When the Lost Speedways presentation at the Saratoga Automobile Museum concluded Saturday, the more than 200 listeners spent the rest of the afternoon renewing acquaintances and bench racing.
As we thanked everyone for participating, we got involved briefly with publisher and former racer Lew Boyd, master restorer Bruce Carman and his long-time modified shoe, Dick Hansen. Hansen, who parked Carman’s blue-and-white coach in numerous victory lanes, was a guy who raced wearing a bandana, a brush cut and a Bell helmet, which tells you his age. And since he still looks fit enough to race, we asked him if he missed driving.
“My interest in racing went away when we quit going to the junkyards in early November!” said Hansen emphatically. And while Boyd, Carman and I nodded knowingly, younger listeners just gave him a quizzical look. They obviously hadn’t participated in the first stages of building a new race car in the “pre-factory” days, a task that began each fall as soon as the last race was run. We remember it like it was yesterday, not 40 years ago.
If possible, you went before it snowed. Tools were loaded in the trunk of the DeSoto we hauled our tandem axle, open trailer with or, later, onto the ramp truck. Either way, the acetylene torch tanks and wheeled cart were strapped on along with some long pry bars. Depending on where the “next” coupe or sedan was located, the ride could be anywhere from a few minutes to an hour but after that, the main variable was how much help you had.
First, the desired frame would be located. For a while, early ’50s Chevy frames were the hot ticket but progress soon put ’57 Chevys with a bigger rear kickup and less rust in the spotlight. The car, hopefully motorless, had to be tipped on its side, then the bumper brackets, gas tank straps, brake lines and cables and the heads of the body mount bolts burned off. Soon a bare frame was ready to load.
Step two was to peel the sheet metal off a ’36 or ’37 Chevy, like taking the skin off a grape. The doors and trunk were cut loose and loaded, then you’d cut around the cowl, along the bottom and across the panel where the trunk and back window came together. Some gentle prying would show what else had to be cut and soon the car’s skin was flopping around on the ground, ready to load.
From that point on, the trip became a scavenger hunt. You looked for a good Chevy steering box and cut that off, along with two or three steering shafts to use with u-joints to connect the box to the steering wheel. Once home, the steering boxes‚ mounting ears would be cut off, edges ground and a piece of pipe slid over the box.
After the proper angles were determined by trial and error, the pipe, the box and a flat plate would be welded together and bolted under the frame.
Other “hot tickets” were Buick brakes with finned drums, which would be machined to fit onto Ford hubs, and Ford truck rear-end housings to bolt onto quick-change center sections. With luck, a variety of housings and axles could be found to allow some offset, especially if you tracked down a Studebaker truck using Ford-style housings with different length tubes and axles.
Top-loader Ford three-speed transmissions were also coveted, as internal parts were constantly needed, though the pressure eased when the Ford Falcon hit the streets. While the outside was different, Ford used the same synchronizers, bearings and gears to save money, unknowingly giving the old transmissions in modifieds a new lease on life.
Other desirables included small diameter drive shafts, pedal assemblies and master cylinders, all sorts of brackets with holes drilled in them and steering parts.
Independent suspension steering linkage would be cut apart, with the tapered holes used for shock mounts and to mount the drag link to the pitman arm and the steering arm on the left front wheel. And heavy-duty truck tie rods could be cut off and welded into the end of a split wishbone to connect the front axle to the frame. Heim joints were for the “rich guys.”
Spare front axles of the size that were the hot item of the moment, were also hunted down, with the wishbone car axles in vogue for a while before wider truck axles became the norm in western New York.
With the junkyard parts home, the building process began. Slightly bent rear axle tubes were cut off and machined into front “bolt ons” or safety spindles. Frames were cut off in the front, a square tube front crossmember was welded in and “Flemke” front springs and jacking bolts attached. A pipe bender was used to build the roll cage. The body was shortened and narrowed and the window openings enlarged. Nearly every part, from throttle linkage to seat mounts to bumpers and rub rails, was custom built.
The main parts that were “store bought” were the fuel cell, adapter from Chevy motor to Ford transmission, quick-change center section, seat and seat belts, four shocks and the radiator.
With luck, the car would be done by late winter, leaving a couple of weeks to work on the towing equipment before the season began. Today, that’s when many racers dig in and assemble their new cars, having purchased every part. Many buy “rollers,” which only require engine installation, some plumbing and graphics to be race ready.
Racing is still a lot of work but it’s a different kind of effort. Today’s racers, at least the ones who win, spend their time tweaking and doing maintenance and prep work. They don’t build much themselves, though the time invested is likely equal to the “old days.”
Winning is still winning. But, as Dick Hansen will tell you, it was sweeter when you built everything yourself and your car was not exactly like all the other cars on pit road.