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Great photo!

Duane Cain's #58 (former Don Engel car) in the background. That is best part of photos like this.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Warren

That is Alvin Bennets car #59. He won the B feature at the 1974 NCRA race at Tulsa, started at the back of the "A" and won it. Passing Don Engel, Larry Wilson and a lot or other surprised drivers. Ther were over 90 modifieds that day. The heat races had over 20 starters in each race. The track got so bad that Don Engel had a faster time than any of the supers.

Ray

Started typing before activating brain. I thought is was 58. But Duane never run the 58 as a 6.

Sounds like some of those Sunday afternoons at Enid with 100 supers and 100 modifieds.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

Yes I know how many replies this makes, 666. Oh well, God be with us.

Never underestimate the power of industry. From them we get products, sometimes the better funded will get them first and then it eventually passes on to us. Either way, the "Feeder System" is and has always played a part in in how we do things. "Cookie Cutting" reduces internal cost for these companies that supply to the market that offers the MOST MONEY back in order for the company to survive. In either case, manufacturer and end target customer take what they can get. Trends are always in motion, and evolution is always taking place. Eventually the market seems to be under a spell and is only going to support the industry that supports it. When one person sees what is taking place and retires from such actions, another person takes their place most times.

If ONE person quit and TWO people replaced them, that would be considered "growth". If ONE person quits and ONE person replaced them MOST OF THE TIME, at best that would be considered "questionable growth". If ONE person quits and NO ONE replaces them, well...it ain't growth that's fer shur.

It is the appeal, the PULL, the draw of the thing that determines the course of "growth or not". In other words--does that dog hunt? If not, are we doing what we need to do in order for him to WANT TO hunt like he should be? Do we need to get another dog?

Manufacturer and market relations involve questions like these everyday. SAMENESS can set in the wrong places sometimes and jeopardize market levels and even inhibit growth.

This picture is a satire about "mainstream street rodding". The "idolization" of the '32 Ford Roadster and the ability to replicate it in steel for a money ready market. If you understand what it is trying to say, you might understand that it is the same type of issue that is hurting NASCAR, WoO, IRL etc.

The World of Outlaws set the standard for open wheel racing due to it's influence and it shows today in every part of the country. The gravitational, magnetic pull towards that influence is what killed the supermodifieds.

Don't get me wrong, I do not have a disgust for sprint cars. Still, the intensity of this thread alone indicates that we've been missing something. Thankfully much of it's still out there.

Car counts overall are still pretty good. Yet now there are so many more classes and only a few that force the racer to express his individuality with more than color of paint or wrap. The hardcore racer will always want or need to be out there in some form or fashion, that is a given. He will always be replaced by at least "one".

The technical quality of the open wheel cars is better overall than it's ever been. Todays slow cars are usually faster than most fast cars were 25 years ago in my estimate. Driver safety is much better too.

The crowds in the stands are another issue. Their attendance numbers are the same as the report cards we got in school. From that perspective basically what was seen on stage was a costume and attitude change along with more acts. The performance is remarkable, but the spectacle needs work.

Taking the best of what we've seen, a little courage, good support, we can take this into a positive yet familiar direction. The industry is not able to live without us for we ARE the customer.

.........off the soapbox now

I hear what your saying Brian, Was talking about this the other day and I remember back in the late 80's to early 90's I think for a new front end it would run your around $1500 and now with the Cookie Cutter system and mass production you can get a new front end for around $675 complete from Speedway Motors and some other Parts places, back in 92 I could not afford to buy a new front end so went the used route and paid $800 for one from Henry Johnson , Pretty amazing now how you can buy new now cheaper than you could buy used then, Things change that is for sure , maybe not always for the best but they do , Your right the WoO brought technology to Openwheel racing as well as rising cost for the lighter/faster part , I remember going up to Pennsylvania to watch a friend run his 358 Sprinter up there back in 99 and going by Ely Fabrication which is right next to Krietz Oval Track Parts in Sinking Springs , Pa. and watching Dave Ely mass produce front and rear bumpers and nerf bars for then a fledgling company in Lancaster , Pa. that was a small Machine shop then, that would be known as DMI in the coming years, Ely had 1000's of Nerfs and Bumpers for J & J, Eagles, Maxims , Avenger, Stealth and so on, for any car made and he had a room full of them to sell and that was really my first real time to see how the mass produced for cheaper price parts in person.

Now the Triple XXX Co. has went on one step further and went overseas to mass produce and make parts even cheaper, I can say this they have help put a big dent in the used parts market sales, like a wing tree from Triple XXX new around $45 , so why buy a used one for say $30 when you can put $15 more with it and get new, Now if run across some that are $5-$10 each then that would be good but not many guys will sell at that price unless they are desperate for cash and need to turn it quickly, Heck it is why I hang on to my used stuff and put it in the shed and hang on to it , because it really is not worth that much right now to sell it , becasue of the mass production in the Openwheel racing industry.

the guy on the far right is David (Dave) Kennedy. he now lives out by Zink Ranch north of Sand Springs

"its useless to put on the brakes when you are upside 
down"   -Paul Newman

Thank You I remember that Dave worked at Bill Humphries shop, but I just could not remember his name. My wife was with us the night that picture was taken and she could'n't remember either.

Ray

JD, don't forget Wesmar makes cookie cutters for just under...... Well let's just say, for Gods sake Man, think of your driver. LOL

LOL, uncle a , I hear ya

All,

During '83 we were having a lot of problems with oil pans, we had tried several brands but weren't having much luck, and really didn't want to go the dry sump way because of the wgt, if we ran Lawton we could make it usually but at OKC we were just playing with a grenade if it was wide open tacky fast if we had to run over 10-12 laps straight we would break. Finally even though Ewell didn't get along with us very well he and Larry Witt offered up some help, they had been running Aviad pans and if everbody remembers well Ewell was bitch'in fast at OKC when it was tacky, we had broke a motor on Friday at OKC and broke another at Lawton on saturday, had the summer nats at OKC on sunday night, had more motors but knew they probably wouldn't make it, so we were in a delemia, Sewell got a hold of Ewell and talked them into loaning us one of there pans, we picked it up sunday about noon and started to put it on the motor, Sewell and I had decided we ought to look at the bearing before putting the pan on, everything was going fine until I torqued the mains down and on the final torqueing the inner bolt striped out on the #3 main, we were in a panic didn't want to heli-coil it as we would have had to drill it out in an assembled motor, the old man showed up and he was getting a little excited at Sewell and I but he had a fix, he took a 1/2 ford head bolt and said he would tap the hole out and gave us the job of drilling out the main cap, being the precision machinest Sewell was we're on a drill press setting the cap up and Pat walks in wanting the cap he already had the hole tapped, Swell is giving him his best machine shop spill when Pat takes the cap and just runs the drill bit down through it wash's it off and torques it down and puts the pan on. We get to the track and warm the motor up and changed the filter, run the heat and win going away put us on the outside pole John Werthen was on the pole in Mr Bill's #97 had a fresh Carbone in it, I really didn't think the motor would servive the heat, well Sewell got by Werthen on the 4th lap and was gone and to much surprise it made it to the end and we won!! After the races Howie was telling the old man we had better order some more of those pans (which we did) and get a new block for that motor, well that motor went on to 3 more A-fea wins that year and didn't receive a new block until the winter rebuild and Pat threatened to break my fingers if I took that pan off before then!!

Another Story,

In the winter of '83-'84 Sewell would come to OKC on the weekends to help work on the car, on 1 Sunday morning Indian Tom, Howie and myself were at the shop working when we heard Meiko (our shop dog) going nuts up in the transmission shop, Howie walked up front and there was a black guy looking in the window and the dog was barking at him, Sewell tells the guy we're closed but the guy wouldn't leave, finally the guy gets mad and kick's his foot through the glass in the overhead door, Tom and I hear all of this going on and start up front only to be passed by Sewell going the other way yelling he's breaking in, when I get up to the door this guys foot is sticking about 2' inside the door with Meiko hanging on to it they are having a tussle the guy is screaming get the dog off me, I finally get the dog off and go out to talk to the guy, he's pissed was going to kill the world but left walking, in about 30 minutes (just had patched the window) Sewell looks up and say's there's that guy again, he had pulled up to the north door right against it I thought he was going to try and push it in, I ran out and yelled at him and he jumped out and started cussing at me and stomped off, me telling him you can't leave this car here. I went in and called the impound yard and had them come and get it, well as the wrecker driver is hooking it up the guy shows back up and the fight is on, Sewell was yelling at Tom and I to come quick, well wrecker driver's are pretty tough and he ran the guy off, Howie was nervious as the guy left he was yelling I'll be back. Late in the afternoon 3:30-4:00 Sewell was washing up to head back home when Tom and I hear this commotion up front so we start back up front and here comes Howie those 2 differant colored eyes bigger then silver dollars yelling he's back, I get to the door and Meiko is going nuts, I ask the guy what he wants and he say's MF what have you done with my car!!! I told him towed it off he responds I'm going to shoot your ass and reached inside his coat, I don't know how I moved that fast but I was out the door and had a hold of his arm and by the throat, Sewell was yelling TOM HE'S GOT A GUN HE'S GOT A GUN, Tom just opened the door and let Meiko out and came out, I damn sure didn't want to get shot so I wasn't turning loose of him, Meiko had him by the back of the left leg and Tom dog piled all of us, now you guys that remember Tom know he was big (340#) We're on the ground on that gravel, he's a tall skinny guy, he's on bottom I'm choking him with one hand and wrestling with his other arm trying to keep the gun in his pants Meiko is chewing on his left leg and Indian Tom is on top of all of us yelling to Sewell to call the police, the guy is going nuts yelling for us to get off him cause he's going to shoot all of us, as we're rolling around I look over at the door and Sewell has his hands cupped on his face looking out the door now I'm yelling call the cops, Sewell had that funny little grin on his face almost laughing at us, we wrestled around on top of that guy for what seemed like an eternity but was probably less then 5 minutes, when Larry Goodspeed our local cop rolled by just by chance and stopped he got the guy it cuffs and put him in the back seat he was carrying a Ruger .357 with 6 bullets in it!! When Tom and I walked up to the door Howie had locked it and was laughing at us I don't know who wanted to strangle him more, Tom said thanks for calling the cops and thats when we figured Goodspeed had just showed up as Howie said I didn't I locked the door and wasn't going to take my eyes off you guys in case he started shooting. Come to find out this guy's car had broke down a couple of blocks up the street, when he came to the door the first time he was just trying to get some help but he was alittle drunk and got mad when Howie wouldn't let him in so he kicked the window in got dog bit, went back and limped his car to the shop, only to have me have it towed away, get his butt kicked by the tow truck driver, then came back to get choked half to death, dog bit again, smashed into a gravel lot by a 340# Indian, get arrested by a bad ass cop and laughed at by a 2 colored eyed kinky haired Sewell!!! Oh and we fixed his car, paid the impound and wrecker fee, paid for his emergency room work and dropped all charges! He paid for the window!!!!!!

MY MY WHAT RACING CAN GET YOU INTO!!!!!!!

LOL...now I understand why most of the crews used to have one of those 300-350# "truck drivers". No offense, Warren.

Uh...........................David, uh.......................i take it you weren't 'director of community relations' in those days right? LOL

To All,

It was the end of '84 we were running the Rich Car, Stone was leading the NCRA pts but he had crashed really bad at the Knoxville NCRA race going completely out of the park over the thrid turn wall which most of you know is tall. The center had broke out of his RR wheel, we weren't really in the pt. chase as Shane didn't start driving for us until late June but we were making alot of noise, he won the 1st time he drove for us and was running top 3 everytime he was in the car, we pretty well had the BB/SS engine pkg ironed out and by then we had cut-up and redone that Rich Car to where we finally liked it. Shane went off to do the Calif. WOO swing so while he was gone we rebuilt a couple of the motors and freshened up some things on the car and made some big contriversial wing changes, the first race back was the NCRA race at OKC during the Fair, man it was cold we were pitted down off turn 1 in the infield there were a boat load of cars but we were kinda off by ourselves, we won the heat and started 2nd row inside in the A-FEA, the Hillenburg cars (we named them HECKEL&JECKEL after 2 black crows) were in front of us Stone just barly made the A he was still hurting from the Knoxville deal and was just hanging on. On the start the track was really slick going into 1 HECKEL slid up just enough for Shane to get by on the inside and it would stay this way until the finish but it was a hell of a race, you could have put a blanket over the 3 of them until about the 35th lap when we had a red flag, our RR was 75% gone, we had a new M-30 so we put it on and changed the LR also. The big change was in the wing we moved it forward alot and up a little, the track was starting to rubber up and we were alittle tight before the red, on the restart Shane ran about 1/2 way up on the track going into 1 and I thought JECKEL who was 2nd now followed by HECKEL might get by us but Shane pulled away alittle and we were perfect just started pulling away a few length's every lap and won, after a few laps HECKEL got back past JECKEL and that is the way we finished. When they puffed the motor it was small by alot 342 cu. in. and big Phil asked Pat what it should be, so he told him it was a SS motor the tach was setting on 8600 rpm, when Phil looked inside to read the tach he noticed the wing valve but we showed him it was not hooked up to any thing so it was no problem.

Well by the next time we ran that wing valve developed into a problem and it would be an issue at the next 5 races of which we won 4 and ran 2nd in the other but those are other stories!!!!!!

David, That is some pretty funny stuff there in those stories. Making the trek to Tulsa starting tomorrow and see who is the luckiest for this years Chili Bowl, with 293 entries I figure luck plays more a part of it than about anything else in this 5 day marathon of Midget Mayhem.

David I cant even remember what I had for lunch today more less if we ran a M-30 tire 25 years ago. Some great stories for sure. Ol' Howie was a crazy one to hang out with. When he started racing he drove for his brother in law, James Roberts. They where a pair alright. James would work like heck on that car and Howie, who had no fear, would run the guts out of that engine. I remember one night Howie and James where talking about what the car was doing and Howie is just bitchin about the car having a miss in it. Now I am just half listening to them, and not really paying alot of attention, and then I hear James just start laughing his butt off and old Howie just standing there with this straight look on his face and swearing that at 10500 rpm the motor did have a miss in it. I thought James was gonna just hit him. James just starts yelling 105, you mean 10 thousand 5 hundred RPMS!!!!!! Howie goes yea, why? James just put his head down and walked off with Howie still stating his case.

I saw Howie about 6 years ago over in Ft Worth somewhere. He had a short haircut but other than that he was the same ol Howie.

The older I get the faster I use to be

I never got to meet Howie Sewell, but sounds like he was every bit as energetic as his name implies. I do remember that even down here away from it all we heard about the Ewell/Sewell wars and when Shane would be in town. Throw in Mike Peters along with Herb Copeland and then the OFFIXCO batallion you had a plate full of top notch drivers and teams.

To me, at least one validation of this groups ability was the NCRA/USAC event that came around. Those guys up there took

a long-wheelbase race every bit as serious as here. In 13 seasons this group went from just getting organized to taking on and getting their respect.

Thank you for these stories David, they're the ones we never get to hear about. When do we get to hear about the wing valve deal?

21N,

The old man taught me something years ago when I was a kid, he didn't really want me race'in but if I was going to then remember everthing I did because in the end those memories would be all I would have, that all of those trophy's and a quarter wouldn't buy you a cup of coffee. When we moved the Transmission shop we threw away about 150-175 trophy's Janelle & I both wanted to keep them but he said pitch'em, the only ones he kept were his NCRA Championship trophy's ('76 & '86) and the Hutch Nationals trophy from '85.

When we hired Howie he was a piece of work only thing I had ever seen with 2 differant colored eyes was an inbred dog. He would mash the gas pedal no doubt about that!! About 10 years ago at the Dallas NHRA Drag race I was mounting some tires and this young guy kept staring at me, after I had finished he walked up and said do you know who I am? Well that can make your heart race, I squared up and said I could less who you are, his reply I'm Howie Sewell Jr. I hadn't seen him since he was 5-6 yrs old about that time Howie walked up with James and your right he hadn't changed much, I see James a couple times a year at OCRS races and he says HtD is still kicking down in the Dallas area.

Sorry been out of the loop for a little bit. Been doing year end inventory at work, 14 hour days & it's just no fun.

Remember when Howie drove the C.L. Boyd car on the half mile, man that thing sounded like a chain saw coming off the corners. Not sure what gear they were pulling but I do know they twisted that thing! Of course with no wing they just always sounded better anyway.

David I know exactly what you mean about the memories. My dad got in one of those moods at one time & tossed all his pictures & trophies! I managed to hide a few of them & still have em. To most people it may be clutter, but I'll never get rid of this stuff. Maybe someday we will have on Oklahoma racing hall of fame I can donate some stuff to, so I can share it properly.

See you guys soon, Jim.