Well, It's a start. Let's see what happens!

[rodlea]

Can't believe none of you Austin guys missed who these were in the old newspaper clip I posted - although I know it was not very clear.

Traffic jam drivers are:

#12 Buddy Yantis

#106 Harley Martin, sponsored by Chapman Auto Parts

#83 Don Fowler

#95 Ed Stahr (Bill White's partner)

 

Rodney

[rodlea]

Budman,

Seems that I remember #106 wrecked - originally painted blue and white. At time of old photo picture it was painted red and white. Lot prettier car blue and white.

 

Rodney

[Budman]

Rodlea,

 

You got me on those, but mostly on the car/driver combinations. Of course, those sometimes changed from week to week.

 

Didn't Don Fowler drive that 12 most of the time? What about the 95? Is that the car Kenneth Simpson (Bud's brother) stuck in the turn 1 fence when the throttle hung one night?

 

Regarding the 106........... Jonny Doyle was driving it one night. Bill White ended up stuck on the outside with two flat front tires. Coming out of 2, Bill tried to cut for the infield, but didn't see Jonny coming up behind him. Jonny cut left, but ran over Bill's left rear with his right front. The 106 went high in the air and did a big ole swan dive into the infield, nose first. It bounced high, did another 1 1/2 flip and landed tail first, then sort of rolled up on its wheels, but the thing was bent up so bad, the front wheels were on the ground and the rear axel, still attached to the frame was vertical. The car had a quarter twist in the frame.

 

Needless to say, Jonny was pretty shook up, broke his nose and his collar bone I heard. Bill said he sure felt bad about that. (Not as bad as Jonny though) Didn't take long before Jonny was back racing. Never saw that 106 again.

[NeilTPS]

txtom You wrote: "Actually Mel, Neil got that one right, it is David Machen.

And he guessed himself hiding behind Jerry with the white hat.

 

Don't recall Neil ever wearing a hat of any other color".

 

Although this is very minor, as a race official I have always worn a cap.

A white cap reflects the sun better, keeps the heat off your head and keeps the

fatigue down until later in the event.

 

Incidentally, the cap color I selected for 10 years for the TIDA-LM Officials was bright yellow which gave them a handy caution flag in case of an emergency on the pit road.

 

Neil Upchurch

[colgate]

the pic above at tws is lee machan, david machan and leroy brooks. the car is still in one piece. it is at lee's shop in storage never to be raced again or to be pulled out of storage.

[txtom]

Well, I'll go ahead and identify everyone else in the picture, then you'll know why I'm so fond of it.

 

From left to right,

1. The late, great Leroy Brooks.

2. David Machen, driver of Lee Machen's #81 TAMS Modified.

3. Steve Klestinec, former champion at Austin and Hwy 16.

4. Lee Machen, owner and builder of the #81 Special cars.

Mac was fighting a bum knee, but the other crutch made a good hood prop.

5. Tom Taylor (me), crew for a lot of stuff over the years.

David, Mac, Steve, and I still race together with the modified. I've known them since about '73.

 

In the driver's suit is our great friend Tommy Davis, who had come to offer congratulations. The lady behind him is Kathy Chapman, Terry Brooks' wife.

Neil is wearing the white hat, then Jerry Grant with his back to the camera, and Mike Conner rounds out the pic.

 

Colgate is right, the Chevelle is still at the shop, with a Monte Carlo body on it. We keep talking about pulling it out and cleaning it up, but get busy with other stuff.

We can't walk by it without thinking about a past race it ran, and Mac will not give any time to anyone who attempts to talk him about selling it.

There is one piece of the original Chevelle sheetmetal around, the hood, and I have it in my garage in Schertz. A thank-you from Mac for all the years, it is one of my favorite pieces of racing memorabilia.

[PAPA]

txtom

Do you have a date for that photo? And maybe some info on the cars reformance at that time? And would it be possible to get you to email me that photo (prior to resizing)? I would like to add that to my collection as well. Thanx

[racerx]

We need to put together an event where we find what old cars still exist, old memorabilia, old photos, and show 'em off...I have a professional grade scanner and we can put them in a big database...

 

We are very impressed with what you guys are doing here, so Jason and I are going to see what we can do about adding a permanent hall of fame/historical section to TSZ...

[rodlea]

About your question: What about the 95? Is that the car Kenneth Simpson (Bud's brother) stuck in the turn 1 fence when the throttle hung one night?

 

Actually it was Bud Simpson driving the car. I've got a newspaper clipping from July 4, 1961 describing a couple of wrecks Bud Simpson had.

 

According to the article, Simpson came zooming down the straightaway in a time trial and hit the rail going 100 miles an hour. The car vaulted 20' in the air, turned around 180 degrees while in orbit and landed 20 paces from where it took off. He said "when I came off the turn, I had it on the floor and that foot feed never did back out of there. We have a belly pan on the car and it was too short and it went under it and hung. I tore my shoe sole plumb off trying to dig it back out of there before I hit the wall". This is pretty much how I remember seeing it, except I don't know about the 20' - that may be a little much.

Car was built and owned by Leroy Pecore of Waco, Leroy's Garage.

Don Fowler did drive #12 at times.

Rodney

[PAPA]

Thanks Larry. So much history has already been lost. We need to preserve all that we can. That means keeping track of whats going on today and the future. I will do what ever I can to help out with this. Im sure others will also. It would be great to talk with all the past and present drivers and get all the info that we can. That includes you too Larry. Start putting pics, stories, stats, etc. together. I really think this is something we need to do for future generations of racing.

[rodlea]

Speaking of Bud Simpson, here's a couple of pics from newpaper. One says "ribs still sore" from the July 1961 article.

[rodlea]

2nd try on posting picture.....

[rodlea]

This picture is probably from 1960. Bud Simpson driving '39 Chevy Hobby with a '58 Chevy truck engine. The caption says "His days of dominating may be over". Article says he had been totally dominating the stock class but last Friday Paul Jett and Bill White battled Simpson in every race and White managed to win the feature. Jett won his heat and the Australian pursuit last week but had to settle for third in the stock feature behind White and Simpson.

I see his son, Jerry Simpson occasionally - he raced at Longhorn Speedway for a few years and won a championship one year.

 

Rodney

[racerx]

Wow that really was a long time ago...what is that thing there at the bottom?...I'm not sure, but it almost looks like a...no, it can't be...A NEWSPAPER AD?!?!?! You mean they used to advertise in the paper? How backwards were they??? J/K...LOL

[PAPA]

And look at the DAY...SUNDAY!...SUNDAY! Back then they had the BLUE LAW so there was no shopping. There were no malls. You went to church in the morning and went racing in the afternoon. How cool was that?

[racerx]

And No cable and No nascar on TV...not much sports on TV at all back then...no major league sports in Austin or SA back then...I bet that was the place to be...

[Randy5249]

Comon Tom i know you have more stories than this you know me im not bein a smartA**

[Budman]

Rodlea,

 

You must have kept good notes on all that stuff. Can't imagine why after 44 years I got him and his brother mixed up in my memory of that. Damn, I don't usually do that. ?????

 

Do you remember if Kenneth ever drove it, or Dale Breedlove, or Ted Jones? No fair looking at your notes now.

[rodlea]

Don't think any of them drove it. Speaking of Breedlove, he drove a Pontiac powered super modified. He was from Waco.

Rodney

[txtom]

PAPA-

My original copy of that picture is at a photo lab being restored, and I will get you a copy of it when I get it back. Just let me know what size you want.

That race was early 1985. Neil Upchurch added the Super Stock class to the TROC race schedule, and if I recall correctly, we won 6 out of 11 with this car.

Neil probably has the records on this.

We are kinda lucky that we made it to victory lane this weekend. We had engine troubles this race weekend, and one or the other of the cylinder heads were off the car 4 times on Saturday alone. We got that worked out, and then Sunday, we found a crack in the oil pan. We won with a J B weld/silicone/duct tape repair on the pan. I got a picture here somewhere of the pan after the race.

The Chevelle started life as a street stock that Harold Oatman was building for soembody,and the project stalled. Mac bought it from Harold, basically the chassis and cage. We finished it as a street stock for David Machen, and he raced it a few times at Austin, and 3 times at Killeen in 1981. When he joined the Navy in 1982, the car sat for a couple months, until Mac and Jerry Grant joined forces. We rebuilt the car to Austin Hobby Stock rules, and won 5 of the last 8 races of 1982. We had a brake related DNF, a 2nd place, and scattered a motor while leading the Austin Aquafest race.

I wish we had kept records of the wins this car had. I also can think of several rules changes this car caused.

Some examples--The rules stated 4 wheel brakes. They did not state 4 calipers or drums. we took all the brake stuff off the right rear to reduce unsprung weight, and still had 4 wheel brakes since Jerry liked a spool, which tied the rear axles together. He didn't use the brakes much anyway; He basically thought they were to stop the car at the pit area. They protested us on it, said it was illegal. We explained that he could go out on the track, stomp on the pedal, and the car would leave 4 skid marks. The next year, the rules stated 4 individual WORKING brakes.

I mentioned in a previous post about the fake nitrous line, They also outlawed the zoomie drag-racing style headers we had on the car that year.

The class rules stated no quick change rear ends. They said nothing about quick change transmissions. I think it was either Winters or MRE that came up with a quick change housing to replace the tail snout on a muncie transmission. You used a GM sliding yoke driveshaft, or else dropped the shaft to change gears like today's quick change rearends. They pitched a wall-eyed fit over that one, only took them a couple weeks to ban that piece.

 

Randy S,

We got plenty of stories. I'm hanging on to one about your Uncle David.

[txtom]

Not a very good scan, but these hands belong to Leroy Brooks, who tuned the car most of the time Jerry drove it.

 

I have an alternate source for scanning that I will start using as I find time.

[Budman]

Now here is an unsolved riddle. Back when I first started posting on here I put up a picture which included Buddy Jerkins of San Antonio. During the course of discussion on the picture I thought I was referring to him correctly when I spelled his name Buddy Jergins. I found I was soon corrected.

 

But, I swear, in Austin he was known as Buddy Jergins. To reinforce this point, I've noticed two things. I've seen Rodlea also "misspell" Buddy Jergins (p.6) and even the Austin newspaper article on this page refers to him as "Buddy Jurgins". Wonder what the deal is with this? Anybody know? Maybe if the Jerkins family sees this they can comment. Just curious.

[PAPA]

I just want to remind everyone that this topic is not just for the "Roundy-Rounders". I would love to see some of the historic drag racing stuff.Maybe some Quarter midgets, Karts, Road racers, etc. I know that back in the day, Hydro-plane boat racing was really big. Lets get every bit of racing history that we can on here. If it has a motor and was raced, I want to hear out it. If you have an old picture or clipping or just a story of any kind of racing, please post it.

[rodlea]

Budman,

You're right - the newpaper articles I have show the spelling "Jurgins" and "Jergins". Most of the time it's "Jergins".

Rodney

[Budman]

Rodlea,

Even the track announcers at Speed-o-rama always pronounced his name as though it were spelled "Jergins". You supposed this could be one of those deals where his name got written down wrong one time in the wrong place, and the error has perpetuated itself over all these years? A curious thing isn't it.