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Thursday, Apr. 30, 2009

A lap around memory lane: Vintage racers motored around Central City Park dirt track

Several vintage racers motored around the old one-mile dirt track Wednesday afternoon at Central City Park.

The car they drove was pretty old, too.

But car and drivers, most in their 70s, both showed they still are pretty spry, some 60 years since cars last raced around the track.

As best as Bob Moore can figure, the last time the single-seat, open-wheel sprint car was on the Central City Park track was 1946. One of a group of former local race drivers and mechanics who now build and restore old race cars to show and run in vintage races, Moore arranged Wednesday’s demonstration as a way to honor racing pioneer Speedy Morelock’s memory, spark an interest in Macon racing history and reward some of those who helped him restore the car.

The single-seat sprint car was built in 1935 by Macon’s V.D. “Speedy” Morelock, who died in 1986. He raced the car at Central City Park and other dirt tracks across the Southeast, many at fairgrounds, for 10 or 12 years before moving to stock cars in the early years of NASCAR racing.

“He was a good mechanic and a good driver,” said Al Smith, one of a half dozen former local race drivers who took the car for a spin Wednesday. “I used to follow him around like a chicken after a junebug when I was little boy and he was racing the sprint car. And later when he drove stock cars, I’d go watch him race and help out a little. He worked as a heavy equipment mechanic for his profession, but he also built and raced race cars. Later in his career he drove some NASCAR races, and some of the early NASCAR drivers like Tiny Lund, Elmo Langley and Gene White drove his cars some.”

Morelock, who was born in 1917, is a member of the Georgia Automobile Racing Hall of Fame.

The sprint car, powered by a 140-cubic inch flathead Ford V-8 engine, has an aluminum body and wire spoke wheels. It weighs 1,247 pounds and has a 90-inch wheelbase.

“It’ll still run over 100 miles per hour if there is anyone brave enough to try it,” Moore said.

None of those who took it around the rough and rutted track wanted to try.

“Even if I was crazy enough to open it up, I wouldn’t on a rough track like this,” Moore said. “Those are the original wheels. We had them reworked, but metal that old gets brittle, kind of like old race car drivers.”

Moore isn’t sure where the car was in the first years after Morelock stopped racing it, but in the 1980s it was used as a pace car for the Speedy Morelock Memorial Races held at old Middle Georgia Raceway outside of Byron.

“Then it sat in the infield out there just deteriorating for years,” Moore said.

Robby Wallace, one of Moore’s friends who was interested in old cars, bought it. He then took it with him when he was transferred by the Federal Aviation Administration to Oklahoma City.

“He planned to restore it, but he got busy and put it away in a garage,” Moore said. “I had pretty much forgotten about it. But he happened to call a few years ago, after we had started restoring the old ’50s and ’60s stock cars we used to race, and I asked him about it. He said it was in his way, that I was welcome to come get it. So two days later I was in Oklahoma City loading it on a trailer.”

Moore, Stewart Seymore, March Davis, W.L. Kitchens, Glen Comer, Al Smith, Jim Hall, Gene Parham, Don Tomberlin, Tommie Clinard and Guy Jenkins worked to restore the car to its original condition.

“Al did the mechanical work on the chassis, Don rebuilt the engine, W.L. reworked the exhaust and headers, Tommie did the instruments and others did other things,” Moore said. “We pretty much took it all apart and rebuilt it bolt by bolt just the way it had been.”

“We’ve added a clutch and electric starter in it to make it easier to move when we take it to car shows, but originally you had to put the three-speed transmission in gear and push it off with a truck to get it started,” Moore said. “Then when they finished a race, they popped it out of gear and cut the engine and coasted back to the pits.”

The sprint car has no roll bars, has a lever the driver had to pull to operate the brakes, and a hand fuel pump he had to operate.

Moore said soon after restoring the car that they ran it around the paved Cordele Speedway for a few parade laps before a race, but since then they’ve only driven it to move it around at car shows. He arranged the Wednesday event to bring the car back to where it had once raced and as a way to give those who worked on it a bit of fun.

“Stewart and a couple of others who have helped us rebuild these old cars are gone now,” Moore said. “I wanted to do this and get some pictures before we lose any more of us.”

By the smiles on the faces of those who drove the car around the track Wednesday, it was worth it.

“That’s a rough-riding little job, but it was fun,” Tomberlin said. “But it would have been a bear to race.”

Added Kitchens, “It makes you appreciate the cars we raced.”

And it makes them appreciate the man who was a Macon racing pioneer.

To contact writer Chuck Thompson, call 923-6199, extension 235.