Cliff Kotary’s six-consecutive wins (1960-65) in the New York State Fair Championship, held each Labor Day from 1949 to 2002 (except 1950) on the treacherous Syracuse mile, put him in a class by himself.
By the late 1950s, NASCAR’s Fonda Speedway and Monroe County Fairgrounds featured coupes with “factory steel” tops, from 1936 on up, with power from Ford 312 overhead-valve engines and then the all-conquering Chevy small block V-8s. But State Fair promoter Ira Vail, a former “big car” driver, stuck with the smaller purse “flatheads” from Watertown, Waterloo, Five Mile Point, Glen Aubrey, Morris and southern Ontario, Canada. 
Most were “square” coupes from the early ’30s with minimal roll cages and were generally unsafe for the speeds attained at Syracuse. Al “Suicide” Sanders’s car sported cardboard floorboards while many others had huge holes flycut in the body to save weight. Choking dust, massive crashes, splintered wooden fence boards penetrating cockpits and drivers lying on the track awaiting medical attention were the order of the day. Still, huge fields turned out for a shot at the $700 winner’s purse and the adulation of a crowd that filled the grandstands and the infield.
Nicknamed the “Copper City Cowboy” because a huge Revere copper factory was located in his hometown of Rome, Kotary started his streak in his No. 60x, co-owned by his brother, Al. Along with two more brothers, NASCAR competitors, Robbie and Tommy, they comprised one of New York’s most famous racing families. But the car was eventually sold, leaving the State Fair champion rideless.
Fulton residents Howard Ouderkirk, Ken Bonney and Bill Dudley had originally built their ’33 Ford coupe for the paved Oswego Speedway, where racers were making the transition from full-bodied coupes to the “bird cage” or “bug” racers that would eventually become supermodifieds. Weighing but 1,650 pounds with driver, the flyweight won on the Waterloo dirt before a wild crash pushed the left side in, breaking Dudley’s leg.
The car passed to Carl Rice and Leon Chesbro, who installed Chesbro’s potent flathead under the hood and Kotary in the seat. Cliff immediately won at Waterloo, then swept Syracuse for the fourth time. He won two more before Larry Nye won the last “flathead” event prior to a rule update that put such stars as Dutch Hoag, Don Diffendorf, “Irish” Jack Murphy and Kenny Brightbill to victory.
Kotary still raves about the No. 90, calling it the “fastest, best handling car I ever drove at Syracuse.” 
The coupe passed to Gordy Wood, who wrecked it severely in a much-photographed double flip at Fulton Raceway and parked it. Historian Jeff Ackerman eventually rescued and restored the rusted hulk to running condition, even winning a vintage race at the New York State Fairgrounds in 1995 under Kotary’s proud gaze. The car is believed to be the only State Fair winner from the “flathead” era still in existence.