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.
No comments:
Post a Comment