Photo by numbers....

[Frasson118]

Interesting shot here... Wendell Scott, the only black guy to ever win in Nascar, alongside Roy Tyner, who was the subject of the Jim Croce song "Rapid Roy (The Stock Car Boy)".

[Jimmy McKinley]

...and Tyner, if I recall correctly, was a full-blooded American Indian.

[ModelCarMan]

John Gamble at Volusia Speedway Park in 1980.

[Jim Fenton]

Your’s truly in the #35 Tornado. I drove this car in 73’ & 74’ at Sunshine Speedway & Golden Gate for Tony Sciarretta & Willard Smith (S & S Masonry) as I was transitioning into Late Models.








From Golden Gate program dated October, 1974.

[ModelCarMan]

Jim you have drove a lot of race cars over the years, I never knew you drove that many. All I remember is you in your #FOUR latemodel.

[ModelCarMan]

Here's John Gamble in the 34, but I don't know the drivers in the 38 and 39. They're raced around Barbervilles and Ocala during this time, early 80s.

[ancrdave]

Not sure about the #38 (maybe it's old dd38 during his "dirt" days lol)... The #39 is probably Buddy Powell, James Powell III's dad...

[BOB KRUPA]

Your's Truely, 1961 Mercury.
The rules was you can run a 352 c.i. in a big body Mercury, and a 289 c.i. in a Comet or Fairland body.
I had a good 352 c.i. laying around, so i got this big Mercury.

[Jim Fenton]

I jumped at the chance back in the day to take this Pete LaBree ride over from Dan Daughtry when Dan vacated it to take the wheel of his first Late Model ride in the impressive new 1969 Chevelle #39 called “The Looker” owned by Denny Shows. (wish I had a pic of that car but I don’t).

Even though I managed to capture ROY in this class earlier in my own car, between this and trying my hand at motorcycle racing at the same time I was really struggling financially. If Pete hadn’t offered me this ride I might not have continued racing at the time.

This car was a beautiful Black & Gold combination whereas these B & W photos don’t really do it justice. Pete always kept this car standing tall with the sheet metal straightened, painted spotlessly, washed clean when it arrived at the track. I remember always apologizing to him the first few months after I started driving it about the tire marks, dings, dents, etc. (that everyone else was putting on the car of course) and he always smiled and said; “you keep driving it to the front, I’ll take care of the rest”. Pete was a great guy and owner. Last I heard (a few years back) he was still working on a racer up at Citrus County Speedway.

A short bio of me in the #39 out of the 1971 Sunshine Speedway Yearbook.



Turn 4, Sunshine Speedway inside of the #90 Gary Gay.



Sunshine Speedway win.



Golden Gate Speedway win.



Another SS win.

[ancrdave]

#40 - Bobby Allison's first NASCAR ride at Daytona in 1961...
#41 - Mike Hopkins at Orlando Raceway in 1967...
#42 - Harold Gordon racing with Dick Joyce at Orlando in 1964...
#43 - Dumont Smith at Eau Gallie in 1962...
#44 - Interesting photo of Jim McGuirk in a car owned by Jack Guest... He only drove it one time and, as you can see, won the feature with it at Eau Gallie Speedway...

[ancrdave]

#45 - Elbert Lane with the Colt 45 Chevy 6 at Orlando in 1965...
#46 - The legendary Cole Trickle...
#47 - He's now serving in the U.S. House of Representatives - Bill Posey at Eau Gallie in the early '60s...
#48 - Lakeland's Bobby Register at Volusia in 1987...
#48/49 - Walt Wimer photos of cars driven by the late G.C. Spencer... Although best known for driving #49, he drove this #48 at Bowman-Gray Stadium in 1961... The other shots were taken at Martinsville... Only G.C. and Buddy Baker ever raced Plymouths with this particular body style...

[Jimmy McKinley]

Dave...that pic of Posey in the 47...wasn't that a Hudson Hornet...? Was it the same model that raced at the Beach?

[Jim Fenton]

Have you ever heard of the “Mexican Blackbird”?

No, I’m not talking about the “mezcan mama” that “spreads her wings” down in Acuna referred to in the ZZ Top tune of the same name.

I’m talking about a certain #52 stock 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket with that nickname that gained fame back in the day.

While doing some research a while back for a piece I was doing elsewhere, and in following along with my fascination of the time this all started when the real road warriors actually raced what they drove to the track. Or begged / borrowed someone else’s car right out of the parking lot (hence the original term: ‘Stock Cars’), I ran across this amazing story about one of my hero’s, Hershel McGriff, and the first Mexican Road Race held in 1950.

McGriff, of Portland, OR, then 22 years of age, won the 1950 Mexican Road Race in a basically stock Rocket 88. The race was a driving marathon through Mexico, North to South [that year; as the course was reversed in 1951 - 1954], from the Texas border to Guatemala. The event was sponsored by the Mexican government in celebration of the completion of the Pan-American Highway.
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All major-class entries in the 2,178-mile race were required to be unmodified 5-passenger sedans. Of 132 entries (some reports say 126), only 52 (or, possibly, 47) cars completed the race. McGriff's speed over the often treacherous terrain averaged 78.421 mph, although another source says it was an average of 79.2 mph, not to split hairs. McGriff and assistant driver Ray Elliott took home a purse of $17,000 after successfully negotiating the route in 27 hours, 34 minutes, 25 seconds.

La Carrera PanAmericana, as noted in http://www.jalopyjournal.com/?p=531, "was the toughest race in the world." The article continued, "LeMans doesn't hold a candle. The Mille Miglia doesn't come close. Terrible maps, horrible roads, drivers with evil intentions, and government employees with empty pockets and children to feed. After the race, there were no real winners or losers--just dusty survivors. They were real road warriors.
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"Mexico wanted to celebrate the completion of their Panamerican Highway. They were either already drunk or out of Tequila, because this race was never a good idea. Proof is in the history lesson, as this deal only ran from 1950 till 1954. Too many accidents, too many deaths, too many laws ignored. Still, heroes garnered their status in those four short years. Carroll Shelby, Phil Hill, Juan Manuel Fangio, and Mickey Thompson all made it through with some success. AK Miller showed his freakishly subborn ways in driving the Hot Rod Magazine-sponsored "El Caballo" roadster through the Mexican landscape and into the realm of legends.
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"Most surviving veterans point to the first race in 1950 as the one to remember. Many drivers exited mid-race after some sort of violence . . . three died. Hershel McGriff won the race with the [so-called] "Mexican Blackbird," piloting his Olds Rocket 88 past Ferraris and Porsches to take the win.
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"McGriff later said, 'We were living on nerves. I lost 20 pounds in five days. We had no support truck, just a couple of wrenches and bumper jacks. I won because I knew how to drive on poor roads. I was simply used to driving big [Northwest lumber] trucks on gravel, and we had 6-ply tires on the race car.'
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"And then there were the Mexican nationals," the Jalopy Journal continued. "Some saw the event as a chance to get free performance parts after hours. Others saw it as a sporting event for themselves. As the hot rods roared through their tiny little barrios at over 100 mph, some would make an effort to actually reach out and touch the cars. No records were kept on how many civilians were killed in this manner."
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McGriff was born December 14, 1927 in Bridal Veil, OR. He launched his stock car racing career in September, 1945 at the dirt Portland Speedway, finishing 13th in his family's sedan. The same year he won the the Mexican Road Race (1950), he also made his NASCAR debut, campaigning his #52 "City of Roses" Oldsmobile in the inaugural Southern 500 at Darlington, SC where he finished 9th. In 1951 McGriff made three starts in NASCAR's new Grand National division, driving his own Olds Rocket 88. He placed 11th at Detroit and 4th in the Southern 500 that year. In 1952, he drove Beryl Jackson's #3 Olds in two Grand Nationals, and in 1953 entered his own #5 Olds in two events. Overall, only announcing his retirement from racing in 2002, he competed in 85 NASCAR Winston Cup starts, earning five poles, four wins, seventeen top-5s and thirty-one top-10s. He was one of the most honored drivers ever to come out of the Pacific Northwest.

This is a re-creation of McGriff’s 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket.





Ray Elliot waves to the locals as McGriff blasts past in the lead nearing the finish line.

[ModelCarMan]

Here's some pictures of my brother in-law. The first one is from East Bay, the other ones are from the Gate. He was/is a Ford man at heart....but I still love him







This was a real good lookin Bomber until he rolled it one night, but he was alright. He knocked the dents out of it and raced the next week.



I got to add my sister in her, it was a powerpuff race. She did pretty good for the first time behind the wheel!

[ModelCarMan]

I forgot to add my dad's race car #49, so here it is.
John Gamble and Jim Childers drove them.




John and my dad.


Jim Childers


The one and only Gene Slader, Jim Childers, dad and me.