Heroes of the Supermodified Persuasion

[Olen McGuire]

I ran into this video on YouTube I thought was a memory jogger:



YouTube- Heroes of the supermodified persuasion

[Olen McGuire]

Heroes of the Supermodified Persuasion part #2

YouTube- Heroes of the supermodified persuasion pt.2

[Mitch G.]

Emmit Hahn, (Chili Bowl inventor), Lanny Edwards (Hahn's partner), Jack Zink, Jackie Howerton, Harold Leep are recognizable, unless you grew up in Oklahoma most of these guys are strangers, but what great cars. I've been to Fairgrounds Speedway in Oklahoma City, it closed this year, I think I saw Tulsa Speedway in there, I raced a midget on that track. Cool photo's, neat cars.

[Quick Time]

Hey Olen,

Great find, you seem to dig into the nooks and crannies of the internet to find these hidden gems. I saw Oklahoma in one of the pictures and wondered if all were from that area, thanks Mitch for weighing in on that. Thought possibly up-state NY or Wisconsion but probably midwest.

Kudos to you Olen.

Chuck

[Olen McGuire]

In doing a little digging, these were made by someone whose user name is "vintagesupermodified" with some tags mentioning Manzanita, and a lot of tags and connections to Oklahoma city Fairgrounds. I'm sure Mitch and others could find a time slot by the way the modifieds were built. I thought that "vintagesupermodified" did a great job with the pictures and background music.~Olen

[Mitch G.]

Olen, right off the top of my head, I'd say 1966 to 1980 or so, and the Oklahoma guys more often than not stretched those frames to a 100" wheel base. Edmunds came out with his wonderful supermod in 1965, and you see those Oklahoma guys wearing full face helmets and Hoosier tires, which would be 1981 or 82. Those Oklahoma guys pretty much switched to 100" wheelbase dirt champ cars and ditched the tops and ducktails on the back, and at one point had a series with the USAC 96" wheelbase dirt champ cars, this was 81 or 82'. Manzanita guys almost always stayed with 86" wheel base cars, that fit in with using sprint car chassis, and the east coast seldom had narrowed coupes, or Edmunds type suprmod bodies. I'm no expert, just trying to remember what I've seen in "Open Wheel Magazine", and some books I've seen featuring these types of modifieds. Also the numerous times you see "John Zink" in those photo's, this would be almost entirely Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas. Oh yeah, in San Diego at Balboa Stadium, they ran super mods with the 86" wheelbase, some guys ran the same car, just by changing the body and tail, as a supermod and sprint car.

[Olen McGuire]

Thanks for your input Mitch, as usual you're a big help identifying time and places. This author has many video's on YouTube that are mostly old video's from around Okie city and witchita. For the ones that want to see more of them just click HERE. (http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=vintagesupermodified#g/u) There are 102 of his videos that I think are worth seeing,and most of them are recent uploads. ~Olen

[bobjeffreson]

When Marshall Sargent came to Australia in the mid 1960s he showed the racers down here how a Super Modified should be driven. He was an absolute sensation......
Seen here on the infield of the Sydney Showground.
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/bobjeffreson/marshallsargent.jpg

[bobjeffreson]

Local racer Bill Warner imported this CAE modified and immediately went to the pointy end of the field. His races with Sargent and another American, Larry Burton, are legendary.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/bobjeffreson/SCAN_0130.jpg

[bobjeffreson]

Here's Bill Warner again, chasing California's Larry Burton in front of a "standing room only"... 30,000 plus crowd at the Sydney Showground.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/bobjeffreson/SCAN_0131.jpg

[Mitch G.]

Outstanding photo's Bob, those were great years for supermods, so many creative builders back then. How bout' some close up shots of your scale model sprint cars ya' got there!!

[bobjeffreson]

Another superb photo of Marshall Sargent racing in Brisbane Australia, during the 1965 summer season. It was certainly a different time back then, as can be seen by the race suit, consisting of a white T shirt being worn by Sargent.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/bobjeffreson/SCAN_0132.jpg

[lakeside #29]

Bob, your photos are terrific. It must have been such a thrill to ship a car to Australia and be warmly welcomed by a huge crowd of race fans. 30,000 fans is staggering and in such a top notch facility to boot. These racers were lucky to have had the chance to compete. This had to have been the trip of a lifetime.
Thank you for sharing these photo and more please sir.

[bobjeffreson]

Lakeside,
Thank you for the kind words.......
You know.....We were the lucky ones..... when you consider how far away Australia was back in the 1960s. These days cars are just put on a plane and 14 hours later they arrive in Sydney. Back then it must have been a huge exercise to load the car onto a boat that probably took 2 weeks to get here. We were lucky that so many American dirt track racers took the trouble to visit our tracks.
The champion of all these drivers was Bob Tattersall, who came to Australia for 13 consecutive summers racing midgets and became part of Australian speedway folklore!!

[bobjeffreson]

More action from the Sydney Showground.
The caption is wrong...it's actually Larry Burton in the Wareing Ford Mod banging wheels with Bill Warner, 1967.

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/bobjeffreson/SCAN_0133.jpg

[bobjeffreson]

Local Sydney racer and car builder Don Fortune saw the beautiful modifieds that Don Edmunds was producing in America. He began building cars of similar design and appearance for the local market, upgrading the standard of local cars and adding to their popularity.
This is Fortune throwing his own #7 Modified around Liverpool Speedway during the 1967 season. Those skinny wheels and dinky little wings of the day, with no sideplates, certainly allowed the cars to get sideways!

http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g181/bobjeffreson/SCAN_0134.jpg

[ArtworxFX]

Another U.S. star I believe should get a mention is the "HOSTILE HIPPEE' Gary Patterson who came here down under in the early 70's and was shown the checkered flag on many occasions! I have great memories of him , after one of his great wins coming around on his victory lap to the main straight,then stopping sideways, and then jumping out to face the fans in the grandstand! With both arms raised doing piece signs in the air, With a microphone in his face, He whipped the Aussies into a frenzy, with his talk! The bloke could talk as fast as he raced!
Pictured here is The Great Gary Patterson driving the ex Wally Baker modified out of California! at my local track from that same Aussie tour! Thanks for the memorys G.P. (R.I.P.)