Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
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Chick Cigaletto {if i spelled it right} drove the 33 for Cox from about 1960 to at least 1965,,i am not sure from 65 to when Emmitt got in it ,,,,i was not around Tulsa alot them 2 years,,, i am not sure if there was anybody between them.that drove the car..

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

Tim you are right Chick drove the Cox car before Emmett. It was a coupe until 1968 when the Edmonds was built. I heard that Dennie Moore built it but not sure. Chick was a good friend of a driver named Karl Bolton and when Karl was paralysed in a wreck Chick retired from racing. I am kinda surprised that you don not remember who drove the car in 1970 your father raced with him several years.

Ray

Wasnt it Jack Layne that drove the #33 it in 1970....dad didnt run every night that year and i missed a few because of Bowling Tournaments And Baseball...It took me a few minutes to think about it..

Also i remember 1967 at the SW Missouri Nationals 50 laper at Joplins Ozark Speedway when Emmitt Hahn was driving the #33 Coupe ,,,Emmitt leed that race for 49 laps and Dad Jack Belk got him on the last lap and won it...The crowd went WILD they had never seen dad get beat in Joplin in a race like that from an out of towner.......After the Race my dad said he waited untill the last lap because of what happened to him the week before.....The week before dad was leeding the Championship race at Neosho Mo 71 Speedway and Duane Beckham got him on the last lap to win it,,he used laped traffic the same way dad did to get the win..Dad said he knew Emmitt was good enough to do that to him and he was not going to let it happen to him 2 weeks in a row..So he made is bid on the last lap and it payed off.

Duane Beckham is the Uncle of Terry Beckham Jr,,,who runs A Mods around the region and win his share today..Duane won several races in Modifieds and Late Models in Arkansas,Joplin Mo and Monett Mo back in the 60s and 70s and his brother Terry Beckham Sr did well also...Terry Senior still races Midwest mods at Springfield Mo in his early 60s Terry SR is Terry Jr dad,,.and was a team mate to my brother Randy Belk this year in the Midwest Mod class there...Theyb are both running pretty good in there 60s

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

Your right tim Jack Layne drove the 33 in 1970. He drove his #10 car before 1970 and in 71 drove the Melvin Jernigan #44 Bills T records car that was a twin to the Ray Crawford/Ron Fowler 45

Ray

Larry drove the 33 starting in 1974 at the new track. He won a feature that spring, it might have been the last win for Joe Cox. Larry had a wreck and wiped out the 33 and Joe bought a car form I think Mike Kaufman and painted it like the old Edmond's Emmett's last year to drive was for Joe was 1969, Jack Layne drove in 1970, James Eubanks 1971/1973 and Larry Deatherage from 1974/? James won the last race that he drove for Joe and the last race at the old Tulsa track in October 1973.

C. J. Ruckman I have not heard that name in years, do you know what the C. J. is?

Joe Cox was the grand old man of racing in Tulsa, i have a program in the garage with a picture of him driving a race car in the 1920s, I will try to find it and have somebody post it

Ray

I didint realize that C J Ruckmans 33 car was a Joe Cox car back in 60 and 61..Its hard sometimes when you go back and try to figure out who owned each car each year..Thats what makes this forum so good is being able to get car owners right and other people involved in a car during different years.....I got so use to seeing the #33 white all them years..If i remember right Ruckman 33 in 60 and 61 was a dark color and had that tall bumper on it.Now i am trying to rememeber what number Chick C drove in 60 and 61..I cant get to my records because i moved my stuff becuase of the Joplin Tornado..So i cant get to it untill i get rebiult there in a few more months.

Win as if you are use to it.And lose as if you enjoyed 
it for a change.Its hard to get to the top and alot 
harder to stay there.

I love reading about how things were done back in our day. This story about the truck engine blocks is priceless

Ray

I wonder how many engine builders could do this today, they would just order what they needed.

I have a question, when we were younger we used to look at every Chevy V-8 and see if it had the FI heads. Did the early FI heads have smaller valves than the later and what year did they change? The light bulb over the head goes off and I think that the early heads had a 1.94 inch intake valve and the later had a 2.02 intake.

Ray

Back in the 80's we could run a stock Cyl. Head and would look for those from what some called Performanc/Muscle Car Heads with casting #'s with last 3 digits like 291,460,461 and the all elusive and eventually banned 461X , they had the 2.02 Int. and 1.94 Exh. size Valves in them.

I probably have the intake and exhaust valve confused. We did not know the numbers just that the FI heads had 2 humps on the front and the others were straight.

Ray

Ray, I bet they were the same one's ,we called em Double Hump or Camel Humps as well, had the 2 humps on front of head, , I guess somewhere someone found the better Performance heads and got the numbers out and like I said in past post , usually went by the last 3 digits on the head.

When we were able to run them in late 80's and through the 90's till the Alum. Spec head we run now came about , you would have to have them worked for Screw in Studs and with the bigger Vavle Springs we run.1.550 Dia. had to cut Valve Pockets out for size and angle mill them and give them a competition 3 angle valve Job and with parts and all , ya could tie up $500 to $1,000 in them back then depending on how expensive parts ya wanted to buy for them. Looking back prolly would of been cheaper to go straight to alum. heads and ran them. But hindisight is easy to see.

J.D.

What driver won 3 modified championships in a row at Tulsa? who won the largest NCRA purse including all lap and contingency money, when and where did they win it?

An answer to an earlier qustion: In 1978 3sets of brothers ran with the NCRA, Bob and Jon Ewell, Darrell and Earnest Jennings, Joe and Butch Roberts

Ray Crawford won the modified championship at Tulsa, 1966, 1967 &1968

Ray

I'm not so sure that I would call it "the wrong fork in a road". I saw the need to make some changes - do some reprioritizing. Racing is no longer the most important thing in my life. My God and my family truly do come first now. That hasn't always been the case. This has been a good year for me. I've attended five races and that is more than normal. Modern racing just doesn't excit me like local Racing from the Past does.

"Stay between the fences and don't scratch the paint 
above the windows"