Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
Moderators: Racing From The Past

Carol and I were talking about this trip at dinner and we both are looking forward to it. My old orthopaedic Dr. does not due this surgery so I have to go to another Dr. and I could not get an appt. until April 6. Then the 2 doctors have to get their schedules together, it will probably be May before they operate, I started this mess last November oh well.

1. The last car that I helped on was th 112 from western KS. this was in October 1978, I think a guy named Mel and Charlie Oches owned it. When Mike left Norman he needed a ride and he had driven this car at Liberal and he talked them into coming to Tulsa. They would not let me do anything until Mike told them that I knew how to change tires and gears and that would be the last race car that I would ever touch. I did not know any thing about the car except that it was old, Larry Dewell raced it at the old Tulsa track in 1972, it was beautiful then with a real nice paint job, by '78 it was getting rough. Larry flipped it in turn 1 at Tulsa but I don't think there was much damage. I think that a driver was fatally hurt in this car in 1979. Was this car an Edmonds or a copy, who built the engine and what happened to the Car? I was asked to help on several cars after this but we were starting our family and I had other interests.

Ray

This would have been the super-modified owned by Bob Billups of Wichita, Kansas. My dad sponsored them and did the paint job on it. It was a Jelly car if I remember correctly, I'll post some pics soon.

John Stewart

Retro Racing Custom Model Cars
405.922.6163
[email protected]
Oklahoma City, OK

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/235624429834292#!/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/23562442983429

Both Ray and John are correct.My dad Mel Beutler baught the car in the end of the 74 season from Bob Billups.Larry Dewell,Jerry Everhart,John Johnson,Arnold Horner,DaleReed and Mike Peters drove the 112 car.Arnold was let go in the early part of 1978 and he would later die in a wreck at 81 speeday in his own car#21.Ray i was to little to remember you but Mike won the last a feature at Liberal in it .He also drove the coil over nance car we had.Lot of stories there .(Kenny Jenkins,Denis Dye,Alluminum front axle,Lightest 100"around by far) And John we kept the paint scheem almost the same for many years.

I remember that the trailer that your dad used Had a wood bed and that was different. I was at 81 in 1975 and Jon Johnson drove that night and Dale Reed drove it at Hutch in'78. Mike was talking about the engine in the car and said it had a reputation of being very fast and had a lot of power. Do you know who built it? Do you still have the top ten jackets from the Tulsa Speedway? One night here in Tulsa Mike was in a miner wreck and your dad was spending the night her because the Enid NCRA race was the next day. He did not know anybody here so I meet them early on Sunday morning at the Scott brothers garage and they helped fixed the car, I think it was just the front axle was bent a little and the radius rod and nerf bars were torn off. I did not go to Enid, my wife had just had a baby, but I looked in the yearbook and Mike finished in front of Dee Zelmer who was driving the 71 that Mike used to drive. Would enjoy all the Stories that you can tell. I remember your dad talking about the car was identical under the body to the Kennedy car that Roy Bryant used to win at Hutch that year

Ray

JD,

Your right about when MP stuck that car in the wall at OKC, he went from 100 to 0 in a car destroying foot, scared the hell out of me to see him crash at his age like that!!!! I started running that way and the TOUGH SOB hopped right out!! When we raced with #10 H&K car we were turning those little 302's about 7800/8000 RPM with all steel valve train and some times the springs would not last a night. Bkcr is right about Zink's cars not breaking many engines which I will always attribute to Denny and big pocket book to buy the best parts you could get. When Billy was doing Ray's engines they didn't break much either, something alot of people don't know is that Ray is a hell'va engine builder himself!! The Old Man broke alot of engines there also Bkcr is right about that to, we had a dyno named Leep and he would wring them out of course he would wring out everything on the car!! I had an engine one time that I built that we ran in Jarvis's old super and it had nice stuff in it, Crane Fireball heads 492 angle plug casting's, man they were something back then I believe I gave $850.00 for the complete set ready to race all new straight from Crane, anyway we were running 2nd or v3rd early in the A-FEA. one night at that big track and the oil pump casting broke and fell down in the pan and at 8000 RPM it doesn't take long to destroy an engine with no oil psi, ruined those heads when the piston broke an intake valve off and stuffed in back in the head then a chunk went back through the intake and broke the other head, I was sick!!!!!!! I would love to race at that place with the cars we have now, it would be wicked fast probably faster then Volusia. The cars were way far ahead of there time for that place and it is a wonder that those 302's held up there at all, it is the reason you couldn't get a Chevy 6 to live there, very few were successful at running a Chevy 6 there and make it live a 6000 RPM, ENGEL & CHILTON left a bone pile of blocks and cranks there not counting everybody else that tried to run them. Big problem now is the equivalant of that Fireball head today is roughly $10,000 but the springs last more then a night USUALLY!!! Today at that Big Tulsa Track we would see 8700/9300 RPM pretty regular in a ASCS car and a few SS/BB motors would be pushing that right on over 10,000 RPM. When The Old Man started playing with those SS/BB motors back in the early/ mid '80s we were turning them about 8300 RPM every place we went and we were breaking alot of pieces but when he finally was able to get the bottom end to stay together (with the help of Ewell) he really started to get the handle on the Cam, Valve & Head pkg we started turning them all the time at 8500/8700 rpm, the best one we finally got it to turning 9300RPM and living and it was a horse that was the 1 that won Hutch in '85 and the USAC race at OKC in '86, it actualy ran 2nd at that USAC race in '85 until we were DQ'd. Hope Joe has some luck at NCRA it is still a good organization and don't let nobody fool you it still is tough, I hope DJ will be able to run a few of those events this year we ran 3 last year with some sucess but they were battles just like the Old days of NCRA!!!!!!

Headed to Dallas in the AM

SEE YA!!!

 

Ray,The guy that built our motors was Phil Batt.One time John was hauling the car to the track and the car fell off the trailer.When he showed up at the track the car was ok but it ruined the only jalhony tire we had.John was never very fast in the car.Now Dale Reed could drive the wheels off the car but dad always said that he did,t know how to set the car up.But Larry Dewell and Mike Peters could both drive and they could set the car up.They both would do the total opposite and make it work.Both were smooth drivers and they never tore up much equipment.Mike would change tires and gears several times just if the car was parked.He could where you out.The old jelly car would still be around if Fred Nabors would of picked it up.Dad sold him a bunch of stuff in 1983 and he never picked it up and my dumb ass little brother give it to a guy in Norman to make a hot rod out of it.It would of been a good car to restore.

In an older conversation on this forum I'm not so sure if the 112 wasn't brought up? I'm not so sure if someone didn't think the 112 was in Joplin, MO in a colection?? Anyone remember that coversation??

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

David good to here from you hope that you have some more stories for us. The night in 1975 that I remember Jon driving the 112 , we were parked next to them after the races outside of the track and there was a lot of tension around the 112, I don't think that anybody with that car was happy that night, you could feel it in the air. Mike was always wanting to change something on the car to go faster, one night he won the modified featurre here at the big track by half a lap and he came in and said that he wished that we had tried something different. He was always concerned about the gears on the Ford six, like I said one time before I changed the gears 7 times one night. There was a rain out here and the makeup race was Monday night. Sunday there was a NCRA race at 81 and Mike won the feature. When they got here in Tulsa we got the 71 off the trailer and started changing things around for the big track. I got the gears to change and Mike came to me and said to be sure to keep the gears covered with a rag ,a man ws standing behind me and he was on the crew of the car that ws trying to catch Mike in points and Mike did 't want him to know what we ran a 81 or here. Mike always wanted to go faster.

Ray

I have never been to Liberal, Norman and Mike went there in 1976 or 77. I don't know how they did but the next time that I saw them Norman called me over and showed me a dent in the roll cage. Apparently Mike ran threw a fence and hit a pole with the roll cage. This dent was about eye level. I am glad that that the pole wasn't a few inches to right. It takes a hard lick to bend the chrome/moly tubing. That shows that we always have God looking out for us.

Ray

Yes,Jon didn,t drive very long.He quit to drive for himself.Jerry Everhart drove after that for some of 1975 he got fired.Then in 76Arnold lost his ride with Danny King and he drove for us in 76.Won the first feature of the year after that.Then the second night into the season he flipped the car never won any mor features won a bunch of trophy dashes.even out run Jack Hewitt at the Hutch Fair .He drove the blue and white car that Roy Bryant #37.Arnold always had to mess around with the weight jack.You could watch him going down the straightaway just pumping the crap out of jack.By the end of the race he would have the car so out of wack it wasn,t funny.Dad would of fired him sooner but they were real good friends.Then the year Arnold got killed hes was driving a car he bought off of I think Fred Hembree it was Mark Walinders old car.Don,t hold me to that.Them Mike drove the at the end of 78.Dale Reed drove some at the middle of 78.In 79 my older brother Ron crashed the car first night out and first time to ever drive.Thats when we got into the deal with the Nance coil over car.Dad had ordered my brother a new 4 bar carwhen Kenny Jenkins was still living in liberal.Kenny called and wanted dad to buy this car that he had ordered from Nance and couldn,t pay for.So dad buys the car and Kenny starts working for Nance and Kenny maintained the car in whichita.Dennis Dye also help out or did most of the work on the car.I also have a ceramic race care that was made from misses Cody from Amirillo in 1974 I will hace to show it to John Stewart.Such a small world .Moved to oklahoma in 1984 and almost 30 years later My best friend is John,s cousin Dave Stewart.Got to go

Alan Beutler

alan,that car 12n was fun to work on because it was easy to set up for fast laps, the coilover shocks really worked good. at the 5 state fair at liberal you probably remember we ran in 10 races that week end, larry dewell who could really drive the shit out of that car won 7 out of the ten , ran second twice and 3r/d once. dewell might have felt more comfortable in it than any other driver.

You've got to be kidding me! Yes, we need to hook up one of these days.

John Stewart

Retro Racing Custom Model Cars
405.922.6163
[email protected]
Oklahoma City, OK

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/235624429834292#!/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/23562442983429

Dennis,Glad to hear from you.I still need to send you the pics of Kenny Jenkings flipping the coilover.Your right had a lot of fun and learned alot in them days.Stll remember the first time we ran alcohol what a rush.And the last night at the liberal fair the picture with about 50 people in it .Good times.The best part was that we handed Terry Uelling his ass on a silver platter.There was a long fued there.I remember one night he drove all over Arnold and after the races dad went after him and he locked himself in his pick up.John the next time they have a get together at holleys i will bring the ceramic car it,s about 20 plus inches long and a bunch of pics.

i don't have any of the picture's from races at liberal, could you possibly copy and ship some to me ??? any how i may have read previous posts about the coil over car but i think someone may have said it was a jelly car, to my recolection it was a nance car ...

also jenkins was dying to drive a race car, he decided to take the 12 n to practice night, rolled it off trailer and proceded to HOT lap, didn't feelout the track surface ect, flipped big time in turn 3 , we had to completely dis-assemble the car have frame straitened was out of service about 2 to3 weeks. dewell could have had several more wins in it. call me sometime and i will tell ya more !!!!1

It is the last week end in March and this is the time that the races always started here in Tulsa. It would have been cold her last night it was about 35 degrees, north wind and a little drizzle. it would have been miserable last night but I would have loved to have gone.

Ray

Ray, Was at Dallas Spring Nat. this past weekend and Sat. it was quite windy and cold too. Sprint Car show was good 54 or so Sprints in the pit area, track dried out with all the wind but racing was still good and was glad to be there.

Hope this next weekend is warmer for some practice with my car.

Remember freezing to death at some of Shane's WoO shows!

John Stewart

Retro Racing Custom Model Cars
405.922.6163
[email protected]
Oklahoma City, OK

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/235624429834292#!/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/23562442983429

I remember the last race at Tulsa in 1976. When we left the track and went to the motel, it was 31 degrees. It was just as frickin cold at the Enid Winternationals for the late models the following afternoon.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

I am just glad that warm weather is in the forecast for this Sat./Sun. , I want to enjoy my food/visit to 81 this Sat. and not have to worry about scarfin down my Hot Dog/Hamburger before it freezes. Coming to the land of Oz and C. Rays Palace.