Nostalgia

Whizzer

Whizzer

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Just for the ones who wondered how races were started before they put those eagle nest type platforms twenty feet over the track for the starter, here it is up close and personal.

Note the starter stood on the track surface and on the inside of the track.

This picture was taken at White Lake Speedway, Sullivan County, White Lake, New York, sometime about 1960 or 1961.

Figured there had to be a way to be involved in racing and get paid rather than dropping all the money in a race car and tearing up equipment.

Ole "Whizzer" has aged a bit since the photo was taken.
 

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KEWL! I love to see pics like that!







And, you did just fine posting the pic! I knew you could do it! ;)
 
Two thumbs up Whiz! (Notice you caught the ladies eyes right off? I am proud of you man! ;) )

Seriously, great pic! :cheers:
 
Great pic Whizzer,I was just wondering if any flagmen got injured while starting races in such archaic fashion? :mellow:
 
One of the local tracks in these parts still uses a flagman's stand with the base on the track. There is enough room for one car to squeeze between the poles and the outside wall. That gets interesting. They hire a lot of flagmen there too in the course of a season. Hmmmmm.
 
Great pic Whizzer, and it brings back some fine memories of my own from the 50's!
Any more Nostalgic pictures?
 
I would ask you all to notice the receeding hairline, even at that young age.

Actually in answer to the question of injuries: they were very common. I have a friend who was tossed into the air and came down on the fourth car that passed under him. He still has a partial imprint of a Stromberg 97 carburetor in his forehead, a partially crippled arm and some steel pins and screws in one of his legs.
He went back on the track as a flagman the next season and quit when the promoters decided the races would be flagged from a stand overlooking the start/finish line but was still helping his sons with their racing efforts the last time I talked to him.

Ask Whizzer or some of the other old timers from his area about a crazy Indian named Tex Enright?
I'm sure the Whiz will recognize that name.
 
Tex Enright was my role model, but only as a race starter. Tex started races at Victory Speedway in Middletown, NY and at the old Nazareth track before they built the first new facility, not the present track.

Tex was a showman and a pretty good starter. Not as good as Nick Fornaro, but good. I think Tex also started races at Reading, but my memory gets a bit fuzzy about that.

Enright stood closer to the first turn than the start finish line, and as the cars came out of the fourth turn gathering speed, he ran toward them with the green flag in his right hand and the red flag to wave off the start if necessary, in his left. Enright didn't wave off many starts as the best modified drivers in the nation were from the northeast at the time and there were very few false starts.

Was it dangerous ??

Rather than go into a lengthy story on incidents and other stuff, I think, if ya'll (HEY!!! Clark and Bow !!!!!!! See the southern idiom stuck in there ??? ) are interested, I might put in a story of the adventures from those days. They were a blast and I really think the young people of today have so many things happening so fast they miss out on a lot of stuff.

boB will attest to that. The racing was different up until the eighties when things became more structured.

The funny thing is, although boB and I were involved in racing during the same time frame, we never met and still have never met face to face, but we do know a lot of the same people and quite possibly might have crossed paths in our early years, but never knew it. In retrospect, that is probably a good thing.

If Sam Curry sez it is okay, I'll delve into my memory bank and regale youse guys wid tales of racing as I knew it in the late 1950's and "60's.

Meanwhile, gotta go work on my tractor. "Whizzer" :cheers:
 
Whizzer please do post some of that old racing lore, i grew up back in the late 60s and 70s watching the Mods back in the Northeast and the racing was awesome. I love hearing stories from that era.
 
Whizzer, Please please tell us the stories!! thats the only way the true history gets passed along.
 
I'm not sure I could relate a lot of history, only personal experiences from my life.

I do not want to mislead anyone as the story would be a sort of humorous autobiography of a guy who raced what was then strictly stock cars and later became a starter. In other words, a bit of self-deprecation humor, if you will.

I had the story published on another website several years ago but it was nothing more than my personal experiences. I had a lot of fun writing it and giving an insight into the stuff that happened in the strictly stock racing world and how things pull together many years later.

Again, not to mislead. I helped a modified driver at Victory Speedway, but not on a full time basis so my recall of that would be sketchy and of little interest.

Hope I didn't give anyone the wrong impression thinking I was a recall history expert on guys like Frankie Schneider, Otto Harwi, Richie Evans, Rags Carter and Al Tasnady and others who were such great drivers.

boB is best suited for those memories as he was more associated and involved.
 
Great Pic and info, I think F-1 was doing it through the seventies weren't they? It always gave the driver something to aim for eh? :)
 
You did not misslead us Whiz, I have always found that the personal memories will include tons of things the record books wont. Much of the history of this or any other sport will be lost forever if you and folks like you do not pass it on. you have seen and done things I will never have the oportunity to do or see and I really am greatful when someone passes thier on knowledge.
 
The personal stories are the best Whiz...my dad would always talk about Norm Nelson & Eddie Sachs racing at the Milwaukee Mile back when USAC still ran stocks & was the north's version of NASCAR & also about when my uncle raced modifieds at Waukegan, Il back in the 60's.
 
Kat,

Norwood was a great bullring in its day, as was the track in Westboro. Some of the all time greats of modified racing ran at both of those tracks.
Catamont Stadium in Milton, Vt was called the Martinsville of the north; really nice track to race at with some great folks as competitors, officials and fans. Ran modifieds and LMS until the land was worth more as a shopping mall.
ThunderRoad, a real soupbowl built in a granite quarry. Little quarter miler, still runs on Thursday night and packs the stands every week as far as I know. Couple of fellows most of you have probably heard of owned and promoted those two tracks; Ken Squire and Tom Curley.
I think I only made it to Seekonk once or twice but it was quite a nice facility. Aptly named the cement palace. Went there with a late model and later on with a friend and his mini-modified.
I recall Thompson as it was before the renovations, dirt piles instead of retaining walls and rather fast for the time. And I remember Freddie DeSarro.
Limerock was/is probably one of the prettiest racetracks anywhere, especially in the fall of the year. I guess they have finally done some much needed renovations to the facility, but when we raced there the track infrastructure left a lot to be desired, some of the employees and track officials were quite rude, the paddock area grew rocks and the food was the worst I ever experienced at any track.
Stafford Springs, both as a dirt and paved track = modifieds. The best drivers in that division from all over the country.
Langhorne and Trenton and the ROC!
Nothing more needs to be said about either of those tracks.

There's also the old tri-oval that predated LEE USA SPEEDWAY, the 1/4 miler at Star that hosted the supermodifieds for so many years, and Hudson, which started as a midget track, ran modifieds and supers and is now running something called roadrunners. Some sort of entry level streetstock class?
And the Pines in Groveland, West Peabody arena, the old fairgrounds dirt track at Dover, NH, the 106 Midway Raceway and Bryar Motorsports Park on the site of NHIS, a 1/4 miler in a sandpit along state route 3A in Franklin, NH, Hurricane Road, that only ran jalopies for a year or two, but saw some great racing and we could go on and on here.
Gilford Bowl, Norway Pines, St. Johnsbury, not to mention Flemington, Nazareth, Reading, all those others in the Tri-State area which made some men famous and destroyed some others.

It seems as if everybody wants to run at least five or six different classes of streetstock/late model cars and trucks now and tracks are dropping their top divisions as too expensive, NASCAR wants to televise the big boys on Saturday nights, and then the promoters all wonder why the fans are staying at home?
That's another subject for some other time.

Whizzer is giving me credit for a lot more than I deserve.
I was just a young kid that loved racing; knew a little bit about what makes mechanical things work, harbored a never ending curiousity and need to learn more and always managed to find my way to somebody's shop that needed a hand, offered to feed my curiousity and was willing to pay my way into whatever track they were towing to that weekend.
And after a whole lot more years than I care to admit to, I guess I'm still doing about the same thing. Now it's through some of the media contacts from over the years and more money tied up in camera equipment than was invested in some of those early race cars, feeling a need to pass some of the passion on to just about anybody who'll take the time to listen, and a son who has inherited the disease and is still playing the same old game a bit now and then.

The thrill is still there everytime I hear a racing engine fire up; I guess it never does go away; but the dreams of becoming rich and famous were replaced by the reality of all the long hours spent in the shop, on the road and at the tracks along with the need to support a wife, family and a business or two along the way.
Priorities I think they called it back then.
It's been one he!! of a trip though.

I guess now that I've bored you all to death and probably halfway through the next life.....
 
Thanks boB :wub: :wub:
Know any stories about Dixie Spreedway and Road Atlanta? I have now lived in GA for 10 years. :katsip: :kattails:
 
Whiz: you and boB need to step up and pass on any personal stories from those days. An entire generation of fans could be enlightened by your recollections. You have an eager audience here and I could think of no two guys more knowledgeable(If a little --ah---'grizzled') than you two!

So post us some and make 'em good ones! :cheers:

Youse guys can do it! (notice the Jersey-style lingo,Ken?)
 
Whizzer and boB.....please post your stories and memories from races past. It will help the off season go by faster. We can also learn alot about our favorite sport, thus becoming better fans. We can pin your posts, so they can be read at that top of this section. Thanks in advance for your insight and the trip down memory lane.
 
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