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Hirschfeld - old time rally pics ...

72K views 119 replies 38 participants last post by  Lou Smarbles 
#1 ·
I was poking around for some pics of weird Yank rally cars for another thread (http://www.specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?p=201337#post201337)
and ran across this site - http://dan.hirschfeld.googlepages.com/motorsportstuff

Go there and you'll find Dan has some pics from the 1979 NARRA 20 Stages Rally in Michigan - http://dan.hirschfeld.googlepages.com/someselectedpicturesfromthe1979narra20stagesrally

I've posted him an invite here but in doing so it dawned on me that THIS MONTH I celebrate 35 years of rallying! Yup, thirty-five years ago this month I embarked on my first rally contest, a benefit gimmick rally ("Who is the tree surgeon?" Answer was a rusty Dr. Pepper sign nailed to a dead oak tree.) in San Angelo, Texas! Talk about afflictions ... :eek:
 
#52 ·
Dan_H said:
I mentioned remembering a couple of local guys running an early '60s Valiant beater (complete with bench seats) and finishing the event. :D

Dan...
Rod Natho from Detroit had one of those benchseat Valiants that he occasionally drove with Bill Braun navigating. Sometime in its life it had had an underhood fire and Rod had never found it necessary to repaint the engine compartment, nor the hood for that matter.

It was a real piece of art!

Charlie Sinclair of Toledo had the 64 Barracuda version of the Valiant. Think of the biggest rear window possible on a hatchback and then double what you are thinking of and you'll be relatively close to the size of that piece of glass. Charlie's had a big V8 with an abnormal thirst for oil. I crewed for him a few times and at every service we would automatically be ready to add a couple of quarts of oil, unless of course Charlie was leaning out of the driver's side window as he rolled in yelling "OIL!", in which case we would puncture the top on another couple of quarts...

Kent
 
#54 ·
Mad Mike said:
I wonder how many raw noobs here have the first clue what you are referencing ... :D
I'm nearing 30 (i am? oh crap!) and I barely remember canned oil. I do still have some funnels with the staberator on the end... also have direct experience with the Mopar ability to use almost as much oil as gas. (And run for absurd lengths of time without oil! but not gas...)

I am shocked, SHOCKED, at how much rally history happened in this area, and how many rallyists there are around here. When I first got interested in rally about six years ago, I saw this area as a vast wasteland with all the good times Very Far Away. I'm a little saddened that I missed out on so much, but on the other hand, there are plenty of TSDs in the area, and am thankful that not only have I been involved with an emerging sport (rallycross) almost since its inception, but that there are two complete series within 4 hours, a third actively trying to find land again, and a fourth just starting up.

That said, were there a stage rally series to start up in the area, I would beg, borrow, and cut my hair (worse than stealing!) to get a car out on stage.

Enough n00b blather, time to read more history :)
 
#55 ·
Foghorn said:
Charlie Sinclair of Toledo had the 64 Barracuda version of the Valiant. Think of the biggest rear window possible on a hatchback and then double what you are thinking of and you'll be relatively close to the size of that piece of glass. Charlie's had a big V8 with an abnormal thirst for oil. I crewed for him a few times and at every service we would automatically be ready to add a couple of quarts of oil, unless of course Charlie was leaning out of the driver's side window as he rolled in yelling "OIL!", in which case we would puncture the top on another couple of quarts...

Kent
Wow. P. Charles Sinclair. 1970 Moonlight Monte he caught Wayne Wiley and me in our 64 Corvair and we missed a turn an went straight into a ravine with P Charles right behind. Our rock screen flew off and jumped up and took out all his lights. We never lifted and came right up out of the ravine. Believe Charlie parked it there. There's a name I haven't heard in awhile!

Thanks!
 
#56 ·
Foghorn said:
Charlie Sinclair of Toledo had the 64 Barracuda version of the Valiant. Think of the biggest rear window possible on a hatchback and then double what you are thinking of and you'll be relatively close to the size of that piece of glass. Charlie's had a big V8 with an abnormal thirst for oil. I crewed for him a few times and at every service we would automatically be ready to add a couple of quarts of oil, unless of course Charlie was leaning out of the driver's side window as he rolled in yelling "OIL!", in which case we would puncture the top on another couple of quarts...

Kent
Wow, who'd have known Plymouth Valiants had so much rally history!

Come to think of it, I believe I noticed from recent on line reading that Scott Harvey (the elder) ran at least one Valiant in his competition history.

Off rally topic so pardon me if I'm out of line here, but in reference to Foghorn's observation of the huge rear window on the early Valiant Barracudas: There was a show car called the "Hemi under glass" that put on wheel standing demos at various drag strips in the Sixties making a central theme of its huge back light. Its builder mounted a 426 cubic inch old-school Hemi midship under the rear window for all to see. The car had so much rear weight bias it would pull a "wheelie" all the down the strip with ease.

One more side note before I get kicked off of this forum... The old oil cans made a great "temporary" exhaust system patch. All one had to do was cut off either end, snip down the resulting cylinder to create a sheet of metal, then wrap the metal sheet around failed area of exhaust pipe and secure with two worm screw clamps. (And get the resulting cuts stitched up.) If one has ever done that they're probably a bit up there in years :rolleyes:

Back to rallying, from the rallyracingnews.com results achieves the guys who ran the Valiant I was thinking of are, I believe, Jerry Cushing and Dennis Clark in Sunriser '78. If that's the entry I envision they were local to the Chillicothe, Ohio area and their Valiant was a dark blue piece of work. They must've used every trick in the book to pass tech.

Lastly, to address P Remmer's observation, I stumbled upon the rallying community in central Ohio completely by chance in the later '70s. It just happened that there was a very strong interest in rallying in the area at the time and apparently stage rallying had recently come in to its own. They were interesting times, for sure!

Dan...
 
#57 ·
From what I remember, Jerry Cushing was a local dirt track oval driver, that decided that rally would be fun. He put a cage (maybe just a roll bar) in a stock Valient and entered Sunriser. They ran the stock odo and had a wind up alarm clock for a timer on the dashboard. Jerry wasn't the slowest and had a great time.
 
#58 ·
All this talk of Valiants.....

...reminds me of my introduction to the sport. Way back when I got roped into working a traffic control at STPR. At some point shortly before the first car was to arrive we heard a car coming up the road we were blocking. We were ready to act all official and save the rally until we realized that it was the rallymaster, John Robinson, in his Valiant convertible, with the top down, checking to make sure things were in order. Robbie would mile the whole rally in that car using the stock odo and had an absolutely encyclopedic knowledge of every inch of the course.

When Robbie passed a few of years ago we learned that he had been a WWII bomber navigator. I guess some habits just stay with you.

Phil Barnes, aging co-driver
 
#59 ·
Mad Mike said:
The Monzas, the Starfires, the Pontiacs (whatever they were called) all sprung from the same awful chassis. I remember getting a phone call in the 70s that went something like, "Hey Mike. I'm thinking of rallying a Monza and wanted your opinion since you are rallying a Vega." I told him I thought the car would be hideously nose-heavy, handle even worse than mine and probably overheat a lot. The car was built anyway and I think my advice became prophetic. Said driver switched to 510s before all was said and done!
Speaking of Monzas, one of my first intros to stage rallying was in either 79 or 80. And a fellow from Philadelphia came to our SCCA club meeting with slides and a talk about the Monza he was building. I imagine he was from Phila. Anyone know who it might have been (I might recoginze the name if I heard it, but don't ask me what I had for supper last night, oh yes, I do remember, it was dandelion).
 
#60 · (Edited)
Dan_H said:
Wow, who'd have known Plymouth Valiants had so much rally history!

Come to think of it, I believe I noticed from recent on line reading that Scott Harvey (the elder) ran at least one Valiant in his competition history.
Yep, here's a pic of one of the cars (although I think that this may have been a roadrace version) and Scott's family. I've co-driven for the kid!
http://www.mindspring.com/~micritz/harvfam.gif

And scan down this page to find mention of the brakes on the car
http://www.allpar.com/history/mopar/disc-brakes.html

There is an article on-line somewhere about Chrysler's three car team in 1964 at Monte Carlo but I can't seem to find it right now.


Dan_H said:
One more side note before I get kicked off of this forum... The old oil cans made a great "temporary" exhaust system patch. All one had to do was cut off either end, snip down the resulting cylinder to create a sheet of metal, then wrap the metal sheet around failed area of exhaust pipe and secure with two worm screw clamps. (And get the resulting cuts stitched up.) If one has ever done that they're probably a bit up there in years :rolleyes:
You won't get kicked off this forum by us. We love this old time stuff.

And in the "been there, done that" department, we used to run an all night MONY rally out of Erie, PA put on by the Misery Bay Sports Car Club...damn, can't think of the rally's name at the moment but Misery Bay also used to put on an SCCA National TSD called Misery Loves Company...anyway, one year we broke the exhaust pipe, stopped at an all night diner, got one of those big tomato juice cans from the cook, he cut out the top and bottom and slit the side and we did our repair in the parking lot using a couple of coathangers to hold it in place. Got us all the way home to Toledo after the rally too.

Kent
 
#62 ·
Paul Jaeger said:
William Pichardo of Swarthmore, PA ran a Monza in 1979 at STPR. Bill was probably better known for running a Fiat 124 sedan in the early to mid 70's.
Since we are digging up old stories. Here is the sad tale of how Bill almost became a works Fiat 124 Abarth driver.

He had entered the 1973 Rally of the Rideau Lakes in a Studebaker Lark.:eek:

The next year, in the 1974 WRC Rideau Lakes, he entered in a Fiat 124 which was tuned to what we would today call mild Group 2 specs.

Also entered at the rally was a team of factory Fiat 124 Abarths (Alen, Paganelli, Perusse).

Well, half way through the event, all three factory Fiats had DNFd and Bill (who was a very competent driver) came into a main service area in 6th place overall.

In those days, a manufacturer got WRC points for any car that finished, not just nominated works entries. So, Fiat had the chance to still gain some valuable manufacturer's points.

I was busy elsewhere in the course opening car but, from what I heard, Bill's car was descended upon by every works Fiat mechanic at the event and emerged out of service looking very much like a "real" rally car.

Unfortunately, he ended up DNFing the event. :(

I later asked the Fiat team manager what would have happened if he had finished the rally and got them points. He said Bill would have had a works Abarth and full support to run the following year.

Such is life.

Doug Woods
 
#63 ·
Paul Jaeger said:
From what I remember, Jerry Cushing was a local dirt track oval driver, that decided that rally would be fun. He put a cage (maybe just a roll bar) in a stock Valiant and entered Sunriser. They ran the stock odo and had a wind up alarm clock for a timer on the dashboard. Jerry wasn't the slowest and had a great time.
Yeah, Paul... You've got it, right down to the wind-up alarm clock! Jerry wasn't shy about pointing out that his Valiant was indeed a beater and was quite proud of finishing the event. I believe the local Chillicothe media even gave him a fair amount of coverage. Thanks for filling in the blanks.

All of these other posts have been great, too. Very informative stuff. Thanks!

Dan...
 
#65 ·
funny trucker said:
Off the subject one more time: "Hemi Under Glass" was also a Hemi over glass as in order to see where he was going he installed a glass section in the floor.

Funny Trucker
just a worker transplanted from the desert
Very good point! The window in the floor Funny Trucker mentioned effectively became the windshield.

AND, I don't know if it was installed originally or evolved later, but I believe the car also had independent braking of the left and right rear wheels so it could be steered to some degree as it wheel-standed down the track.

That could make one wonder if this type of independent right-left braking has ever been used in rallying...

Dan...
 
#66 ·
Dan_H said:
AND, I don't know if it was installed originally or evolved later, but I believe the car also had independent braking of the left and right rear wheels so it could be steered to some degree as it wheel-standed down the track.

That could make one wonder if this type of independent right-left braking has ever been used in rallying...

Dan...
Such brakes are routinely used on trials (think dirt hillclimb) cars in England where they are called fiddle brakes.

--Phil Barnes, aging co-driver
 
#72 ·
Fiddle Brakes

P Remner said:
They use 'em in cars, too? I've only ever seen them in use on sandrails/buggies where there is next to no weight on the front. Kinda like the Hemi Under Glass...
Actually, if you have ever seen British trials cars, you would see that they have no weight on the front ends either. They are little open top cars, that remind me of the cars Donald Duck drove. The driver and passenger sit high in the car and are always leaning out to see the road ahead. British trials is a lot like American 4wd rock climbing where the aim seems to be to get furthest up the hill avoiding penalties. Speeds are low with the emphasis on completing the course. Click this link for pictures:

http://www.classictrials.co.uk/Gas07011.htm
 
#74 · (Edited)
Paul Jaeger said:
Actually, if you have ever seen British trials cars, you would see that they have no weight on the front ends either. They are little open top cars, that remind me of the cars Donald Duck drove. The driver and passenger sit high in the car and are always leaning out to see the road ahead. British trials is a lot like American 4wd rock climbing where the aim seems to be to get furthest up the hill avoiding penalties. Speeds are low with the emphasis on completing the course. Click this link for pictures:

http://www.classictrials.co.uk/Gas07011.htm
I wasn't gonna comment on it but what the heck... I'm old enough that I can easily visualize Paul's Donald Duck analogy to a trials car. :( Nice work, BTW.

This conjures up the image of Mr. Duck motoring his little roadster up a muddy hill, all the time spewing his quacking-that-sounds-like-disguised-swearing along with performing his other machinations.

Now to relate this bit of free association back to rallying, picture Donald doing the routine mentioned above while ripping down a special stage. ;)

Returning to reality, Dan...
 
#75 ·
Bump!!!

I resorted to Googling "Suicide by Proxy" to find my scans of the Rallye Magazine article Grimo wrote way back when and it sent me here - again. There is so much good info in this thread that I thought it would be good to bump it so our recent fans of North American rallying's early days could take in all this info too!

Enjoy, again.
 
#119 ·
I resorted to Googling "Suicide by Proxy" to find my scans of the Rallye Magazine article Grimo wrote way back when and it sent me here - again. There is so much good info in this thread that I thought it would be good to bump it so our recent fans of North American rallying's early days could take in all this info too!

Enjoy, again.
The Funniest Rally Article Every Written.

Some time ago the website that had the text to the "Suicide By Proxy" article
succumbed to the great bit bucket in the sky, so I grabbed a copy of that text
(via the Wayback Machine) and stashed it HERE.
 
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