1940...

A lot of times the focus of your daily life wanders around. You seem to always be forced to wake up, get dressed, go to work, etc.... but there's that inner voice persuading you towards one thought, idea, interest, etc.

I seem to go in spurts lasting a few weeks. Jumping around from motorcycles, to hot rods, to customs, to remodeling the bathroom. Never forgetting the basis of each, just waning slightly in the enthusiasm department towards whatever subject has been slid to the back burner.

I've been off on a tangent of different things lately... not pulling towards one more then another. Then,out of the blue, a friend posted this video... WHAM!!! 1940 DRY LAKES FOOTAGE!!!.... 5 minutes of everything I have ever dreamed about...

Really made my day... this is the most exciting video footage I have ever seen...
I know this may be hard for some to understand... but for me.. to see this footage is sort of a culmination of the HOURS I have spent pouring over the oh so stagnent black and white images...

WOW!

Sprint Car Driver?

The Eastern Museum of Motor Racing (www.emmr.org) held its 37th annual Convention this past weekend at the Latimore Valley Fairgrounds. I have been attending events at Latimore for as long as I can remember. This weekend though, I got a whole different perspective on it.

My friend Roy Caruthers had mentioned earlier in the week that he and Josh Shaw would be coming in from Indiana and Ohio with a few cars to run on the track. A text message from Roy on Friday said to make sure I was at Latimore Saturday, I may be able to drive a sprint car. Really??!!??

I brought a drivers suit that someone had given me, along with an old leather covered helmet that I picked up a while back. Not too sure if I would run or not... but I wanted to be prepared. I met up with Roy and Josh while they were sorting out some problems with one of their cars. Roy said "go get your suit, your driving the #10.

I had thought these cars may have been converted to have a starter, flywheel, clutch, etc.....A quick crash course from Josh proved me wrong. Strap in... pull the in/out out of gear till your on the track... drop it in gear... once the push truck starts going... turn on the fuel.... once the tires start spinning and you have oil pressure, turn on the magneto..... Josh's other advice was to not be concerned with the sounds that may appear as if the car is coming apart. "They're race cars, that what they sound like"

So I strapped in... did what I was supposed to and it fired off without a problem. I bit nervous I gingerly rolled onto the throttle here and there, trying to get a feel for the car. With what little bit I got on the gas, I could definitely feel the power...

I made an attempt to get moving faster and faster... trying to slide and power through the corners slightly beyond a snails pace. Before I knew it... they waved the checkered and I had to return to the pits. Turn off the fuel, pull it out of gear, run out of fuel, shut off magneto....

One more round to go... I had a feel for the car a little so I had hoped to be able to go a little harder this time.

In total these guys brought 3 cars, and for this round they wanted to try to photograph them all together. So I was told to try to keep up!...

I made an attempt at staying with the pack, and I think did pretty well...
Following Josh and Van May, I got quite a face full of dirt from time to time... but it gave me a pace that I could maintain and know it wasn't beyond the capabilities of the car or the track. In other words, eliminating some variables in my mind.

Once we got the green I was trying a bit harder to give it power in the corners... I even passed someone!

Its hard to explain the feeling of power that you get from these cars.
There's no flywheel putting any drag on the drive train. Just a fuel injected small block Chevy hooked directly to the rear end in a sub 1500lb car.

Punching the throttle gave instantaneous almost violent acceleration.

All in all it was something I won't forget and I can't thank Roy, Josh, Ken and everyone else involved with the cars enough.

I was always unsure if it was worth the effort to build and maintain a car to only run at a controlled speed a few times a year... but now... I've really got the itch!

I had to borrow a safer (though a bit too big) helmet for the 2nd round.

Photos are by Tony DeSeta (buildy)

Car Guy?

Contrary to what many may perceive as such, I am not a "Car Guy".
I do have a strong pull towards many things with wheels. This though, is not an all encompasing love for cars. I like what I like... and not really much else. I didn;t live through any of these era's. Its all a giant research project and theres just not enough time in the day for me to focus effort towards things that are not in my very narrow field of interest.
Many times I am stumbled upon at a gas station or some such place while in my roadster. I get struck into a conversation about cars. This usually ends up with me feeling a bit dumb. I am told about muscle cars, 50's - 60's - 70's cars, etc. I usually have no idea what these cars even look like.
I walk through various car shows or cruise-in's and can't identify half the vehicles there without reading the badges.
I don't know a Plymouth from a Pontiac. I am not drawn in by a Hemi or a Big Block or whatever is in the mouthes of the rows of alligators.

I appreciate the work that people put into their cars. I am polite to the owners. I respect their feelings towards them.

Thats where it stops. I go home... back into my world where they don't exist.

Harley Davidson

I had an ever growing itch to have an old motorcycle for years. My family had been heavily into motorcycles even before WWII. Stories of rows of them sitting around had always sparked interest in me.

I'd never even ridden a motorcycle in my life...but I wanted one... and it had to be an old one...(hand shift)

Sold a few things... had a bit of money... searched and searched and searched...
Turned out I had a hankerin for a 45" Harley... something about the lines when stripped for racing, just spoke to me!

Eventually I spent some of my money and bought a '33 Ford Coupe race car... turned out to not be what I had hoped for... so listed it for sale... or trade for a motorcycle. Had some offers but nothing panned out to trade.

The racecar left on a boat and my bank account had a short time with a full belly...

Around Thanksgiving 2009 I came across an add online for a '51WL restored at a price I could easily afford.

Made a call... took a drive... brought it home.


There she sat... in all her 58mile glory... shiny paint, chrome, whitewalls, PERFECT...

Happy as can be... I proudly owned a realy nice old Harley Davidson...

So.. I did what any red blooded American boy would do...

Stripped her down and hopped her up!

Time Flies....

Pretty good weekend....

Started out working friday afternoon in the garage and house... I bought this place full of stuff.. And the people that owned it before were heavily involved in antique race cars...so its been a slow process of going through things deciding whats good and whats bad and then organizing all of the racing artifacts. Gave up working around dark...headed out, had some ice cream then started reading through a binder of articles I found in the house... but heavy eyelids seemed to get the best of me...

Saturday morning 7am, off to my parents to load up some Model-T parts that I've wanted to haul over to my garage. Decided to stop at a car show on the way, at the Hershey AACA museum. Walked over the the vendor area first and found a few books I didn't have (hard for me to pass up a new/old book).. Walked through the show, eventually meeting up with a friend and his dad with his '23 T touring that they recently finished...Seeing his car made it more exciting to be dealing with my own T parts again... even if it is just to move them around... We walked through the cars for a while.. nice eclectic mix....then I hit the road to get some work done.

Got to the house a bit before my girlfriend, Heidi who had to work... so I made some mini frozen taco's for us... boy are they ever good!.. Then we got to work.... She was chipping tiles off the bathroom walls while I was emptying out the bedroom... A few hours later I got a call that a friend was stopping by with a model-A industrial engine to see if I was interested in it.. apparently from a welder. This sat outside in New Jersey for years but suprizingly the crank turned over free as could be along with the distributor which means the cam was turning alright and likely all valves moving... So I bought it! Wasn't too pricey or anything, I just don't really need any more "stuff" right now(Can't believe I typed that)... Industrial engines like this apparently had a very heavy flywheel! Imagine a model-A flywheel without the clutch recess... haven't taken it off yet, but it must be 100lbs!

Back to work in the house till about 8pm then hit the road for Heidi's house. Steak and corn on the grill..Never made corn on the grill before... came out great! Relaxed a bit flipping through the new books, then hit the hay....

Sunday morning 5:30am, up with the sun and off to work for a few hours...finished cleaning out the master bedroom and its now ready for scrubbing, paint wood floor finishing, etc. Sorted through some photo albums and folders of photos... trying to organize all of the things around the place... or atleast get a grasp on whats there... Fooled with the new A motor a bit before I left...seems to be a B distributor and with the plugs out does look like the valves move! Back to Heidi's
around noon to get ready to head to Latimore for the Latimore Valley Fair.

My parents picked us up...Little Ceasers $5 "Hot and Ready" pizza on the way... you really can't beat this... its a decent sized pizza for $5... ready when you walk in the door... fed all 4 of us easily.

Arrived at Latimore for the final day of the Fair.. If you've never been to the Latimore fairgrounds... you really should make a point to stop. They restored a racetrack that last ran in '39 or '40 and also the "Eastern Museum of Motor Racing" www.emmr.org. The fair is a family event... from crafts to tractors to kids games to racecars... hey have something for everyone to enjoy.

We started out watching the cars run on the track for a while. Ran into some friends. Met a few news ones... even got a demonstration from an older guy about the workings of an Offy with a cut apart block he had laying in his truck..

After a flower buying frenzy by the girls... we went to see the museum. They recently put a huge addition on the building and it was now done enough to have some cars in it and they had it pretty filled up!

Strolled around for a while and eventually hit the road... Stopped at Cracker Barrell on the way back... won't go there again! Food was fair... service wasn't...

Stopped at McDonald's for hot fudge sundae's(best $1 you can spend) and back to relax...

All in all this was one of the most full weekends I've had in a long time... extremely productive.. saw some old cars... talked with good people...bought some cool stuff and ate some good food...

Hot Rod Magazine....

A friend of mine named Skip Bender gave me his collection of Hot Rod Magazines about 8 or 9 years ago...Almost all of them from the beginning till now... over the next year or so I collected all the missing copies (unfortunately reprints from 48). I built a bookshelf to hold these jewels in my bedroom.

There it was... a simple black wooden bookshelf with the history of all things "hot rod" right at my finger tips. There was that smell....oh that beautiful old magazine smell...all incased in red binders. My whole bedroom took on the old book smell as I studied each and every article I could. I read them cover to cover from the beginning... all the articles, all the adds...everything! The earliest ones seemed to keep my interest more then the later 50's and newer... Those old dual purpose roadsters really struck me...

You see, I had recently bought a model-A sport coupe... planning to make some sort of a "roadster".. I didn't really know what I was doing. I knew I wanted a flathead V8.. 3 speed... banjo rear... etc... but I didn't really know what was good and what was bad... I just had a dream... that may never have panned out...

Skip was a guy I had known through other friends related to bicycles... I didn't know he was an old hot rodder... I was new to the game... I randomly showed him a photo of my sport coupe... his reply "do you want some old magazines?"

Little did I know that this would inturn change my life...

Just as it had done 50-60 years earlier.... Hot Rod Magazine... made me a Hot Rodder....

I pushed the sport coupe aside... found a REAL roadster... a real '32 frame...etc

I haven't been the same since....

www.ZACHSUHR.com

Well would you look at that... www.zachsuhr.com ... why not?

I'm going to TRY to keep this thing going on a more regular basis... A journal of sorts based on whatever it is that I feel like writing... This may not be entirely old car related but obviously if you know me at all... you can guess that old vehicles will likely be the underlying theme.

I am physically working on a whole array of different things lately... some more interesting then others and many may well be a subject on this "blog".

Digging through some things in my house over the weekend I came across a scrapbook that a friend of mine put together over 50 years ago... Mostly filled with big cars and midgets... I discovered 2 pages with photos of roadster races at Williams Grove Speedway (www.williamsgrove.com) in July of 1949.. along with an envelope filled with negatives.
Now you have to understand, I have quite an affliction for roadster racing. Something about it just draws me in. I believe it may well be realted to the fact that these guys took a normal street car mixed it with parts off various other old cars and came up with something capable of impressive speeds without spending a lot of money. I think this comes back to me in the feeling that I could replicate one of these cars... I could have been one of those guys in the 1940's with an old roadster body and a wrecked later model Ford. Mixing and matching in the quest for speed. Though, maybe my feelings towards this are purely romantic...
I've never driven a race car, never gone full out around a dirt track with disregard to the world around. I have grown up around dirt track racing... It was a mainstay of my life for quite some time. From race cars being built in our basement to our whole family working at Silver Spring Speedway (www.silverspringspeedway.com). My dads stories of growing up with racing played heavily on my feelings towards this "sport". To this day I feel more comfortable on a left hand corner then right... its just how it is.... Maybe it really is in my blood? The closest I have come was a few laps in my roadster around Latimore Fairtgrounds during the Jalopy Showdown (www.jalopyshowdown.com).
Today is a different world then that of the post war years. Safety has changed the way the cars are built. Mixing this factor with the "buy and replace" attitude where the big money teams win all the races. You don't have the same courtesy in driving styles. Its not a guts for glory thinking mans game any more... spend money and stand on the gas inside a protective rollcage....

I'm not old enough to have actually lived in an era where you built your entire car in your garage with parts that you scrounged up in the junkyard. But I've tried to pay attention to those who were. I Read books, study photos...take in whatever I can... and to me... this was real racing.

Joe Devine 3-29-33 .... 5-3-2011

Joe passed away this morning...

Over the past year I've gotten to know more of Joe on a personal level then I did in the previous years of our friendship.

Joe has been fighting health problems for the past six months. A broken hip set him back a few weeks ago and I believe the onset of other related problems finally had him facing the final days.

The pain and frustration were a struggle, but Joe seemed to, as always... keep a positive outlook.

Joe was an inspiration beyond a shadow of a doubt that anything... and I mean ANYTHING is possible if you put your mind to it. He taught me many details of metal shaping as he was one of, if not THE best metal shaper around, still doing things the old way...
But more so then details of how to... Joe taught me how to diagnose and how to assess... and how to be patient in reaching your goal.

Joe's life was of simple means.. and he was happy with it that way.

I will be forever a better person for having the oppertunity to know him...


Rest in peace Joe....


As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death. ~Leonardo da Vinci

Euphoria?

I'm sure this is a common trend throughout the world of people obsessed with collecting things. Your search is over, that one thing(its always just one thing isn't it?) you've wanted is finally able to be bought! Your in a different world... I've related this feeling to what people must feel when sky diving.

I have never had the urge to sky dive and therefore this is entirely speculation. I picture that your standing on a plane, way up in the air... nerves are building... something made you get up here, something made you want to do this. That first step from a solid foundation of the airplane into the world of nothing but wind resistance. Theres a rush... high speed... uncertainness.....then you relax... you give in to the fact of what your doing... the parachute deploys... you see the view... you enjoy the rest of the ride at a relaxed pace back to earth.... Then, your back on earth, you did it, you survived, you want to do it again!!

This may sound odd to some people... but these are very similar emotions to what I feel when buying things that I've searched for.

Theres the initial search(airplane ride)... The find(looking out the open door)... the price!(nerves!)...the money changes hands(the jump)..... you own it!(free fall euphoria)....you get it home and sit it on the shelf or bolt it to a car or whatever you do with whatever you bought(the parachute ride to earth).... its old news (your own the ground).....DO IT AGAIN!...

Many people don't have these feelings... they don't lust after things in this manner. People need something, they buy it! Most of what they feel they need in life is readily available. They don't get to experience this thrill. They buy what they want or need, use it, throw it away, buy it again. Its nothing,it means nothing,its another day of their lives.

People may view my life as strange, may consider me a hoarder, a collector, whatever... I don't expect many people to understand.

The reason for this rambling is that last night I was able to purchase a "book" that I have been hunting for a few years now. Since buying a house, my money has been tight and I've had to severly cut down on the purchasing of things. Which inturn cuts down on the amount of times I get that "sky dive high".

I drove only a few short miles to meet up with a friend to see this book that he had for sale. Honestly I was hoping he had sold it before I saw it, as I had no idea what value he would place on it and if too much, I didn't know if I could control my spending. There it was, he handed it over... I had it... in my hands... flipping through the 60+ year old paper. Excited...but still not knowing the price... A bit of back and forth over who would make an offer... and finally a number was said... I had just enough money in my pocket... it was mine... it IS mine... I have it... This book I have been hunting for so long, never seeing another copy for sale, never seeing another copy in person or online, other then the cover... Finally... it is mine....This hand typed book about how to build a hot rod from May 1st 1947... I'm sure theres not anything in here that I haven't already learned from countless other publications. But this simple home brewed copy of how to do it, has just had me awestruck for so long that I could barely contain my excitement to finally own it...(this is when you almost forget to pull the parachute)....

I got it home... read through it immediately... took a photo of the cover... then... went to bed... happy as could be!!

Material posessions shouldn't be the things that rule your life... but from time to time... they sure do put a smile on your face!!


Now what were those other papers that were mentioned for sale.....