Mitch G.
01-24-2010, 01:37 PM
Found this interesting, when I ran across this cool color photo from 1954 at the Darlington, SC Raceway. At 1.336 miles this was regarded as the first "Superspeedway", outside of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The AAA national championship cars ran several races there. The color photo is from July 5, 1954 Mike Nazaruk is in Lee Elkins McNamera Spl. #73 a Kurtis with an Offy, running the outside, that's Tommy Hinnershitz in the Iddings Spl. #57 a Meyer chassis with an Offy. Quick time that day was 132.289 mph set by Bob Sweikert, the race average that day ended up at 131.195 mph. set by the winner Manuel Ayulo in Peter Schmidt's Kuzma chassis with Offy power.
http://www.autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=1769
The last race the open wheel champ cars ran was July 4, 1956 the first year for the United States Auto Club (USAC) took over as sanctioning body for national midget, sprint, champ car (including the Indy 500) series. That day Pat O'Connor won at an avg. race speed of 140.705 mph, (in a Blough chassis with an Offy) quick time was Andy Linden in the McNamera Spl built by Turner with an Offy at 142.364 mph.
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=1803
Pat O'Connor in the Sumar Spl #7 on the high banks.
Get a load of this, the current track record for a Sprint Cup NASCAR stock car is Greg Biffle's 179+ mph for one lap, but the race record is held by Kyle Busch May 10, 2008 at 140.350 mph. 52 years, millions of computer aided engineering dollars, wind tunnels, telemetry, race team staff of 100+ people, etc., etc. and the home built dirt car on rock hard 6 inch wide tires with a 255 cubic inch inline 4 cyl. engine (Offy) has a faster race average speed, go figure. Check out the safety equipment, and aerodynamics on the open wheel cars of the 1950's!! What you can't see are the the drivers pickle jar sized testicles. How many of today's race drivers could have done what these cat's did back then, in those cars?
http://www.autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=1769
The last race the open wheel champ cars ran was July 4, 1956 the first year for the United States Auto Club (USAC) took over as sanctioning body for national midget, sprint, champ car (including the Indy 500) series. That day Pat O'Connor won at an avg. race speed of 140.705 mph, (in a Blough chassis with an Offy) quick time was Andy Linden in the McNamera Spl built by Turner with an Offy at 142.364 mph.
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=36&pictureid=1803
Pat O'Connor in the Sumar Spl #7 on the high banks.
Get a load of this, the current track record for a Sprint Cup NASCAR stock car is Greg Biffle's 179+ mph for one lap, but the race record is held by Kyle Busch May 10, 2008 at 140.350 mph. 52 years, millions of computer aided engineering dollars, wind tunnels, telemetry, race team staff of 100+ people, etc., etc. and the home built dirt car on rock hard 6 inch wide tires with a 255 cubic inch inline 4 cyl. engine (Offy) has a faster race average speed, go figure. Check out the safety equipment, and aerodynamics on the open wheel cars of the 1950's!! What you can't see are the the drivers pickle jar sized testicles. How many of today's race drivers could have done what these cat's did back then, in those cars?