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These two photos are of Stan Borosfky's Brewer built beauty at Knoxville 1972.

Curt Grogan

This is the 72 car I built for Stan Borofsky. He converted it to a four bar for the 74 season. This photo would have to be 72, or 73. I was promoting a weeky program at the Topeka Fairgrounds during this period. For the 1973 Jayhawk National race I included the Pennsylvania All Star Circuit with several cars from that group including Kenny Weld in the #29 car & Jan opperman , I think in the #99 car.

It ran the Tuesday night before the Wed, Thurs, Fri & Sat Knoxville Nationals. Weld won with Opperman second.

The trophy dash was the four fastest, inverted. They were Stan Borofsky in his #92, Dale McCarty in Don Hoenshell's #55, Jan Opperman in the #99 & Kenny Weld in the # 29. Since the two cars on the front row were cars I built, I would give my right arm for a picture of them sitting on the track waiting to push off. I'm sure one exists somewhere.

Luther

Posted By: Racing From The Past on September 22 2007 at 01:37:31 PM This actually car # 8 built prior to the 1968 season. This was to replace the car I sold in February (car # 7). This is the .095 moly tubing and same dimensions as the car # 5. It had cross torison rear with cross spring front, 2 in open tube and knock off wheels. Hilborn Injectors, small block Chevy. I had several different drivers during the 2 years I ran it. Ray Lee Goodwin, Thad Dosher, Jon Backlund, Eddie Levitt, Grady Wade, Bill Covert & Dick Sutcliffe. Sutcliffe won the last race I ran with it at the Oklahoma State Fair in Oct 69. I sold it to a Mr Regan in Kokomo, Indiana. Ray Lee Goodwin with the crew and Luther is the tall one with one hand on the roll cage. Luther Ray Lee Goodwin with a trophy win at Topeka in 69. He won 2 features that year also. He only drove for me about 6 weeks. Started the season, then went USAC, returned for 3 or 4 weeks & went to the 24 car of Lincoln. In a newspaper article that was in the Topeka Capital that said Dale Reed replaced him the next 2 weeks winning one feature & running 2nd in the other, Luther. Eddie Leavitt with a feature win at Topeka in 69. He drove the car a few weeks including Lincoln. NE IMCA Labor Day races & the Sedalia, MO IMCA Mile. Ray Lee at Des Moines Fairgrounds This is Kenny Gritz (12) in his own car, a Don Edmunds 4 bar & Ray Lee at the Des Moines IMCA Fair date. Kenny went on to win the Knoxville Nationals then we would loose Kenny in a accident at Lincoln. The office of a Brewer race car.

Jerry Weld also drove this car at least 3 times. Olympic Stadium, Marshall Mo Track & Jefferson City Track.

Luther

I have e-mailed a question to luther Brewer about a couple of his cars Stan Borosfky had, #6 and #11 built by him and about another car from KC. With his ok here is his reply.

Curt Grogan

I asked if the car Doug Gjermstead was killed in at Belleville Ks. was car # 6 or #11

Curt Grogan

This is the 6th car Brewer built. It's one of two He built for Stan Borosfky of Raytown Mo. This stan with a win at Marshall Mo.

Curt Grogan

Dwane Wolf sent in this photo from the Knoxville, IA Vintage Nationals

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

This is the last sprint car I built for Stan Borofsky for the 1972 season. Dave Hoska has restored the car. He even painted it white and trimmed it in Chevrolet hondures red (a color Chevrolet used at the time) Both of the cars I built for Stan & the #7 car I built (Watson 4 bar) had champ dirt car tails that were cut off at the front about 7 or 8 inches. I used a master cylinder from a large earth moving machine (turnapull) that steered with a side brake on each side. The cylinder had an adjustable screw that you could change the pressure by turning that screw in the bottom, inside of the cylinder. Dave found the car in a bard in northern Minnesota and had been working on it for about a year when he tracked me down as the builder. He called me in 1992 and said he was going to be at Knoxville, Iowa at an Old Timers meet & would like to meet. When I saw the car, the first thing I checked to confirm I had built it was the master cylinder and second was the top frame tubes as they were turned down in front of the roll cage to go under the exhaust pipes. They were the same as 20 years earlier. The larger tail was for a larger fuel tank to run the 100 mile races on the 1 mile dirt tracks with, Jerry Blundy did the same thing on the red #33, Floyd Travis 4 bar car he ran. Stan & Whity Harmon converted this car to a cross bar front before the 1974 season. It has been restored as a 4 bar.

Luther

This is the 7 th car I built. It is from an AJ Watson blueprint purchased through an add in National Speed Sport News. It is built of the same 1 7/16 molly tubing that cars 5 & 6 were made of. The 3 inch open tube rear end, the steering, in-out box, front end, master cylinder and radiator are from a mile dirt car that had Bob Harky's name on the side oil tank as driver. The tail is a champ dirt car tail cut of 7 or 8 inches on the front. The large tail was for a large fuel tank to run the 100 mile dirt shows. The sprint roll bar is welded to the frame and a roll cage fits over it. I built this car as a replacement to the car # 5 that I sold to Jack Cunnibgham in June, 1967. I built this car in the month of July and ran it from August 1967 through the Florida State Fair in Tampa in February 1968. I sold it at the end of the fair and built the car # 8 which I ran the 1968 and 69 season.

Luther Brewer

Stan Borosfky in the 11th car built by Luther

Curt Grogan

Oltom,

I am the one that built the car. Eddie McVay of Kansas City Area told me he was right behind Doud Hjermstad when he had the fatal wreck at Bellville. He told me the seat belt buckle broke off where it snaps into the spring loaded latch. I saw the car in 1973 and it still had the cross spring front end at that time. I heard someone say that Stan & Whitie Harmon in KC changed the car to a four bar. I thought it rather odd that Dave Hoska gave me several pictures of the car showing the parts when he purchased it & the spring & front axle were in the picture. Your information makes more sense

Dave Hoska has a newspaper article he found at the Bellville City Library with pictures of the wreck. He also has some of the wreck Stan had at Knoxville. He bought the car sometime around 1990. He tracked me down in 1991.

Luther Brewer

That would be a heck of a shot! Surely someones got one somewhere.

My best guess is that Mr Powell of Powell Photography in Topeka taken one. He took a lot of pictures during that time. He has since passed on and I was told his son has boxes & boxes of his pictures from the past. The catch is , the son lives somewhere in the Carolinas' and will let anybody look for photos but he is not interested. Any help would be appreciated. I tried.

Some of you Tulsa racers & fans probably remember a reporter from Tulsa with a last name of Retnour (or something close). He called me a few days before that race & wanted to cover it. I welcomed him & got to meet him. Also, Bill Hill that used to write for Speed Sport News called & wanted to cover it. He lived in Denver, Colo at the time & he came to the race. I crossed paths with him several times since.

Luther

Luther, those are fantastic race cars! On some of the first you built, what kind of axle and cross spring did you use? Were they off of a car/truck or did you build them? I noticed there are 5 lug wheels.What kind of hubs did you use?

RRC, The 1st car had a Ford Model A frame and Ford cross spring. Several spring leaves were removed to remove weight & the spring did not need to be that strong. The front axle & spring were also Ford. The rear end (including housing) was from 49 Pontiac with straight shift and had a rear end ration coupled with a 28 tooth second gear that produced something like 6.50 to 1. A lot of the cars were running a 3/4 ton Ford truck rear end with the 6.66 to 1. I thought slightly higher gear ratio might be an advantage.

Cars 2 & 3 also had the old Ford cross spring. I had to use the Ford rear cross member to make it work. never had a weight jack on the front but ran diferent size tires on the LF & RF and would put the larger tire on the left frond if I wanted right rear weight. Did that only on those 3 cars. ( I hit something that changed this to script...OOPS) Thats engineering !!

Luther

Luther

What a hit this 5 car would be today. A really neat piece. I think you said this is the car that wound up on the west coast.

Just wondering, the 3&4 cars look like 100" cars. Was this to match with the cars and tracks you were running with at that time? Then, why did you do the one car with the coupe body, but looks like it is an 86" car?

Also, did you build your own engines? Did you use the z28/302 short block, or did you start from scratch? What heads did you use?

Also, I think you said one time that you welded your frames with an arc welder, using low hydrogen rod, even though it was chrome moly tube.

Always great to look at your scrap book of cars. Sure something to be proud of.

Rustyr,...The car did turn out to be very popular where ever it ran. People still remember it today. I will probably be linked to that car more than all of the others combined. It did go to Sacramento for the 71 season. It was tore up on the Sacramento Mile race that October. They built a new sprint & used the parts for it. I have a picture of the sprint.. They offerred to let John Cunningham have the leftover parts after they built the new car. John is the son of Jack Cunningham that I sold the car to.

The 3 & 4 cars were 96 inch wheelbase. No 4 was built from CAE blueprints. Dick Miller of Greely (then Osawatomie) & I built ourselves each a car from the prints. I saw Dick at the John Layne's oldtimers picnic in Sept 08 & he suggested he & I duplicate the # 5 car. I would like to do that after I move back to the area. Dick is very good at fabrication. He has a large machine shop on 169 Hwy in Greely, Ks. He made a lot of aluminum tanks for cropdusters over several years and build several race cars during the time I was involved. The reason I built the # 5 ( it was 86 in wheelbase) car like I did was because Greg Weld was a few points from winning the USAC Sprint Championship in 65 & I wanted something that good & drew prints from his car for this one. I felt cars 2, 3, & 4 were mediocre at best. I built the coupe body because that was my favorite body style. There were 2 like that that inspired me to go to that. One was on the cover of Hot Rod Magazine a couple of years earlier. It was from Phoenix or Albuquerque & called "The Twister". The other was Johnnie Capels "Golden Greek" T Coupe from Aluquerque. Caple's Golden Greek is somewhere on this site. I have seen it here. Both cars were at the 3 day day Labor Day meet at 81 Speedway north of Wichita in 64. I was there with the # 4 car & Jack Belk was driving it.

I did build all of my own engines. The first was a flathead Ford. I used a stroker kit so it was pretty easy. I had help from Al Weiland on the Holly carb & later Stromberg 97s. The first Chev sb, I had help with from the guy I bought the first race car from. I built all of the rest. I used Chev Corvette short blocks. They had 11 1/4 compression & worked fine with gasoline & later alcohol. Starting with car # 5, I degreed the valves to the manufactures specs. I used Crower Cams & Bruce Crower suggested I do that. It is a lengthly process. Basicly, set the opening of the exhaust & closing ot the intake valve to the spec I bought the Corvette short blocks at the local Chevrolet dealer for $225 in the crate. Joe Saldana's Father drove down from Linclon, NB one time (about 64) & hauled 1 back in the trunk of his Grand Prix. That would be Joey Saldana's (of WoO) Grandfather.

The last engine I built was a 350 crank after GM came out with larger rod & main bearings. Reynolds Automotive in Emporia turned the crank rod bearings to the small bearing size & offset the grind to make a stroker out of it. It came out 364 Cu In. I had one other 364 stroker that I bought from Al Weiland after he quit racing the north curcuit in about 65. I used the Chey "power pack" heads on all of the Chev engines.

I did all of my own welding using a 225 Amp Linclon stick welder. The rod also had nickle content. I don't remember much about the rod except it was 1/8 inch. A local certified welder advised me on the rod & also was the person that taught me the basics about welding.

I always had an extra engine ready to install. I put a fresh one in every 4 weeks.

Luther