Old School Cool

[Mopar 151]

I beleive that he is talking about Joe Ciski - his 6-cyl sprint car still runs with the antique clubs in this area.

[Rabbit Farmer]

I can't find the topic where we were talking about this....

Photos from the famous Jimi Hyder Photo Archives, LLC of the Tornasty.

Someone with familiarity with this car will be able to offer some insight into each of the photos.

[sachilles]

First picture is of the Enduro at thunder road in Barre. My guess is it is one of the first enduros based on the size of the cars in the picture.
IF you have not been to the enduro, it should be on your bucket list. They only use the green flag, red flag and checker flag. If your car dies on the track, it becomes an obstacle for everyone else. Red flag is in case someone catches on fire or is turned on to their roof. If your car dies on the track you stay inside it until the next red flag, when they give you a couple minutes to escape and sprint for the pits.
Cars are minimally prepped for this spectacle. Corner cutters cars typically get turned into some sort of obstacle by the track crew.
It's the one event I try to make at Thunder road each summer.

I believe they stage the cars 3 wide now, but they still take up 3/4's of the track at start up.

[Rabbit Farmer]

First picture is of the Enduro at thunder road in Barre. My guess is it is one of the first enduros based on the size of the cars in the picture.

I completely missed that there were also cars in the background, therefore, it fills up 3/4 of the track for an enduro. I just saw the cars in the foreground and thought it was a race.

[sciroccohp]

I ran a couple of enduros at hudson speedway in NH. It was a blast, I remember one time they had a fire on the infield and they used up all the fire extiquishers on it and it still wasn't out so they restarted with the car still burning inside of turn 3. The fast line was very warm!!!

[DaveEstey]

Twin State Speedway just had a 100-lap enduro friday night. 55 cars and a TON of thrashing.

[Mopar 151]

•Sad News - Ernie Gahan: Ernie Gahan, the 1966 NASCAR Modified national champion, passed away Thursday night at his home in Cranberry Isles, Maine at the age of 83. Gahan, originally from Dover, N.H., got his start in auto racing at his hometown track Dover Speedway in 1948 after serving more than two years as an Army military policeman in Germany following Word War II. After getting his start at Dover, Gahan competed in the NASCAR Sportsman division until 1965, when he moved over to Modifieds. Gahan compiled 6,560 points during his 1966 run to the title to distance himself from runner-up Bugs Stevens and third place Ray Hendrick. Driving a 1936 Chevrolet coupe, Gahan won 15 of the 71 races he entered that season, but led Hendrick by just 48 points heading into the season finale in Atlanta, Ga. Hendrick was caught up in an early race accident and Gahan crossed the line 10th to earn the crown.
Gahan made 11 starts in what is now known as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series from 1960-66. He was bestowed the Buddy Shuman Award for outstanding contributions to NASCAR following an incident in which he helped Tiny Lund rescue Marvin Panch from a fiery crash prior to the 1963 Daytona 500.
Winner of an estimated 300-plus races during his nearly three decades as a racer, Gahan was a member of the inaugural New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame in 1998 and was a 1990 New York State Stock Car Association Hall of Fame inductee. Additionally, he is a member of the Maine Motorsports Hall of Fame and Beach Ridge Motor Speedway Hall of Fame. Gahan was in attendance at the 2007 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Awards Banquet as many of the NASCAR Modified champions gathered to kick-off the celebration of 60 Years of Modified Champions. He was honored for his 1966 title at the 2008 Spring Sizzler at Stafford. "Ernie was part of the Modified legacy that has helped make NASCAR what it is today. He was a great racer and true New England legend," said Jim Hunter, NASCAR vice president for corporate communications. "On behalf of NASCAR and the France family, our thoughts and prayers go out to Gahan's family and friends." Arrangements are pending and will be made available at a later time.(localracing.nascar.com)(11-28-2009)

[Mopar 151]

As some know, Shirley Muldowney started her racing career at the Glens Falls and Catamount drag strips. Shirley's reputation as a tough competitor was for real - my friend Wacky Willy met her a few times at Catamount, and In his words "A hell of a driver, but no lady!" One of the best online racing magazines, Competition Plus, has a holiday feature of "war stories" - here is one of Shirley's"
THAT $^%^%&** ASHTRAY SLINGING WOMAN

One round with three more to go, and when you draw John Force in competition you had better come with the guns blazing and with everything you have in the arsenal. I watched that guy come up through the ranks and when you come up like he did, there’s usually a handful of stories that are written along the way.

As I told you last round, many of my stories focus on standing toe to toe with someone slapping it out and I never went looking for a fight, they came searching me out. Let the lesson be known. If you mess with the bull, you get the horn or in my case – the ashtray.

This particular story dates back to our championship season in 1982.

We had just won the Northstar Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., and that brought to an end a frustrating weekend of sleeping in these cabanas the NHRA had booked us into that weekend.

Everything about the place we stayed had bad news written over it. The name of the place was Breezy Point and it was 15 miles from the track down a country two-lane road.

I remember that you had to grease up the bed post legs to keep the bugs and ants from crawling up into the bed with you and when you did make it to the shower, you had these pull strings that operated the flow of the water. Keep in mind these were cold water showers only.

Former Top Fuel racer Doug Kerhulas was in the cabana next to us. Our truck and trailer was red and his truck was red but had a white trailer. Keep this in mind for later in the story.

We won the race and there was a restaurant down in the lobby of the place we were staying. The place was right on the end of a circle drive road. It was right on a lake and the restaurant was on the second floor. One whole wall was plate glass overlooking the lake.

I grabbed that ashtray and from 15 feet out, sailed this thing like a boomerang – you could hear it going – swish – swoosh – swish, almost like a helicopter and it caught him on the back corner of his head and laid him wide open.
We, and I mean the crew and myself, were sitting there enjoying the rest after a long and hard-fought win over Gary Beck.

We were eating our salads when this obviously drunken guy walks up and he’s standing right at the end of the table and he knew who I was, but that didn’t stop him from acting like a real butt head.

He looked at us and asked, “Who won Funny Car?”

We had our race jackets on so it wasn’t too hard to figure out we were racers. We fumbled around and finally gave the answer.

Then he opened his mouth when he should have kept quiet.

“I heard some broad won Top Fuel,” he exclaimed.

At that point, his presence was no longer welcomed.

Then he asked, “Who won Pro Stock?”

He’d already made me mad, so I looked him in the eye and said, “Why don’t you just buy a ticket and go to the race. Then you’ll know.”

This guy and he was a big boy, we later learned he played football for Minnesota, gave us a puzzled look.

He got the hint and went to a table with his wife. They sat right behind us.

We were sitting back-to-back when he turned and said, “Lady, you’re just being a horse’s ass.”

My son John turned around and asked him what he said. John then demanded the guy apologize to me.

The next thing we know this guy pulls out a steak knife and tells John he’s going to cut him.

Both John and Galvin stood up and before they could react, I flung a half-filled jar of wine at this guy and nailed him right between the eyes.

I was always quick at the draw and might have made a pretty good gunslinger in the day, if we were throwing stuff.

This guy is soaked in white wine and Galvin grabs him by the wrist trying to get him to drop the knife. He drops the knife and he’s looking at us like someone is about to go through the plate glass window.

He comes over, grabs our table and completely flips it over.

Salad dressing is dripping everywhere.

I’m grabbing salads and flinging them at this guy as quick as I can grab them. I can remember the look on this guy’s wife as she stands there stunned with Bleu Cheese dressing dripping from her nose.

His wife grabs him and says, “Sit down, you’re being a jerk.”

About that time, our waitress gets there and she’s stunned at the scene.

We decided we’ve had enough, paid our bill and get ready to leave.

I didn’t realize it but we had become quite the scene. The band had stopped playing and was watching the action.

This guy is sitting there at the table and I got really mad. Who was this gorilla to ruin our meal?

That’s where our friend Charlie, a helper on our team, comes into the picture in an indirect way. Charlie was a really great guy and he’d helped us that year and we knew him from the old days back in Schenectady, N.Y. He was dedicated to the team and I can remember once we needed help and he came to help us driving his truck, with a broken transmission, 15 miles in reverse down a dark country road.

Charlie was also a smoker and had used this huge ashtray. This was not your average Winston ashtray like I sailed at the deadbeat promoter in my first round story.

This was a huge one; one of those amber colored, octagon shaped ashtrays that he had gotten from the front desk.

There was no way I was going to let this jerk get the last word.

I grabbed that ashtray and from 15 feet out, sailed this thing like a boomerang – you could hear it going – swish – swoosh – swish, almost like a helicopter and it caught him on the back corner of his head and laid him wide open.

The ashtray, as big and durable as it was shattered in eighth-inch crystals. The glass went everywhere in other people’s plates. I mean it went everywhere.

And, now this guy was bleeding like a stuck pig.

John grabbed me and said, “Let’s get out of here now!”

The manager came over and said, “Someone is going to call the cops, you better get out of here.”

We raced to our cabanas, maybe 300 feet away, and started grabbing our bags and packing. We were throwing everything in the bags – hairdryers, clothes and everything – threw the luggage in the trailer. It was a mess.

The sun had just gone down when we stormed out of there like a bat out of hell, trailer in tow.

Now this is where Kerhulas comes into the story.

He had left his trailer at the cabana but was gone searching for food. We never had a chance to say bye.

We’re about 15 miles into our journey to make it to the Wisconsin state line when cars with blue lights went flashing by us. One, swoosh. Two, swoosh. Three, swoosh and a fourth one, swoosh. They went right past us with Shirley Muldowney’s name in gold leaf on the side of the trailer.

They were after someone. The funny thing is they had passed that someone.

They had just gotten a call telling them that Shirley Muldowney’s crew had assaulted someone and he was bleeding.

We never lifted and we had the pedal to the metal getting out of there.

When we got to the state line we called Kerhulas.

He answered the phone and when he heard my voice he asked, “What the &%$# did you guys do?”

Come to find out, Kerhulas had gotten back to the cabana with his pizza and was swarmed by six cops who pulled him out of his truck and put him up against the fender spread eagle. They had guns drawn on him and everything. The first thing they asked him is if he was in Shirley Muldowney’s crew.

They interrogated him pretty strong looking for us, but we were long gone.

Knowing us, and how we could be, he played dumb.

We finally made it home and there was a call from the hotel manager. They let us know the guy was pressing charges.

As it turns out I had met Robert Shapiro, the guy who defended O.J. Simpson in his murder trial and he ended up representing me in the assault case against this former Minnesota football player.

Amazingly, the bill was exactly $7500; the same amount of money I had won in Brainerd.

I’d call that weekend a break even experience and I’d like to put the emphasis on break.





A

[Mopar 151]

Eddie was a wizard chassisman, and a top shelf driver - clever enough to sandbag a little while leading, so as not to win by too much! He'd tell you most of his "secrets", and still beat you! I saw him drive a handful of times - always smooth, ran cleanly, a real gentleman - because he expected to line up next to you, or your buddy, 3 more times that weekend. in the Searles Badger/Datsun midget A win at Catamount
some nice tribute art by Bill Rankin

[Mopar 151]

Obituary: Moran 'Sonny' Rabideau


Moran H. Rabideau 1929-2011

BRATTLEBORO Moran H., "Sonny" Rabideau, 82 of Walker Place died unexpectedly early Tuesday morning, August 9, 2011 at his home following a period of failing health. Mr. Rabideau was born in Brattleboro on May 16, 1929 the son of Henry and Lena (Burdo) Rabideau. He was raised and educated in town and had attended Saint Michael's Parochial School. He proudly served his country in the U.S. Army during the Korean War stationed in Austria. He returned home to Brattleboro following his honorable discharge from active service in 1951. Mr. Rabideau had been employed as a machinist working at Tri-State Automotive where he retired from following 42 years of faithful service with the company. On a part-time basis he plowed snow during the winter months for Chester Majdak. In his earlier years while residing in the Fort Dummer section of Brattleboro, he worked at the former Berkshire Fine Spinning Associates on Cotton Mill Hill. Active civically, he was a life member of the American Legion, Brattleboro Post #5 and the V.F.W. Carl M. Dessaint Post #1034. Mr. Rabideau also held membership in the F.O.Eagles, Brattleboro Aerie #2445, the F&AM, Brattleboro Lodge #102, the Brattleboro Shrine Club and the Cairo Shrine Temple of Rutland where he served as captain of its skimobile unit. An accomplished stock car driver known as the "Flying Frenchman", he competed throughout the New England circuit winning 109 feature races in the 1950s, 60's and 70s. To his credit, he won five New England Dirt Track championships, four Vermont Dirt Track championships and in 2005 was inducted into the New England Antique Racers Hall of Fame. Previously he was inducted into the Claremont (NH) Owners and Drivers Association Hall of Fame. Mr. Rabideau was highlighted in a January 2005 feature article published in the Reformer. In conjunction with his lifelong passion for auto racing he enjoyed hunting, travel and time shared with his family especially his grandchildren. With his wife he always looked forward to annual vacations in Florida. On August 1, 1959 in Brattleboro he was married to Beverly Anne Houghton. His wife of 50 years predeceased him on August 19, 2009. Survivors include, one son, John Rabideau and his wife Kate of Dummerston, his daughter, Wendy Fletcher and her husband Donald of Brattleboro, three sisters, Freda Kingsbury of Dayton, Ohio, Florina Bokum of Dummerston and Shirley R. Squires of West Brattleboro. Additionally he leaves six grandchildren and many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by two brothers, Howard and Homer Rabideau and two sisters, Valeda Kozyra and Anne Morgan. FUNERAL NOTICE: The Liturgy of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Monday, August 22nd at Saint Michael's Catholic Church with Rev. Richard O'Donnell, pastor, celebrant. Burial with full military honors will follow in Saint Michael's Parish Cemetery. A reception will follow the services to be held at the Eagle's Club on Chickering Drive. Memorial contributions in Mr. Rabideau's name may be made to; Saint Michael's School, 47 Walnut Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301 attn: Elaine Beam, Principal, or to the Shriner's Children's Hospital, 516 Carew Street, Springfield, MA 01104. To sign an online register book with messages of condolence please visit www.atamaniuk.com. Arrangements are under the direction of the Atamaniuk Funeral Home.