9 replies to this topic

[Jerry Entin]

This photo was taken during practice of the SCCA National at Eagle Mountain the weekend of June 1-2, 1957, before the rain arrived. Can anyone identify the #38 car?


photo: Willem Oosthoek collection

Edited by Jerry Entin, 26 April 2010 - 01:47.

[arttidesco]

I had a look at racingsportscars.com which lists a number of SCCA events including 1957 Eagle Mountain, frustratingly I can find no class HS between 1951 1963, I know class HM was Homemade so I am guessing HS was Home Sports either way if it helps in your enquires it's definitely not an OSCA MT4 which was my first guess :-)

[RA Historian]

I had a look at racingsportscars.com which lists a number of SCCA events including 1957 Eagle Mountain, frustratingly I can find no class HS between 1951 1963, I know class HM was Homemade so I am guessing HS was Home Sports either way if it helps in your enquires it's definitely not an OSCA MT4 which was my first guess :-)

HS as a class designation baffles me also. Never saw such a thing. A local class designation such as "H Sports"? I don't know.

HM was not 'home made' although a lot of the cars that raced in the class were. HM was "H Modified", an SCCA class for small displacement sports racers. At the time I believe that it was for cars under 750cc. The back yard bomb was prevalent in the class, hence your understandable confusion, with their only competition being various et ceterinis. For example, these are the Class HM National Champions in SCCA in those years:

1954-Chandler Poole, PBX Special
1955- Dolph Vilardi, Bandini
1956- James Orr, Devin-Panhard
1957- Melvin Sachs, Bandini
1958- Martin Tanner, Martin T Special
1959- James Eichenlaub, Osca 750
1960- Ollie Schmidt, Osca 750, Lola Mk I-Osca
1961- Ollie Schmidt, Lola Mk I-Osca
1962- Glenn Baldwin, Lotus 17
1963- William Greer, Zink Petite Special
1964- Ed Walsh, Lotus 23-Saab

And so on.

Having said all that, I don't know what the car in the photo is either!

Tom

Edited by RA Historian, 26 April 2010 - 14:05.

[etceterini.com]

It seems that they were calling HMod HSports at this race, here are my results scans
but no #38 is listed, it must have been a DNS:





To see all of my SCCA results go to:

http://www.ferrariex.....test page.htm

I've been adding a lot of info lately!!

[ERault]

This photo was taken during practice of the SCCA National at Eagle Mountain the weekend of June 1-2, 1957, before the rain arrived. Can anyone identify the #38 car?


photo: Willem Oosthoek collection

A (very) wild guess, but the Beast Crosley Special looked broadly similar (see Pace & Brinker p145). Built in 1952, it was raced since 1954 by Bob Hollbrook. It had a new aloy body in 1956, then a new fiberglass one in 1957. But Hollbrook was from California, and I am not sure he would have travel to Eagle Mountain.

[Jerry Entin]

Another case of the use of S instead of M: Norm Scott and his FS Porsche 550RS at Eagle Mountain in the October 1957 3-hour race.

Tom: For some obscure reason the SCCA entries [at least in the South] used the S [for sports] instead of the M [for modified] for all non-production classes in 1957. By 1958 it was back to M again

all research Willem Oosthoek
photo: Willem Oosthoek collection

[Jerry Entin]

Thanks for the brave effort: Erault
Since we don't have the Pace/Brinker book, we can't comment on the likeliness of the Beast Crosley. However, our mystery car was owned by a Texan when the photo was taken.

Since the car did not take the start in any of the races, we had to rely on the entry list to find out what it was. It was owned by Woody Boyles of Dallas, who also entered the Lotus 9/Climax seen next to it, a car he did race that weekend. The mystery car was called the Fiasco Special and that is as much as we know. Fiat engine? Crosley engine? Body by whom?

all research Willem Oosthoek

[S&M Minis]

I have the article "Biography of A Beast" from the February 1961 issue of Sports Car Illustrated. The article shows three different bodies worn by The Beast and none of them are close to the picture posted by Jerry. One iteration of The Beast had a headrest, but that's as close as it appears to get. I'll go through the article later and see if any of the names mentioned in this thread show up. Have to board a plane right now ...

[etceterini.com]

Jerry,
can you send me the entry list?? Please???

[oldtransamdriver]

Jerry,
can you send me the entry list?? Please???

Ckiff,

Thanks for your marvellous website. Great to see some results and names I had forgotten about. In my early spectating days I went to many SCCA races in the NE and even to RA.

Later I even got to race against some of those names. Keep those results and photos coming.

Robert Barg