During the mid-1960s, New York’s NASCAR-modified scene underwent a major transformation as the locals realized the invading New Englanders were blowing them away with cars that were hundreds of pounds lighter.
Cars built for dirt were no match for flyweights braced with exhaust tubing and sporting suspension tricks honed to perfection on the asphalt at Riverside Park Speedway in Massachusetts.
Some built their own lightweights, but many hired Agawam, Mass., based fabricator Freddy Rosner, who’d had great success with many-time national sportsman champion Rene Charland. The cars were light, fast and — most importantly — completed in a week.
“We needed a car in mid-season, because I’d wrecked my first car really bad,” recalls Dave Lape, who’s still racing today. “Back then, you spent all winter building a car. But he had it mostly done in five days, and eight days from the start we had it painted and ready to race. He charged my dad $300 for his labor plus room and board, so we put him up at our house for the week. We supplied everything except what we bought off his Agawam Speed Shop truck, which he brought with him.”
Lape’s mentor, famed car-owner Bob Whitbeck, had a ’53 Chevy frame sanded and ready to go when Rosner arrived and away they went, though the methodical Whitbeck and go-go-go Rosner had a bit of a culture clash.
“Freddy bent the tubing and did everything — the welding, the brackets, the motor mounts, the suspension — with Bob doing a little machine work and about 10 of us kids helping with cleanup, cutting and grinding pieces, and all that. Where Bob focused on neatness and appearance, Freddy was concerned with one thing: getting it done.
“He’d been building coupes for everyone, but we did a Chevy II because NASCAR was encouraging late-model bodies with a bonus. I got the $150 bonus a lot, running three nights a week, and when you won, too, it was a lot of money for those days.”
Lape has fond memories of the car, as it let him establish himself as a top-line competitor able to run with the stars of the day, among them Kenny Shoemaker, Bill Wimble, Charland, Eddie Flemke, Bugsy Stevens and Freddy DeSarro.
As for Rosner, Lape says whenever they met they recalled their week together, but the car was not the focus of the conversation.
“We had him sleep in my sister’s canopy bed for a week and he talked about that for years,” recalled Lape with a big grin. “The car was just another car to him, but the bedroom was something really different.”