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Jd thanks for the info I have been gone from race cars so long that i did not know what was what. When the aluminium heads came out there was a lot of talk about how they would be cheaper in the long run over the steel heads, you could fix the aluminium heads but not the steel ones. Is this all true?

I had forgot about Creek County and the old Muskogee tracks. Didn't Muskogee have trouble with OSHA?

The Dr said that this is the most serious back surgery that i could have. He has to re-brake the fusions that I have had and shave 10 degrees off to re -align the back, take out the old hard ware and install a permanent rod about 12 inches long. I will have to spend 1-2 nights in the ICU and 5-10 days in the hospital. He has 2 more tests that he wants to do then he can schedule the surgery and the surgery will take all day. I just want to get it over with.

Ray

Ray, First I can only imagine how bad you want it over with, I to suffer from a bad lower lumbar disk, said it was not to bad right now but still lets me know it's bad when I overdo it on occassion, When it does come time to do the surgery, maybe let us know on here.

As for the Muskogee track in Muskogee , yes it did have OSHA issues with the grandstands/over hang the past couple of years but these 2 guys now run it and they have done 1/2 of the grandstands to meet up OSHA standards (this was last fall when we were there for OCRS show), might have them all done now???.

The Aluminum head is a better deal when you talk about repairing them. Steel heads when blown up are boat anchors or scrap iron. Your right in the long run they are a better deal.

Is racing as much fun as it used to be? We used to race against a lot of the other guys then go out to eat with them after the races and everybody had a lot of fun. We would loan almost anything that we had to most of the other racers, there were certain guys that we would not help and I am sure that they would not help us.We Even had a Tulsa driver offer his car to Mike if it was needed but with 3 cars Norman always used the 17 as a spare car for Mike. I heard a saying when I started that if you were broke down on the highway in the middle of the night would the other team stop and help you and would you return the favour. When Norman first started down her the 117 car busted a radiator and we had no spare and were going to NCRA race in Lawton the next day, Joe Cox the owner of the 33 super and the grand old man of racing came down to see what we needed for he next day and said to follow him to his shop and pick up a spare radiator at his shop. I took it back to him the next week with a $100 bill from Norman and he would not take the money, he said racers help each other.I always remembered that. He did not know Us but was willing to help so we could race the next day.

Ray

Ray, In my opinion probably not as much fun as it was back in time and if David G. gets on here he can proably elaborate even more on it, like you said folks would lend many expensive things back then , like I seen Paul Ott take a head off of his car and lend to Bob Ewell at Lawton in the late 70's and helped him run 2nd in the Cyclone 50 Memorial weekend race they had at Lawton then . They say all things change and not always for the best.

It is more of a Me/I world out there today in racing in my opinion, again just change of times/generations of folks and so on, not a lot of commeradere around now , I blame it on the $$$$ part some, things are so high dollar now and so expensive that most have this mentality that I am here to win and take home ALL the money (which is very little) and pay off all that I have invested and not here to make friends, because of the high dollar car, motor and sometimes and more than not a big toter/semi and a big ol trailer, like Sat. night at 81 , Don't believe there was one open trailer there with the 59 cars entered , majority are $100,000 + haulers loaded full of parts and spare cars, motors and so on which makes it all business and seriousness at the maximum level. It is a monkey see monkey do sport at that level as well, when one guy runs a car/chassis and does well with it , all the others think they need one to do the same and go out and get several of em. Most update every year with new pieces , you almost have to with the stuff built so lightweight now that it is just not made to last very long and your abusing it as well with those high dollar/high HP Motors which makes it lifespan even shorter and well if ya tear it up , to the junk pile with your bent parts, when your at that level, It use to seem to be on with the World of Outlaw guys only but let me tell you ASCS is no longer mid level stuff , top of the line in every form, like I said last Sat. night at 81 told the story of what it takes to race at those levels and with the WoO now , Nascar money has invaded that deal and testing and up to 20 cars per team at the ready for the season and the money list goes on from there.

I also contribute as well the enclosed trailer/haulers, have to admit guilty of it myself , got a 22 Ft. enclosed trailer to haul the car in, makes for better security but again , you have no interaction with your fellow racers and the bigger teams can just race and run up into their hauler and isolate themselves from the fans etc.

At the local Champ Sprint level be it weekly shows or OCRS series you still have the big haulers by some but for the most part , guys will still lend you items if needed, had several offer me and Joe Wood Jr. a car in 09 when we crashed at the end of the season at SFS in OKC and was not sure if car was raceable , had several offer up a car to finish the season and I to will remember that from those who offered,I will lend guys stuff if they need it to get them through the night. I know when you pull to the track and especially nowadays with costs so high , if I can help them get some loot to go home on then I will do what I can to help. Just the way I look at it.

But like in about anything , you have a few who you lend to and not ever return the stuff you lent them , makes for a tough deal and prolly why it has made most of the racers leary of lending things but have not had that issue before but have seen it with folks I helped and seen it happen to them.

Again Ray, Naw it is not as much fun as back then, to many serious racers/folks with the win at all cost attitude and not here to make friends deal for the most part. I still try and have fun as much as possible but have to admit sometimes I still get a bit to serious and let it get to me like in 09 at SFS running for that points championship , last half the season I got to serious and wound up about points and that championship and lost sight of the fact I originally started this deal for fun.Told myself cannot let that happen again and even as bad as last year 2010 was with only 1 win and blown motor and DNF's as results of crashes , learned from 09 , just shrug it off and say that's racing and move on and here I am again in 2011 gonna do it one more time and with a new/rookie driver, guess since I was never fortunate enough to have kids, these Sprint Cars are the replacement with headaches and issues and fun and so on that have created these gray hairs I have that seem to be more noticeable all the time. LOL.

J.D.

They say money is the root of all evil. The cars that you run now , are they throw away cars I mean when the frame is bent do you try fix it or get another frame. Back in our day it was not uncommon for a chassis to last 5 years or longer.Some of Luther's cars won championships years after he had built them but I think with the WOO started it got to where that you did not fix anything you changed it. I bet there were a lot of engines ruined though because as you said we used to take the heads off in the pits and change them and a lot of other things. I know we did not clean or torques as well as you are supposed to just get it ready for the feature.It probably would have been better to change the whole engine but not to many had spare engines. We had our dead beats in our era, back then almost everybody ran a tapered rear axle. There was a one inch bolt that was one inch long that held the rear wheel assembly on. It was my job to make sure that these were tight before each race. At the Tulsa NCRA race in 1975 I was working on the 117 and the bolt had come out, this was not uncommon, we loaned one of the top super teams our last spare bolt at the Lawton race about a month earlier and he said that he would replace it the next week.Well he forgot and just shock his hands and said he was sorry, I said lets take our bolt out of your car and use it, Norman said for me to lightened up we would find another bolt I thought that the other car should have to chase it but Norman did not want to make waves.We went through the pits and nobody had a spare bolt. Finlay Steve Smith who owned a speed shop here, "Roy Loving Speed Shop" said he had one back at his store, We raced in my car to 15th and Peoria and got it in time for the heat races.

Ray

Ray, You are so correct on the money being the root of all evil, it is more than ever in the sport of Auto Racing today from F1 all the way down to racing Mini Stocks at the local dirt track.

As for the throw away chassis deal, depends on who you are , WoO ,most Big ASCS teams will throw a chassis away and get a new one before they would fix it, in this time when some WoO teams will have 10 to 20 chassis ready to race for a season, don't bother messing with one to try and fix it, same way with some ASCS teams and a friend of mine who races in Pennsylvania has told me that some of the teams up there like Rahmer and several others can have up to 8 to 10 chassis with most of them completed and ready to race.

I guess when you race 80 to 100 times a year it is easier to just pull another car out plug a motor in and go race than go through the fixing/repair process,time is short between races when you race as many times as the Big time teams do.

Some Regional ASCS racers and local racers I know like me will repair a car, I have an 06 Eagle that has been crashed in front and new clip was put on in 07, heck I just got the car and only raced it 2 times and it only had 8 total shows on it, was lucky I got it repaired for about $400 and it still works really good , was the chassis we ran 2nd in pts. deal at SFS in 09 , car has nice window on setup and handle about anything you throw at it for the track conditions and we threw lots at it for about 3 yrs. but found what Jr. liked in it and stuck with that once we found it worked and felt fast to him. Seen other cars repaired and struggle and have all kinds of issues trying to get it to go around the race track, guess it depends on who the repairer is??.

This 08 Eagle going to run this year is 9 shows old by a Sprint Car driver in Tx. and he won 2 times in it in the 9 shows, never been bent or ???. So see how well it does here hopefully this weekend.

I remember those Halibrand Tapered axles really well, had one on my first 100" car I bought back in the 80's from a guy in Independence , Ks. , that rear was heavy and had those mag hubs on it and had home made birdcages for radius rods pick up, I to had to tighten that bolt some to ,especially on the LR , seemed more towards the end of me owning that rear than when I first bought it, had to take a socket 1" and turn the OD down to get it to fit inside the tapered axle. also had the old steel PS unit and had the belt pump run off the front of the motor, had to fabricate a bracket for it to make it work and I had to tighten it seemed after everytime we raced it or belt would slip or just come off, think I went through at least 5 belts in a season or so, even found a few of them on the race track, the belt number at parts house was 9391, still remember it well , bought a few of them ,lol , always knew when it was getting loose , it would squeak when you first started the car.

To elaborate a bit further on today's racing, tires and the wings have drove up the cost of stuff in my opinion, it would be my 2 biggest reasons of high costs, Those tires today are just something glue a car to the track and factor in an air foil on them that is putting a ton of downforce on those tires and then the technology/innovation of racers with lighter parts and the list goes on and on.

Really why I am considering the Wingless E Sprint next year, miss the non wing stuff, did it all the way up to 1999 and then Winged Sprint Cars became all the rage around here in the local stuff. Remeber the wingless 100" cars and liked them, I hear from some who will say well you will tear up more stuff wingless, have a hard time buying that cause you can sure tear up a whole bunch of stuff with a wing as well and they build these wings so light today that most of them come off after the first flip or so , they just kind of breakaway , so to speak. Again just my opinion on it.

J.D.

There was a saying in the old days that a car does't handle well until it had been bent up some. One driver told me that his car was 2 inch different in the wheelbase from one side to than the other and he told me that it handled well. Remember those times with at torch and a come along chained to a beem at Bill Humprhies shop to heat a front axle and try to straightened it. The 71 had the front clipped 3 times that I know of and it still won features, due to more of the drivers ability than anything else. I said earlier on this site that Mike and I were watching a race and 2 young drivers were really getting after it and he said let them take the wings off and see how well they due. I guess with the wings and soft tires you really have the car glued down and that really is hard on the engine. What if they took the wings off put a hard narrow tire on the right rear and let them race, you would find out who could drive and who couldn't. We straightened radius rods on the trailer. Used a screw driver for the keyway when the 71 lost it and the bolt off the left rear in a heat race (we had a spare bolt then) we finisher 3rd in the feature that night, in Tulsa anytime you had a top five you were happy. We were considered a high dollar team so I am sure that there are a lot of better stories out there about jury rigging than I have. Good luck this weekend and let us on the site know how you do at the racetrack

Ray

Ray

That non downtube Stealth I have now in Storage was bent in a wreck from a guy in Tulsa and they porta powered it around and it really works well, thought about using it for the wingless deal but think I will just wait till I am ready to restore the deal, it ran 9 yrs. with me and it did it's time won a few races and survived. So it'll be a restore project.

Mike P. is right take the wings off and see what ya got then???.

Reason why I am really considering the non wing deal next year, take the wings off and if I had my way about it , stay with the same size tire just make it as hard as the ol Firestone Diamond RR of the 70's, it'll last longer and it'll unhook the cars and make your driver better, he'll actually have to hustle and drive the car , not like a slot car and hold er straight. The Wings and soft tires are really hard on the motors , especially how light the parts now are in Race Motors, upper 30# Cranks, Maxi light Rods in the 200 or less Gram range, Pistons that are as light as a bird feather, just heard from a guy who saved up enough loot to go buy a Callies 38# Crank, $3190 paid for it, Honda journal rods and it was developed by RCR (Nascar) and Callies just helped them develop it, you have to buy the bearings from RCR for it and they are a mere $520 for the set , got about 3/4" of bearing run on them, hate to know what would happen if one turned on the crank ,it would not be pretty and probably nothing would be saveable in the motor I bet.

Just the start on the light weight motor stuff and the price list can go on.

In my opinion and again everyone has one on this issue but from what I have seen and done through the years as a car owner , I think way to cut motor cost these days are a Cam lift rule (Solid), Spring Pressure Rule and Head compression Rule and 5.7 Rod Length rule.3.48 Cast Crank rule, All these rules easily checked with a scope and a few tools and motor should not have to be torn into and cause issues with gasket replacements and so on. This Wingless E sprint class has something close to these , as long as they stick with it and TECH THE CARS FOR RULES, it will be a class that could grow. But the jury still out on that right now.

Sure hope to get to practice and see the car turn some laps on Sunday, calling for rain Sat. night though, we shall see. Sure will let you know how it went, just hope car runs well and driver gets comfortable in it and we just improve each session out on the track.

J.D.

$520 for a set of bearings, wow how much is a good set of rods? The real good carillo rods use to run almost a $1,000 so I bet they are 3 to 4 times that now. The purses have not gone up that much, some have even dropped. I saw a add for a titanum bolt for $990 to assemble a car with. How much weight would you save with these? With a weight limit do they make the car as light as possible then put weigth were you want? If this keeps up there will not be any local racing in a few years.

Ray

Yep the guy was pretty stunned when he was told about the price of bearings for the crank and thing is , you can only get them from RCR, guess they got the design and don't want anyone else to get them , that secrecy stuff I guess????.

Rods can run up to $3,000 for a set from what I understand when you get into the long roded maxi light stuff, when you start stroking or de stroking motors to get what you want out of them for short or long tracks , hell they got motors for em all now, speacilty motors. The WoO guys have em for sure.

Ya hear lots of stories but I heard Sammy Swindell had WoO car that weighed 1125# wet with all liquids and about 3 Gal. of fuel in tank with a close to 900 HP 410 motor, your getting real close to 1:1 weight/HP Ratio and that is kind of scary , also heard Joey Saldana has some really light weight cars as well.

Your right on that statement , get car light as possible and or how much you can afford to and then put weight where you want to help you make weight for a rule and help car to work better ,lots use a steel motor plate and also a steel floor plate now , gets weight in center of car and rotational weight is the big thing for most of them, like at 81 Sat. night looking at Lasoski car, not a bad bolt on piece on it,everything A-1 and top of the line , but had heavy stuff on it that helped him make the 1475# weight limit that ASCS requires.

I remember Karl Kinser back in the mid 90's right before him and Steve split, they were at Dallas WoO show and was looking over his car and Karl had drilled out the wrap around seat belt hardware pieces, I ask him why and his response was weighed to much , so lightened em up. I think WoO stopped him from doing that for safety concerns but seen later when his son Mark ran for him , he would radius the hardware on them , just made them smaller in size and done away with the drilling so not to cause issues with WoO Safety , but found another way to lighten with radiusing them and radiusing them probably made them stronger??? and also did what he wanted and that was take weight off of the car.

I know Kenny Woodruff once told several of us at a Sprint show that most all WoO guys always kept their cars clean and it was to help impress folks/sponsors but that every speck/pebble of mud made the car weigh more and that was not good , so a clean car weighed less, I also see now where lots of teams will do away with bolts to clamp together a direct mount front wheel , just silicone the 2 pieces together to hold air and pop tire on with minimal air and bolt it onto hub and let hub bolts hold wheel together, all to save about 5-5/16" bolts about 1" long with a locking nut. Now were getting into ounces here and to some every ounce counts.

J.D.

hell man, had you ever seen bobby allen's sprint cars, they hardly ever saw a car wash, must of had 100 ## of mud/dirt on them, had to weigh a lot more than the clean cars. his hauler trailer had 4to 6 i/n of dirt in it along with all the oil ect. any how i wasn't able to be at 81 last sat, would have liked to visit, especiall about thtpicture i sent ya taken in the pits at 81...... that show sat was way past my bed time any way 2push trucks for 69 sprinter's!!!!!1

The WoO came were in 1979 and 1981. the cars back then were as simple as possible if it did not help to go fast it was not on the car.The nerf bars and bummer on a lot of them were not even painted very few were chromed. There were some change in '81 the covered trailers were coming in, Gary Stanton had what was a early toterhome and his car was one of the best looking ones I f it was not needed to go fast it was not on the cars. Bob Hindman was a local driver and he told Steve Kinser "you guys would drive naked to save weight if they would let you" . The Kinser 11 car was one of the plainest ones but it was fast.it had the first slider coupling that i ever saw.The handle was a rusty all thread bolt with a Small bolt welted on the end for a t-handle. They did not carry spare cars then, Steven Kinser had to drive the Stanton car the next in KC because he tore the 11 up here. By 1981 the covered trailers had started. Some teams had spare engines. Donnie Ray Everitt was a well known mech, we went up to his car and he was changing engines, we asked " having engine troubles?' he said no he was just putting in their big block for the fast tracks. He told us that they had 377 inch engine for the little slow tracks and a big block for the fast tracks.There was not an engine size limit then, there were rumours that some of the cars had engines over 500 inches. They did not have a way to pull the engine from their trailer,a wrecked had to help them. The engines were steel blocks and aluminium heads. The teams would try to pick up local sponsorship and put them on their wings. A lot of people were upset with Nance all over the car and it was not a Nance car. They had a lot of Nance parts and like bushwacker said Nance came out with the slider coupling. Compared to our supers these cars were not pretty but man could they ever run.

Ray

Ray, I remember Edd French from Dallas came up through the Sagebrush WoO tour back in the early 80's with a Big Block and those Zoomies Headers and was fast at Bellville, but was not that great at Lawton or 81 that I remember and those Zoomies were so deafening.

Got to see my Sprinter turn about 30 laps yesterday and car and motor ran well, driver has talent and got the feel for the bigger car, had a good time and felt like we got better and better each time and track was dry/dusty but we made adjustments like he wanted to and worked well for him yesterday.

Start for real this Friday night.

generally the zoomies were for short tracks, yep noisy as hell... note ED FRENCH will be inducted into the BELLEVILLE hall of fame this summer.. along with JACK PETTY and 8 other's.....

bushwacker, I sure know that Big Block with Zoomies that Ed French had would ring your ears and deafen you in the middle of the infield at Bellville in 81.

That is a heck of a deal for Ed , he has been at it a long time , I believe his car was the first time I ever seen a sprint tank or sprint tank cover #7777 and covered the whole tail tank on a Super Modified back in 73/74 at Lawton,it was odd looking then to me but little did I know it would become the norm on about all open wheel cars now.

One thing is pretty cool , a guy up from Tulsa that runs Creek and will run Brill this year has an E Sprint and has a square tank on it with a down tube Eagle chassis and has the rounded old style nose on it, Brian has posted a pic of it on here before, really is a good looking car, I guess he runs a Modified type fuel cell with it covered somewhat by the fiberglass cover. Watching it run this past Sat. night at Creek Co. Speedway made me think of way back when.

J.D.

Let us know how you do Friday. How much weight would you save using the titanium bolt kit that cost $999 ?

Ray

Ray, Depends if your using Hollow/Drilled Bolts or Solid Bolts, some Tracks/Series Organizations will not allow Drilled bolts anymore , safety issue and so teams go with the Ti Bolt Kits, Ti to Hollow Bolt Kits 6# to 8# weight savings and Solid Bolt Kits 9# or a bit more. Not much savings for a $1,000 , which is why you have to add in the lightweight axle in the Ultra Lite rearend , Ti lower shaft , Ti Drive Shaft ,Ti U Joint set up ,Ti Motor Plates Front and Rear , Ti Wing Tree Stands Nose Wing and Top Wing ,Ti Wheel Bolt/Nut Kit for all your wheels, Ti front Spindles/Hubs ,The Red Devil Ultra Lite Brake Kit for LF and Inboard and RR or LR if you choose to add it,Ti Jacobs Ladder Linkage Kit,Ti upper and lower Fuel Cell Plates and the list goes on and the price goes up and we have yet to get into the motor which you can obtain Ti Parts for it as well.

Will let you know how it goes for Friday as it all gets started for real and hope we survive and load it up in one piece and have a good finish Fri. night. Real pumped up about it and ready to go.

J.D.

$1,000 to save 9 pounds wow!!! Do you know of any driver that got in trouble with his car owner because that the driver gained weight?

Ray

Welcome to today's modern Sprint Car Racing Ray,You know I have wondered that as well, when your at the WoO level I just wonder if that does come up as an issue, owner tells driver why not over the winter join Weight Watchers and see if ya can help us out on that part of it, cause ya know they worry about ounces up at that level.

Ray, Did not race Friday, Cancelled the show, was to cold , try again this Fri.

Just want to address a situation that really is scary about today's racing and how it seems to have really changed for the worse it seems. The Computer is probably the biggest blame to it happening but in all my years of growing up and watching and going then owning a car and participating in this thing we call Dirt Track Racing, Don't believe I have ever seen another time like now with just general negativity in Local Short Track Racing. Seems every message board you go on or even on Facebook , just negativity about it from all angles and scary thing is the Promoters seem to be firing back with there own answers and most are not pretty on their answers, not sure how good of a deal that is for them to do but only time will tell about that.

I know drivers and promoters have gotten into it over the years and drivers vs. drivers is all common as well but it seems EVERYONE including fans is out to get the other, Like I said I blame the Computer for most of it and it just allows folks to voice their displeasure instantly and to the masses without having any confrontation face to face. Seems in the last 3 weeks there has been more negativity , not sure what it's cause is??, maybe it's a bad economy , stress of racing, way of the world in today's racing, pressures, who knows but it is really something to see and hear about and it is just the start of the season, I know the puter can be used for good things and communication and really not sure what the answer is to solve issues but just stating what I read and see for the most part these days is not pretty nor good for and with racing.