a10.23.04_081_PLO_EWS_0070

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Date:	Visitor's Name:	Comment:
10/30/04	Jeff McClung	This is the best photo of this Norcia car I have seen. Note the open face helmet with the leather face mask, awsome!
10/30/04	Ziggy	What a great picture. I do not remember this car that much but it is cool.
10/31/04	Temple T	I can't remember what they were called, but I do remember that many drivers had the same face shields like Stan has in this picture.
10/31/04	Herb 57	I don't remember what those face shields were called but I believe they came from the motorcycle racing world the first driver I remember wearing them was Buzzie. I have some photos of this car. Can you tell me who else drove the Mustang? One of the photos I have has another driver with the car. He has dark hair and a mustache.
10/31/04	3-Wide	I'm not real sure on this, but I know that Elvin Felty, Fritz Epright and Billy, Billy Pauch and Sammy Beavers drove the Gremlin bodied car. I think Paul Fitzcharles may have had a few drives behind the wheel of the #81 as well and it just may have been with the Mustang skin.
11/01/04	John Mc	(That damn ugly 81...) I believe you're right, 3W, I think he is referring to Paul Fitzcharles.
11/01/04	3-Wide	Easy there John.... I'd have to agree that I'd take the Beavers driven Gremlin, followed closely by the Osmun driven Coupe way above this particular version of the #81, but it still beats today's flat paneled refridgerater boxes. I kinda like the Mustang bodied #81, but then again, I didn't see anything wrong with Charlie Brown's Christmas tree either! Real bodies are Real cool.
11/02/04	Tim Weber	Here's the deal as far as I know; the Mustang was an off the shelf Tobias chassis kit that they welded up in the Black Horse Lane shop. The flip at Flemington was the last time the Mustang saw the track, as well as the last time that Ploski drove the 81. The next 81 was the Mulligan chassis coupe. The car in the picture made it's return later that season with Sammy Beavers at the wheel with a Pinto body on it, probably the only time I thought the 81 was ugly, but I do remember him winning with it at EWS in a wild battle with Glenn Fitz in the 23 Gremlin. As far as I know, the Mustang body got ripped off the car (in the picture) and never again saw the track, but I might be wrong. It sort of gets foggy for me as far as to what happened the rest of that season, but I know I was there working for either Charlie Voorhees, Glen Reebe, or Kenny Laureno that drove the 777 red coupe (now there's one for you, that was a pretty car) on the night that Paul Fitz trashed one of the 81's. I even remember his replacement, Don Stives, who was more than happy to jump into something with a little more ass than that little 3 coupe that lived inside the school bus. But as far as I know that was all in the Mulligan coupe with the big block and the Willys (yep) body. Of course, Stivesey wheeled the 81 way back when it was an asphalt car before they made it a dirt car (they didn't have to do much) and put Billy O behind the wheel. Of course the original 81 never ran anything other that Mr. Schron's 327s.
11/02/04	3-Wide	I can't remember the order of cars, but as far as the dirt cars go, I remember Billy O in a kinda rough looking #81 that said "Ozzie's" on it. Then came a sharper looking coupe that he also drove, and then I think the Mustang body car (above) that Ploski and maybe Paul Fitzcharles drove, then the Pinto driven by Beavers, and then back to a real cool coupe driven by Beavers, then the really, really cool Gremlin with the big horse on the quarter that was driven by Beavers, Epright, Pauch, Elvin Felty (not necessarily in that order), followed by some sheet metal creations all the way up to the 90's where Pat Norcia drove at Flemington and East Windsor. (I don't know how much of that is right... after all, it was almost 30 years ago!)
11/14/04	Spilly	All I can tell you about the Norcia cars is that when the Frank Finger took me to my first races at East Windsor, Sammy Beavers was winning everything in sight in the Norcia Coupe, with a big block. The year was 1975. The Mustang was gone by then. Now I know another coupe preceded the Mustang, but I know for a fact that the ugly Pinto was between Sammy's coupe and the Gremlin bodied cars. I have the racing programs from East Windsor to prove it. I agree that the Pinto was not very pretty, and as I've said before, the Norcia Gremlins were, in my opinion, the sharpest looking dirt modifieds of all time.

Photo ID #	a10.23.04_081_PLO_EWS_0070_1
Car #:	#81
Driver (s) :	Stan Ploski
Location:	East Windsor Speedway
Date:	mid 1970's
Photographer:	Ace Lane
Photo provided by:	Darlene Gresh Collection
Comments:	This is the car that many of us remember flipping wildly down the entire backstretch at Flemington. We all held our breath as we couldn't believe our eyes, knowing that "Stan the Man" was inside of the #81 as it just keep rolling and rolling. I remember it starting in turn 2 and didn't stop until well into turn 3. We all know that Norcia built fast race cars. After this flip, we know that they also build strong ones. Thanks to the construction of the Norcia #81, Stan escaped injury on what was one of the scariest flips of the 70's at Flemington.