Introduction
To 1950's Style Stock Car Racing

                                                          

Some of us remember.    Some of us are much too young to remember.  Open wheels.  Narrow tires.   Six volt ignition.  Iron pipe "cages".  Race cars with shapes.   The haunting howl of a Chrysler Spitfire flathead six, the throaty bellow of an in-line GMC or a straight eight Buick, the burbling music of a Ford flathead V-8.   Running slideways - steering with the throttle. - -  Maine racing's very own roots. - - Forever lost to those of us who lived it, forever untold for those of us who did not.     (see "Carchives" page)        

 
Or so we thought.  Then again, there are those times in life when everything just seems to fall into place.  We all now have an opportunity to share in the rebirth of 1950's stock car racing as it used to be. A return to those 'good old days' ?  But how can that possibly be ???

There are no dirt tracks left alive in Maine.   Surprise !  Call it luck, or fate, or what you will, but some of Maine's "good old time stock car racers" have provided today's racers with three dirt tracks on which to run our vintage race cars.  Yes, BELIEVE IT !  There are currently THREE (4?)dirt ovals in the State of Maine running stock cars, and each has enthusiastically welcomed our vintage racing cars.  (see "Closer Encounters" page)
 

All the old coupes have gone to the crusher.   We were wrong!  Coupes, sedans,and pickups still wait patiently throughout Maine for 'rescue' ! (Yes, we even raced pickups way back then, right along with the coupes and sedans)!  Literally hundreds of raceable 1930' s, 1940's, and 1950's cars have been located and documented in Maine during the past three summers alone!  (see "Ravaged Relics" page)

I can't afford to go racing any more.  Well, perhaps the money issue just changed for the better, too.  Building a vintage racing car is surprisingly affordable, so long as we remain true to the 1950's era.  That means building our race cars using stock vintage components respirited with some of that good ol' Maine ingenuity, while avoiding those expensive specialty race components that have somehow become such a part of so called "modern" racing.    Instead, a stock vintage automobile; a cutting torch, a welder, a scrap metal heap, a set of hand tools, and an old junker or two down back is what WILL get us there.
 

Racing just isn't as much fun as it used to be.    It is sad to say, but this one may be all too true.  Much of that fun seems to have gradually faded away over the past 40 years or so; perhaps a product of these "modern" times, of big business, of asphalt, of dollars, of cookie-cutter race car "clones".  However, those of us racing our vintage stock cars on Maine's ovals are quickly rediscovering a level of fun that has been much too elusive.  With the stress(s) of modern racing left far behind, we are quickly learning what the fun was all about.