Greg Cederburg (Cheyenne, WY) was the driver and 1/3 of the Cederburg, Noud, and Wendzel (CN&W) #84 race team (circa 1968-1969).  I first met Greg in the Cheyenne Intra-city Elementary School Basketball Conference.  He led his team as a nimble point-guard, while I occupied the paint as a center for my team.  We later attended the same junior-high school on the south-side of Cheyenne.
 

Greg's Dad owned and operated Lee's Motorcycles: a Triumph, Norton, BSA, Ducati, BMW, Hodaka, Bultaco, and Honda dealer that was located on the old South Greeley Highway.  Back then, it was legal to operate a motorcycle on the public-streets at the tender age of 14, but only if it was under 50 CCs of total displacement.  Lee, a most talented motorcycle-mechanic / machinist / fabricator, inserted a thin-plate on a Honda 50 between the bottom of the cylinder-barrel and the base of the crankcase; thus, the de-stroked Honda "Less-than-50" was born...and very soon there after, every 14-year-old kid in the area was riding one.  At this very young age, I hired on part-time at the motorcycle shop at the flunky-level to help fund my Honda and to learn the motorcycle trade from Greg and his Dad.

John E. “Johnny” Rostek (Ft. Collins, CO)  When you ask someone what drivers from Colorado drove in NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying races in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the most common response would be: “Fritz Wilson, and…<long-pause>…there’s someone else?”  I will get back to that later in this article.

Johnny Rostek (1925-1969) owned and operated Rostek Construction and the Lamplighter Motels, Inc. based out of Ft. Collins, CO.  His wife, Shirley L. Rostek (1925-2008), was the bookkeeper for these two booming enterprises.  Later, Rostek owned the Charco Broiler steakhouse in Fort Collins.  They were also the proud parents of two lovely daughters: Sharon and Cathy.  Sharon has an extensive collection of her father’s racing mementos, and in the past, she shared many of them with us at the “old memories” site.

In the beginning (circa 1950s), “Johnny” drove race cars and won a lot at Speedway Park (Ft. Collins, CO), Intermountain Speedway (Cheyenne, WY), Pikes Peak Speedway (Colo. Springs, CO), Lakeside Speedway (Denver. CO), and Englewood Speedway (Englewood, CO).

There was an early photo of a well publicized on-track incident at Lakeside Speedway that had always intrigued me.  That incident involved Vern Grams and Keith Lane with Vern’s car ending up on top of Keith’s car.  I’d always wanted to learn more about that incident in general and Vern Grams in particular.  A few years ago I was fortunate to have an opportunity to sit down with Vern and his wife Mariann where they shared photos and stories of his racing with me.  And yes, he had an 8x10 glossy of that photo, and more.  Here then is his racing story.

Vern was originally from the Greeley area.  It was 1952, the popularity of stock car racing was booming everywhere, including Greeley, and Vern, just out of the service, like a lot of young guys, went racing.

One of Vern’s early rides was in this car getting sideways just in front of the #11.  Things got worse instead of better as Vern took a pretty good tumble.  When the car came to a stop, Vern was unconscious and had to be helped from the car.   Not really the way he wanted to get started. 

Compton "Comp" Wilson (Berthoud, CO), a dairy farmer by trade, raced at Speedway Park in Fort Collins, CO; at Intermountain Speedway in Cheyenne, WY; and at Englewood Speedway in Englewood, CO.

The attached photo shows Comp and his "chopped-fendered" Ford coupe in the pits at Speedway Park, circa 1949-1950. Several of the drivers carried that OK Rubber Welders logo on their racecars. For the price back in that era of racing, those OK re-cap racing slicks were very hard to beat.

Comp and Lou Wendzel co-owned some #84 Ford flat-head coupes during the mid-to-late 1950s. Working together, their team won many races and a track championship at Cheyenne's Intermountain Speedway. I'll send more of Lou's photos of their #84 Ford coupes via subsequent postings to ARM.

Later in his racing career, Comp campainged a #84 modified at Englewood Speedway. If anyone has information or photos of Comp's #84 modified, please send them to ARM. ~ VintageBuzz