How I wound up at Flamboro, opening day 1962
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What a choice, spend at least $20.00 on the girl of my dreams, dancing the night away and sipping spirituous libation, or go racing on opening night at Flamboro. Yes boys and girls, I broke the date and you know what, she would never talk to me again, which left my romantic heart wide open for when I met the future missus herself in 1966.
Indeed we were at Flamboro Speedway on that opening day and not withstanding my first [and subsequent] taste of a ‘Pop’ Degraw hot dog, we were ready to race.
Everybody drew for starting position and George drew pole in the fast car heat. When the green flag fell George buried his boot on the gas and the car took off like a rocket, leaving Glenn Schurr and Al Sayer in the dust. However, come the 1-2 corner, being as we didn’t know diddly about set up, the car started plowing towards the armco barrier. George calmed down and rocketed down the back chute only to have the same plow [tight in modern terms] return. Well, while George was in the lead, nobody would dare to try pass him in his evil handling race car. By the fifth lap Jimmy Howard had caught him. Lap after lap, George ran away on the chutes and Jimmy would come out of the corner beside him on the inside.
Miracle of miracles, when the checkered flag dropped, it was George in the #123 first with Jimmy Howard followed by Gary Witter right behind. The reason for the 3 digit number was because Joe Hlywka had registered #23 before we did and since the car was lettered, we added a 1 with tape.
After George got back to the pits, he showed us how the coarse air force surplus seat belt had rubbed his left arm raw as he fought the evil handling car. So, other than stopping for a couple more of Pop Degraws hot dogs, we headed to the Cadillac Ambulance in the infield for some first aid. When we got there we found that inside the Ambulance, there was the attendant and a first aid kit. Inside the first aid kit there was a box of bandages and a half a 26er of rye. From the smell of the attendants breath, we knew where the other half was, because he was feeling no pain. We used the bandages to tape over George’s and we headed back to the pits.
To our surprise, Jimmy Howard was there waiting for us. Being as he was as terrified as George was in the heat, and being as the car was a copy of his, he decided to offer us some suggestions on how to convert our football into a race car, if for nothing else, self preservation. Twenty minutes later, under the eyes of the master builder himself ‘Jimmy Howard’, we had adjusted the tracking bars, the torsion bars and the toe in. We thanked him and headed back to his car to get ready for the main.
Jimmy started 3rd [inside second row] and George, not sure how the car would work started scratch. When the green flag dropped, to George’s amazement, the car handled like it was on rails, and when the checkers fell Jack McCutcheon had won the race but George had finished respectably in the top five.
We raced the rest of the 1962 season with moderate success, but with racing alcohol costing a whole dollar a gallon, while gasoline was 39 cents a gallon and Flamboro being 60 miles away, well, Pinecrest was only 10 minutes away and very much to our liking, Pinecrest was going to run Late Models in 1963 which made our decision relatively simple. We were going to race a Late Model at Pinecrest for the 1963 season.
The Nawrocki Hemi wound up in Bill Burr’s new car in 1963, beating Jimmy to a feature win at the CNE and then the CNE switched to Late Models in 1964. The engine got sold to ‘Red’ Berger who put it in a drag car. He didn’t listen to Nawrocki about the red line on the tach and the entire engine spewed parts all over the drag strip near London, Ontario thus dying a horrible death.
So, that is my story about opening day 1962 at Flamboro Speedway. I have remained good friends with not only the guys on our race team, but also with Bob Ross from the Bill Burr Team.
I want to tell you that the biggest thrill of my 70th Birthday was an emailed Birthday Greeting from Jimmy Howard and his daughter Sue. It don’t get much better than that’
Until next issue, remember, “if it don’t fit, you need a bigger hammer”.
Courtesy of Honest Nate Salter
