Lake Hill Speedway track champions
- Thread starter Eileen
- Start date
KenK
All-around racing fan
This guy is Hal Hammer jr. I saw on the racers reunion site he had these pics & others.
From the site:
(regarding the 1st pic)
"This photo was taken at Lake Hill Speedway, in Valley Park, Missouri. I had just won the "Firecracker 100" feature race on the 4th of July. During the race, the throttle linkage popped off and I coasted around the inside lane, reaching under the dash to fix it. I was 4 laps down by the time I got it back on. In those days, if the track wasn't blocked, they did not throw a coution. I made up the 4 laps and finished 2 laps ahead of the 2nd place car. I really love short track racin'. Always did . . . Always will!"
And:"Thanks, Pete. I ran a bunch of old Mopars, back in the day. I even ran a short track car with power steering and auto trans. Everyone laughed - at first. When I won several races in a row, they stopped laughing. Of course, NASCAR has been using power steering for quite some time now, but back then, it hadn't yet been done, as far as any of us knew. Sig Erson used to grind experimental cams for us. We had some really wild stuff. I had a big bore, short stroke Mopar low "B" block 350 cubic inch motor that would hit 7800 rpm in the back straight, with hydraulics! Those were the days. Tech inspection consisted of having a seat belt and all 4 wheels touched the ground. We heard there was a rule book but most of us had never seen it."
I first heard of him when a friend told me about a mechanic he knew named Gordon Richards. He talked about Richards having built a Dodge Dart
funny car back in the late 60's. Later he showed me a picture he claimed was the same car after Richards sold it. It said "Hal Hammer jr." on the car.
I did a search for Mr. Hammer and found this site:
http://racersreunion.com/hal-hammer-jr/gallery/hal-hammer-jr/all
Plus a few others:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-hal-hammer-jr-a3031751
https://www.facebook.com/HalHammerJr
http://www.classmates.com/people/Hal-Hammer-Jr/7418838280
Sounds like a very interesting guy...
From the site:
(regarding the 1st pic)
"This photo was taken at Lake Hill Speedway, in Valley Park, Missouri. I had just won the "Firecracker 100" feature race on the 4th of July. During the race, the throttle linkage popped off and I coasted around the inside lane, reaching under the dash to fix it. I was 4 laps down by the time I got it back on. In those days, if the track wasn't blocked, they did not throw a coution. I made up the 4 laps and finished 2 laps ahead of the 2nd place car. I really love short track racin'. Always did . . . Always will!"
And:"Thanks, Pete. I ran a bunch of old Mopars, back in the day. I even ran a short track car with power steering and auto trans. Everyone laughed - at first. When I won several races in a row, they stopped laughing. Of course, NASCAR has been using power steering for quite some time now, but back then, it hadn't yet been done, as far as any of us knew. Sig Erson used to grind experimental cams for us. We had some really wild stuff. I had a big bore, short stroke Mopar low "B" block 350 cubic inch motor that would hit 7800 rpm in the back straight, with hydraulics! Those were the days. Tech inspection consisted of having a seat belt and all 4 wheels touched the ground. We heard there was a rule book but most of us had never seen it."
I first heard of him when a friend told me about a mechanic he knew named Gordon Richards. He talked about Richards having built a Dodge Dart
funny car back in the late 60's. Later he showed me a picture he claimed was the same car after Richards sold it. It said "Hal Hammer jr." on the car.
I did a search for Mr. Hammer and found this site:
http://racersreunion.com/hal-hammer-jr/gallery/hal-hammer-jr/all
Plus a few others:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-hal-hammer-jr-a3031751
https://www.facebook.com/HalHammerJr
http://www.classmates.com/people/Hal-Hammer-Jr/7418838280
Sounds like a very interesting guy...
Only thing they changed back then was the tires and sporstmen cars didn't even do that.
