprint cars just never adopted them. So really the question would be; why didn't sprint cars go that route? By the way I prefer they stay the way they are.

So the jalopies that predated the sprint car of the 70s ish didnt have trannies either?

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

Jalopies aren't the predecessor of sprint cars.  Sprint cars have been called that since the 40s or 50s, and before that they were called "big cars."  If I'm not mistaken jalopies are related to stock cars and modifieds.

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jalopies, lol, one must remember were what guys had coming home after WWII. They were what guys raced all over the country and dry lake beds. In many parts of the countyr this continued into the early sixties. The 30 x 90 cars in the midwest had a form of a body not like a sprint car and i believe the big sanction body of that time was IMCA. USAC at that time had champ cars, sprint cars and midgets under there banner.

As for the direct drive, it was not fully developed into what it is today until the late 60's early 70's. Before that time, you had to put the car in gear with a lever right behind the motorplate. I believe the units back then were from halibrand, not sure, then when weight became a issue those were replaced with a u-joint, a splinded shaft and a coupler connected to the rearend. Those units had a rod between your legs and you moved the coupler back to engage the shaft on the rearend. Because guys were getting there legs beat to heck by that shaft between there legs along came the cable to move the coupler.

It's what we have had for the better part of 50 years and as with a sprint car in general i don't ever see a change coming with the current set-up of today.

A jalopy is just a stock car from 30-40s that had windows taken out, fenders and running boards taken off.  They became popular because you could build one for a few hundred dollars.  Fans liked them because they sort of looked like what they drove and they wrecked alot.  Google in Langhorn jalopy race.  I think it is on internet.

I believe in the 1960's 1970's it was called 

a in and out box that had a lever on it.

i had one in a 1979 Trostle

I was reading an article about midget racing in the 1930s awhile back and I'm positive it talked about them having in and out boxes even back then. As an aside, according to the article, apparently midgets started out as movie prop/just for fun cars that were built to look like the big cars (indy cars) of the day out of whatever was available and then a few guys decided to start racing them on the west coast and they exploded in popularity, with races 7 days/nights every week. Crowds of 10,000-15,000 people for a regular race event was not abnormal. 

If you ever get a chance, gotta check out Speedy Bill's museum in Lincoln Nebraska. They have some old midgets with 2x6 wood frames (among tons of other cool stuff!)

2x4 frames? Really? Lol that doesn't sound very safe but I'd love to see those cars. What blows my mind when I look back at old time racing is that it took 50 years for someone to think of putting a roll bar on open whee racecars!!!!

I've seen some pictures of his museum and it's definitely on my bucket list. Thanks

Well until roll cages came about in the 60,. they had the little roll bars that only came up a few inches below the top of driver's head. I asked the tour guide at Speedy Bill's about them. He quoted a old racer: " The difference between those roll bars & none at all was the difference between a closed casket funeral & an open one"....

Remember when Humpy Wheeler was advocating starters? Sure glad it never got any traction.

No fenders, torsion bar suspensions, direct drive and push trucks,  and basically the same technology as 1970 - and thus the relative lack of technology - is what makes sprint cars, sprint cars.

I too am glad there still are no starters although I'm all for anything that speeds up the show and ohsweken speedway where i race weekly has a great small track setup for starting cars. All the cars are started and ready to go when the race on the track finishes and they go right out onto the track.

Wow, 12 replies and no fighting, name calling, no mention of badlands or chuck brennan, and no mention of the 15s phantom Ford! Just a discussion about racing. There are adults on here after all! I like it!

Kinda reminds me of my snowmobiling days.  I was an avid snowmobiler from the 70's thru the early 2000's.  We would get on those old "cornpickers" as we called them (70's John Deere's), turn the corner or hit a bump and tip over.  Then suddenly, in 1990, some genius figured out if they widen the ski stance, and lower the center of gravity, they don't just fall over just looking at them!!!!  Never figured out how our engineers needed 40-50 years to figure that out.  Kinda goes with your roll bar theory.  After you see guys crushed by rolling cars with open pits, wouldn't the first thought be to brace that area?  I agree with you. I never got it at all.

The first sprint car Bob Trostle built (winter 1961/62) used an in-out box built from a Ford transmission. My guess, back in the teens and twenties they probably used the whole transmission and gradually began taking gears out to save weight and, with less rotating mass they got a performance boost. Once someone figured that out, Katie bar the door, the "race" was on. Lots of companies made in-out boxes. I have one car with a CAE, another with a Halibrand. The next step was the shifter drive line with a coupler in the middle of the drive shaft. Bob built a new motor plate for the 1980 Vise Grip car so they could use Karl Kinser's shifter drive line. That was the first one he had experience with. Trostle's roadster sprint had one in it, (built in 1984). There was a lever mounted to the torque tube and it connected to the coupler via a hole in the torque tube . You slapped it left and pulled up to put the car in gear. Rearends with the shifter built in were available somewhere along in the early to mid-80s. Chuck Brennan, Badlands, Donny's Ford.

I was thinking jalopies were what they still race on sundays on the big paved tracks.....it's called NASCAR or something.