the Charlie Musselman flip

[Mitch G.]

O.K. for those of you not too familiar with east coast sprint car racing, here's a real amazing story. Charlie Musselman was one of the best east coast and AAA sprint car drivers of the 1950's. Was he tough? yes, a WWII vet, he came home to be a tavern owner, and race driver, and never would hesitate to participate in fisti-cuffs, one tough dude. September 1, 1957 the AAA big shots are at the notorious one mile dirt circle Langhorne Speedway, the deadliest track in the country at the time. The next series of photo's made a one page spread (of which I have an actual page from that issue) in Life Magazine. Walter Chernokle, and RN Masser are credited with these photo's.
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=700
Pre race in Sam Traylors beautiful sprint car
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=701
This is the one page Life magazine photo spread (this one page removed from the magazine has been in my family since 1957!)
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=702
It's about to get ugly, and Charlie is bracing for impact
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=703
It don't get much uglier than this, now Charlie is preparing for final approach
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=705
Charlie's out cold, but no broken bones, or serious injuries, his shoes stayed in the sprinters cockpit!
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=704
You can't see it in this photo, but the car was pinched closed in the driver area, it's probably a good thing Charlie got pitched out, in this case.
Incredible photo's from an incredible era of American auto racing, that's Joe Mattera slipping by in the #88, "Deer Lake Inn Spl."
Here's another sequence I found in a old "Motorsport Pictorial", look close you can see where the cockpit area gets pinched closed.
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=706
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=24&pictureid=707

[webby]

Wow!!!

And I though this was the most amazing sprint car flip ever....
(I stand corrected)

YouTube - Most amazing sprint car flip ever!

[Mitch G.]

Webby, I've got a video of the Musselman flip, I'll send it to you and you can post it, how's that?

[Olen McGuire]

Here's a picture of Charlie Musselman and his son taken at Williams Grove.

http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=99&pictureid=712
(Jim Nise Collection)

[Jerry Lee]

Yeah, WOW!, is about all I can muster up to say! These are spectacular!

You guys might have heard this one before, but Gary Martelon once recalled a story that he had heard from Harold Maynard many years ago about Bert McNeese (I hope my spelling is correct).

One night in 1940 at Lakeside, McNeese had flipped his Midget, was ejected, and flew way up in the air. On his way down he grabbed on to the shoulders of Bill Logan who just happened to be speeding by. I once saw a photo of it that Martelon had, and it looked like some guy trying to wrestle a speeding car. Very bizzare! I hope sometime that pic surfaces here. Maybe Mitch might have that one somewhere?

[Olen McGuire]

This is not the one that Jerry Lee mentioned,but it's a neat shot
of Bert McNeese taken from Register.com:

http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=101&pictureid=720