Back in the mid 70's I had a hang out known as Westwind Oval in Winterburn Alberta. Just west of Edmonton, this 3/8 mile paved oval proudly and weekly held stock car races that attracted cars from the greater Pacific Northwest at times.
As a teenager it was a great time and place to cut one's teeth to mechanical experience plus be part of a team. Racing back then was filled with "charactors" and Westwind saw it's share of them.
Starting with a claimer division, a racer moved up to the stock class within a year or two. There was a Sportman's class that utilized the same basic mid fifties Chevy or Pontiac two door sedan or hardtop. The only big difference was a little more openess or high performance engine.
The following pictures might be disturbing to some. The first (black and white) picture is my High School project. Yes, a 57 Chev 2 door hardtop that became a stock car. Well, in my own defence, it was already canablized to be a "stock class" racing car at Westwind Oval. I purchased it and put the roll cage and drive train into it. It has some meaning here as it sported a 261 Pontiac "Ray Peets" special in-line 6 engine. Complete with homemade headers. I never raced it as I ran out of money really fast. I did manage to take it out to Westwind via tow bar with temporary signal lights on the rear window deck and "hot lap" it.
Second car (orange #56) belonged to a friend whom I helped in the pits with. Yes, it's a 56 Pontiac 2 door hard top. Easy now......there were lot's of them back then! This had an interesting engine. A GMC 292 inline 6. Quadra jet, and headers from 6=8 Clifford Research in California. This car was untouchable against the 283's in the Sportsman Class. The only car that was it's true competitor was the Ford Galaxie (white/green) as seen in the last photo. That car weighed next to nothing and ran a Ford 300 inline 6.
It was the econo-racing of the times. And it was something to see these inline sixes go out and put on a show sometimes for two or three seasons and never need much except plugs and an oil change.
Oh, the stories people tell about the cars that ended up as stock cars.
The one that sticks in my mind is the guys talking about a 67 Chevelle or Beaumont (I forget which) 396 car that they took to the track and the guys made them remove the louvers off the 396 hood. They pried them off rather than take the time to remove them....
Looks like you are one of those "bad" guys too!!!
Cool old pictures.
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1966 Strato Chief 2 door, 427 4 speed, 45,000 original miles
1966 Grande Parisienne, 396 1 of 23 factory air cars
Even though it was 1976 when I shoved that roll cage in that 57 Chevy, I was not the most popular guy at school. "What were you thinking?" was the comment by many.
Those days are over. I'll give someone with a Psychiatrist type of background before I pull out the torches on the GOAT! LOL.
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"Repulsive since 1959"
2015 Camaro SS1 2014 GMC Sierra 1969 GTO 2005 Dodge Daytona Short Box Regular cab P/U 1979 Pontiac Grand Prix Enduro stock car
Not to hi-jack this topic in any way, Delta I still have night mares about a fellow stocker we both know back in the seventies. He stripped down a fine 1966 Chrysler Windsor 2 dr ht for the demo derby. Here I was all of maybe 20 or so wimpering at the damage he was about to do the car. I do remember him giving me the rear view mirror though . . . .
A sad day. I wonder how he did at the derby.
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1966 Chrysler 300 Convertible 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 2012 Ram 1500 crew cab Longhorn Laramie
We have all witnessed at one time or another the end of a "classic" or a vehicle that really would turn heads now, but thanks to a demo derby, they end up trashed. That's where a great number of station wagons ended up. And look at the popularity of a survivor wagon now? My 79 Grand Prix stock car was someone's reliable daily driver. The original owner/family deceided that it wasn't worth keeping it road worthy and proved it's durability by turning it into a stock car. I purchased it from these people in 1999 and it gave me 3 seasons of hard driving at Race City. That was one tough vehicle. Our friend with the Windsor demo'd that car in an era when few saw a car like that as a future classic. It was a nice car as I remember.
That is sooo cool. It is sad that such beautiful cars get smashed up though, but on the other hand many of these stock cars are cars that no one wants and are way to much work for most people to restore anyways. As long as you had fun doing it, thats all that matters in the end right?
I have a lot of friends who drag race and call me a smashem up driver. I always see it as a fact that this car was sitting in the field destined to sit there for the rest of its life rotting into the ground but now its on the track having a second chance at life. Maybe those other cars would have seen the same fate and as sad as it is many cars, perfectly good cars have ended in the crusher without a second chance.
I have many memories of the stock car tracks back in the day. My Dad made the mistake of taking me to the track at a very young age and I was hooked from that point on. Lots of cars that would now be considered desirable "classics" were banging the fenders on short tracks all across the country (I remember the 55-57 Chevys being particularly popular) - but generally they were only 10-15 year old cars back then... today's equivalent of 1995 - 2000 model years.
Here's a link to some old pics of Maritime stock car racing:
I'm guilty of this same crime too as I turned my real '69 442 Post car into a Stock Car!. What's left of it is still sitting behind the barn at my buddy's place...tags intact!.
What were we thinking?!
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I like real cars best...especially the REAL real ones! ----------------------------------------------------------------
Another old classic that I recollect driving with Delta was a 1955 Cadilac 2 dr which was in a brown primer body c/w a nice half round dent from kissing a post. The car did not have it's brakes working at the time with Delta working the emergency brake to stop the 2 ton unit. Yup, we were living somewhat dangerously. The rig had a nice red interior which was in good shape. I think this was somewhere in the mid seventies or so.
I wonder what ever happened to that unit . . .
Regards
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1966 Chrysler 300 Convertible 2007 Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8 2012 Ram 1500 crew cab Longhorn Laramie
