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Skinny cars


Lucky161

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I'll start this off and go from memory. If I have any facts wrong, I apologize and please feel free to correct me. i was just a kid and my dad and my uncle had a car that ran at Cowtown, Thunderbird, Big D etc. back then.

 

My earliest memories were that the modifieds back then were limited to 301 cubic inches, but only a few people had V8 Chevys back then. The ones that I remember were, Wild Bill Tolsdorf, J.R. Gilreath, George "Ironhead" England and Pokey Wigginton. Most everyone else ran flathead Fords or 6cyl Chevys. I do remember my uncles first race car being an old Ford coupe with an Oldsmobile, which probably sounds like it would have been fast back then, but it wasn't. He didn't drive for long and that may have been the problem, although I don't remember anyone else running fast in that car either.

Anyway after a couple of years the V8s became the predominant car for the class and nearly everyone ran one. Exceptions were Troy Geary's flathead coupe and J.T. "Pappy" Carpenters 6cyl Chevy coupe. They were as fast and sometimes faster than the V8s, but by that time they were about the only ones that could be described that way.

Then Thunderbird started running "open" competition. I think they bumped up the purse and if I remember correctly, they upped admission to $3.50 to cover that. I worked in the concesssion stand and got in free which is the reason I remember that. It saved my dad that much each night of racing.

During that "open" competition era, Pappy put an V8 in his old coupe. I think it was a smaller V8 but I am not certain about that. I think some other Waco guys did the same, but I don't remember any names. Shortly thereafter the first "skinny" cars showed up. This was basically just a 55-57 Chevy with the front fenders removed and the body narrowed to the width of the frame rails making them open wheeled cars. I don't remember who was first and it didn't take long it seemed for most of the cars to become skinny cars. They ran skinny cars for years after that until finally the Vega, Pinto and Gremlins came on the scene. The best I can tell "skinny" cars never caught on anywhere except in Dallas-Fort Worth and Waco area.

Have anything to add? Any corrections? Any questions? And if anyone has pics, I would love to see some.

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  • 1 month later...

Was there any common background or link between these cars and those such as the Iron Head Winged Modifieds, which I believe were also called Skinny Cars? I know the latter cars were designed differently (straight front axles, for instance) but I thought perhaps they were just an evolution of the earlier cars.

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  • 1 year later...

another little trivia about the skinny cars! the skniinys ran under a different class than the modifieds, some of the local track rules let you run skinny and some didnt. so what a lot of guys did, they built the skinny car, but had a regular width body shell they would put over skinny and bolt it to the frame! unless you got to look at one up close, it looked like a regular modified, but when you looked inside there was a big gap and then you saw the skinny body as well!

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sorry if i got a little carried away on that last post! the guys basically had a regular 55/26/57 body shell that was the normal width. they just placed this body on top of the cut down skinny body, since most of the old modifieds were built on the old 55/56/57 frames, it was like having two different car by the way of about 10 bults and nuts

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Very cool cars! ............... and very recognizable to the fans. That's the point I've made on that other thread in the regular section, and have caught so much flack over. Today's dirt modifieds don't look like ANYTHING! .......... Just big metal boxes. How sad. :(

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  • 2 months later...
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a couple of more pics, when race cars were real race cars and race car drivers won by their mechanical and driving skills, not how deep their pockets were!

I don't know the 68 car but the rest are Cecil Farris, and I think that the 16 is Bill Edmonds and the 22 Eddie Prator. That was when race cars were modified. Now days they are just kit cars.

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  • 2 months later...

Gary Miles

 

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James Pack and the Pack Rat

 

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Randy Reeves

 

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other pictures from Thunder Bird Speedway, not sure what year....i think in the mid to 70's

 

my uncle " Bill Cummons" , flagging in those years.

 

my brother and i would sometimes get a ride there with our Unk, and walk around the pits before the races started.

 

thats when i would take these pictures, i was just a kid looking for something to do

 

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