SuperStories

SuperStories-Enjoy the Ride

February 28, 2012 By Bobby G

Date of Story-07/01/1990

Scene of Story-Nationwide

By- “WingTips” Jeff Nelson

It has been almost twenty years since I was crew chief of the DuMor #88 supermodified of Wild Willie Stutzman – (the subject of a number of stories already posted here). I believe that it is significant that most of these stories here (including mine) are not about a specific race but rather about the events and life style that surround supermodified racing.

Anyone that is involved in supermodified racing possesses a competitive nature and can recall exciting racing moments. But it is interesting to me that the memories I hold closest are those involving the events that occurred while traveling, working on the car, and the camaraderie between all of the other supermodified drivers, crews, and of course interacting with the race fans. The simple fact is that supermodified racing is a very special sport and it attracts a very special caliber of person regardless of whether they are a participant or a spectator.

WingTips Nelson and Wild Willie strike a pose

I am sharing this with you because I think that you too will someday have the same feelings toward the experiences you are exposed to now. It is not easy to campaign a supermodified and those that do it will always have a lot on their plate just getting the cars ready and to the track. The race itself is of course very important and it feeds our competitive side, but don’t be so busy that you can’t spend 15 seconds once in a while to just stop and take in everything and everyone around you. Also don’t allow yourself to become so absorbed in your racing that you fail to share it with others.

One of the things that made (and still makes) Willie Stutzman so likeable is his willingness to share the fun side of whatever he does. Whether we were stopped for gas on the toll road, working on the car in the pits, or loading up after the race we always assumed a self-depreciating approach that allowed everyone to approach us on our level and share in our fun. To be sure racing a supermodified is hard work, but it is also fun work if you share it.

I have enjoyed contributing stories from my times of racing with Willie Stutzman and I have more to share if I ever get time to sit down and type them out. I’m sure there are hundreds of other great stories out there that others have experienced and hopefully they will share them here too. To supermodified people everywhere I thank you for the wonderful times. Please enjoy and share your own journey through your life of supermodified racing and it will continue to reward you for a lifetime.

‘WingTips’ Jeff Nelson

Popularity: 2%

SuperStories-Doug Didero & Brandon Woods

February 7, 2012 By Bobby G

Date of Story-09/05/1996

Scene of Story-Oswego Speedway

By Bill Woods

The year was 1996. My son Brandon was 5 at the time. He took a big liking to Doug Didero. Doug broke down on this night and Brandon found a rubber band under the stands. When we went in the pits Brandon went right up to Doug and gave him the rubber band and told him “Here you can fix your car now.” I think that was the second race of the season.

From then on out every week Brandon would give Doug a rubber band and Cindy Didero told us that Doug went home every week and put the rubber band on a candle stick on his mantle. Brandon started drawing Doug photos of his car and giving them to him. Doug would hang them up in the hauler. We became very close to Doug and Cindy Doug won his 3drd track championship in a row that year.

Three weeks be for the classic Doug asked Brandon what we where doing for the International Classic 200. Brandon said to Doug, “Mom and dad do not have the extra money to take all 6 of us to the Classic so we where going to try to get it on the radio if we can from Syracuse.” Doug said, “OK I hope you can get it.”

On the last week before the Classic we went in the pits to see Doug and Cindy so Brandon could give him 3 rubber bands; 1 for that night and 2 for Classic. Cindy came over to me and said “Why don’t you walk around for a while then come back and see us when things calm down.” We walked around and talked to some drivers like we always did.

When things calmed down over at Doug’s hauler we went back over to say bye and good luck next week. We where standing with Cindy talking while Doug finished up with some people then Doug walked over to Brandon and knelt down to Brandon level then said to Brandon, “I cant race with out my biggest fan here for Classic.” He then took out of his back pocket an envelope and gave it to Brandon. Brandon opened it and there were six reserved seat tickets to the Classic.

Brandon, and well most of us, just started crying. I still can not believe that Doug and Cindy and Skip and Lois Matczak did that for my family. Well Doug went on to win his first Classic that year. When we went in the pits to see Doug he said, “Brandon thank you, I don’t think I would of won if you were not here.

I still talk to Doug and Cindy to this day. Cindy told me that Doug still has every rubber band and drawing that Brandon ever did for him.

The End

Popularity: 3%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: Doug Didero, International Classic 200, oswego speedway, SuperStories

SuperStories-Willie, Pull My Leg!

December 28, 2011 By Bobby G

Date of Story-July late 1980s

Scene of Story-Sandusky Raceway

By Jeff “Wingtips” Nelson

Anyone that has ever spent any time around Wild Willie Stutzman knows that he is the consummate jokester. Nothing and nobody is sacred to Willie and there were times during our days of racing the Dumor 88 Supermodified that the constant joking could get a bit annoying. Considering Willie’s jokester nature I could never have imagined that there would come a time that I would actually beg Willie to pull my leg, but that’s what happened one summer afternoon at Sandusky Speedway.
It was the annual Hy-Miler Nationals weekend of supermodified racing at Sandusky in the late 1980s. Willie and I were there to compete and had just unloaded the car from the trailer. We had made preparations to lap the car a few laps to warm the engine and return to the pits with the engine running. The top side of the engine had been apart the previous week for maintenance or repairs and we wanted to check the magneto ignition timing with a timing light. This could only be accomplished by pulling the car out of gear when returning to the pits and coasting to our pit area with the engine running where we could then attach the timing light and check it. [Read more...]

Popularity: 4%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: sandusky speedway, supermodified stories, willie stutzman

SuperStories-Some Cars

December 19, 2011 By Lew Boyd

By Permission: Excerpt from Lew Boyd’s “Tear-Offs” 12/19/11

Most racers will tell you cars aren’t just metal objects. There can be some kind of strange personality thing attached to them, too. Even in this day of mass production, two chassis welded up identically and side by side can end up being Jekyll and Hyde. The one will never seem comfortable and never take a set while the other will handle seamlessly and just keep on truckin,’ no matter what happens.

A car known along the way as “the Clipper City Rocket” is surely a case in point. There has been a spirit around it, one that has never known how to quit.

Twenty-five winters ago, Freddie Graves was designing and gluing up class-of-the-field supermodifieds in the Oswego, New York, area. One of his pieces came East to Joe Barry’s Oil Company in Wilmington, Mass., and Joe hired Bugsy Stevens’ then son-in-law, Bobby Fitzpatrick, to drive it. They had their stout runs, but never were able to seal the checkered deal.

The car caught the eye of Bobby Witkum of the impressively successful Witkum racing family. Bobby bought it, dedicated it to ‘Clipper City,’ his hometown of Newburyport, Mass, and dedicated himself to taking it to the front. The concentration and mechanical massaging paid off, and he had the Clipper in the winner’s circle in four weeks.

Racing will be racing, though. Bobby recalls coming off the second turn at the banked 5/8 mile at Thompson, Conn., one afternoon in the injected big block. “You had to get the car’s attitude just right to get over that bump. Sometimes it could lift the wheels right off the track. I think that’s what happened. When it slammed back down, I broke a brand new U-joint on the drive shaft. I thought I had blown the engine.”

You could see why. Bobby flew down the backstretch a ball of fire before hitting the wall hard. It was a scary mess.

Peel back the rest of this installment of Tear Offs by Lew Boyd at Coastal181.com-Click the banner!

Popularity: 3%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: Bobby Fitzpatrick, Bobby Witkum, Coastal 181, Danny Kapuscinski, keith shampine, Lew Boyd, Paul Richardson

SuperStories-1 Lap Pursuit

December 17, 2011 By adminwsu

Date of Story-June 27, 1968

Scene of Story-Berlin Raceway

By Harley Farkle

Summer of ’68; Berlin Raceway: Nine car Australian Pursuit with fast timer Johnny Benson on the tail. Green flag coming out of two, someone up front stutters for just a second. The whole field running single fie slows. All except JB who had made a move to the outside. JB passes 8 cars by the end of the backstretch and wins the Pursuit in one lap. Shortest race I have ever seen.

Popularity: 3%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: berlin raceway, Johnny Benson, SuperStories

SuperStories-WingTips Pees Across Ohio

November 11, 2011 By adminwsu

Date of Story-07/15/1990

Scene of Story-Sandusky Speedway

By Jeff “Wingtips” Nelson

In the eighties when I first started racing with ‘Wild’ Willie Stutzman we used an open race car trailer as our base of operations at the track. The trailer was towed with an old Chevy conversion van. That combination fulfilled our needs when our racing was confined mostly to race tracks in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. Usually when racing at venues in those states we drove to track, raced and then towed home all in one day (and usually the early part of the next day too). An average Saturday night race would see us leaving Goshen Indiana early on Saturday morning and towing up six hours one-way to the track, running the full race schedule including warm-up, qualifying, one or more heat races, and running the feature, and then towing home again in the early hours of Sunday morning.

On most of these racing excursions we also managed to squeeze in some serious post race partying as well (hence our reputation as ‘the party crew’). Many a bright Sunday morning sun would be burning my eyes as I would stumble up the steps to the house and fling my sweaty, greasy, dirty self across the bed for some badly needed sleep. At race events that spanned two days we would usually just sleep in the van in the pits for a couple of hours between late Saturday night partying and the beginning of race activities Sunday morning – not exactly your sleep number bed, but that’s what we did. [Read more...]

Popularity: 4%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: roadtrippin, SuperStories, willie stutzman

SuperStories-Willie’s Raw Egg Smoothies

November 6, 2011 By adminwsu

Date of Story-06/10/1998

Scene of Story-Sandusky Speedway

By Jeff “Wingtips” Nelson

By the time I started racing with ‘Wild’ Willie Stutzman he was already well into his fifties, and he continued wheeling a supermodified for many years beyond that. As the years went by the supermodified drivers that could be considered Willie’s peers steadily hung up their helmets one by one until we were guaranteed of having the oldest driver anywhere still piloting a supermodified. Willie took all of the remarks and jokes regarding his age in a good natured way. In fact, because Willie and I both possessed self depreciating senses humor we probably were responsible for most of the age jokes ourselves.

I remember standing next to the race car staged at the front of the push away line in the pits at Sandusky one Saturday afternoon waiting for our turn to hot lap. Willie was out of the car and had walked a little ways out on the push off road to watch a group of cars hot lapping. One of the emergency rescue workers standing near a parked ambulance at the pit entrance walked up and nudged me. Apparently not realizing I was part of Willie’s crew he leaned over, pointed at Willie in his driver suit and shouted in my ear “boy, that guy is no spring chicken”. I guess he assumed Willie was the driver of one of the street stocks pitted nearby and had strolled over to watch the supers practice. The expression on his face sure changed when Willie walked back and spryly jumped up over the roll cage, under the wing and lowered himself into the cockpit of the 88 Dumor Supermodified. [Read more...]

Popularity: 4%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: sandusky speedway, SuperStories, willie stutzman

SuperStories-Brownie Joins The DuMor 88 Racing Team

September 12, 2011 By adminwsu

Date of Story-NA

Scene of Story-Winchester Speedway

By Jeff “Wingtips” Nelson

The bright yellow DuMor team racing shirts and hats were always very popular with the ”Wild” Willie fans and we always carried a good supply of them in the race car hauler. We enjoyed being able to look up into the stands from the pits and see all of the clearly visible DuMor team shirts and hats amongst the crowd. I especially remember one fan at Sandusky Speedway (a young paraplegic man in a wheelchair) that I gave a DuMor shirt to. He was in always there in the stands with his DuMor shirt on whenever we raced there and nobody cheered louder for Willie than he did. He was a great Supermodified fan and I wish I could remember his name, but I hope he is well and still enjoying the supers. If anyone reading this knows him please tell him that ”Wild” Willie and ”Wingtips” remember him and say hello.

While the shirts and hats were technically for sale, Willie and I would also give them away to certain deserving fans as well as aesthetically good looking females that we felt would make the shirts look especially good (we always had the best looking fans where ever we raced). The hats were very popular with the kids. I used to get the brim of my hat dirty and greasy during an afternoon of practice, qualifying and all of the work on the car that went in between. Just before the feature I would get out a new hat for myself and find a youngster in the stands to give the dirty hat to. Somehow it seemed that they appreciated a free dirty hat with a sweaty brim over a new one that someone purchased for them. Kind of like free beer to us grown ups I guess. Anyway, it was at Winchester Speedway that I started a new tradition with DuMor racing shirts….. [Read more...]

Popularity: 6%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: Roger Holdeman, supermodified stories, willie stutzman, Winchester

SuperStories-Wild Willie’s Exploding Trailer

July 3, 2011 By adminwsu

Date of Story-08/10/1986

Scene of Story-Ohio Turnpike

By Jeff “Wingtips” Nelson

I was mechanic and crew chief for ‘Wild’ Willie Stutzman and the Dumor Special number 88 SuperModified back in the eighties. In those days I was known as Wingtips – a nickname Willie coined for me when we first went racing together. It referred to the fact that I used to show up in the pits at Friday night races in Indiana directly from my job selling cars. I would get to the races just in time to perform last minute tuning, working in a dress shirt, tie and (of course) winged tip dress shoes. Willie liked the attention that a guy in shirt and tie in the pits attracted and he claimed it caused rumors amongst the other racers that he had snagged a high dollar businessman for a sponsor.

Anyone that has spent any appreciable amount of time involved in racing outside of their own back yard will tell you that they often spend as much or more time on the road traveling to and from races as the amount of time that they actually spent at the track. This was certainly the case for ‘Wild’ Willie Stutzman and myself during what I think of as the Sandusky years back in the eighties. For three or four years I think we could rightfully claim Sandusky as our home track. During that time Sandusky was running regular Super shows through the summer and Willie and I rarely missed a race there with the 88 Dumor Super Modified. Sandusky, Ohio was just under a four hour tow from our base (Goshen, Indiana) and we spent much of our weekends towing across and back on the Indiana and Ohio toll roads. I almost always drove the rig and Willie spent a large percentage of tow time sleeping. [Read more...]

Popularity: 6%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: Explosions, sandusky speedway, SuperStories, willie stutzman

SuperStories-Bentley at the Zoo

April 11, 2011 By adminwsu

Date of Story-Late 1970s

Scene of Story-Kalamazoo Speedway

by Bruce Guppy

Being from Michigan in the seventies supermodified racing had almost disappeared until Tri-SAC came along. They were mostly racing at Kazoo. As I recall they had a Sunday race late in the year a two day deal. Well, who shows up on Sunday? None other than Bentley Warren himself after racing, I think, in NY the night before with that red super that would lift up on one side when he jumped on it. It was awesome!

They let him tag on to the back of 100 lapper main what a show inside outside any place with a small opening he was thru it. Now I had read about Bentley in my many race papers and knew he was good, but this was unreal. Nobody knew that he was coming, and a lot of the people in the stands had never even heard of him.

Yes he won and I think Sammy Sessions was a distant second It was great I miss those kind of things in today’s racing.

Popularity: 7%

Filed Under: SuperStories Tagged With: bentley warren, Bruce Guppy, Kalamazoo Speedway, SuperStories