| Photo ID # | c09.01.06_033_GUI_FLM_0070_1 |
| Car #: | #33 |
| Driver (s) : | Ronnie Guinther |
| Location: | Flemington |
| Date: | 1970's |
| Photographer: | Bill Young |
| Photo provided by: | Kevin Budden |
| Comments: | Talk
about pinning the cool meter... This one does for me! Ronnie left the hump on
the back and that's ok with me... It gave this one its own look and when you combined it
with a great shade of blue with cool gold flames that ran from the hood onto the doors,
you have one really cool looking racecar. I had a chance to talk to Ronnie at the 2006 Reading Fair and he told us that after selling this car to Skip Turyonas, it ended up making its way to the field... where it remained for many years. After all those years, Ronnie heard that it was still sitting somewhere in some farmers field and when he located where it had been, the owner of the property said they had just been scrapped it a few weeks earlier... |
| Visitor's Comments | To add your comments about THIS PHOTO - Click Here | |
| Date: | Visitor's Name: | Comment: |
| 09/01/06 | Ronnie | 09/02/06 Good memory Joe !!! A gentleman found this car in a field in (I think ) Western Pa. By the time he found out who owned the land & contacted the owner the car had been taken to the crusher! Thanks for the recognition, Joe. |
| 09/03/06 | 3-Wide | Ronnie, it may be just the way this photo looks but was the steering wheel on an angle on this car? It may just be the way your hand looks on the wheel, but I do remember some cars where the steering wheel wasn't squareed up to the driver. Never knew if that was to give the driver a better feel while sliding sideways or if it was to make the steering linkage work due to a lack of space! |
| 09/03/06 | Ronnie | Very observant, Joe. In my case the wheel being on an angle was to compensate for a birth defect in my right arm which left it weaker & unable to extend fully from the elbow. |
| 09/03/06 | 3Wide | You know what's kind of strange Ronnie is that I don't have a clue who ran
what motor.. or who ran what chassis... but I really feel for some reason I really focused
in on the driver behind the wheel of their machine. (The way they held the wheel...
the kind of helmet they had, whether their belts were a little loose and they'd kind of
lean forward toward the wheel... or how some drivers looked like they they were
reaching for the wheel... You know what I'm talking about... ) There would be nights where I'd be in the stands and lean over to my dad to say that it looks like so and so is driving so and so's car tonight just on the way they looked behind the wheel during warm-ups... A little later in the evening, much to everyone's surprise (except for me and my dad and a few other Flemington Faithful) Bill Singer would announce, "And in the #(whatever #...), for the first time behind the wheel of this machine will be driver __________ . (Maybe that's another reason why today's show with the big refrigerator bodies just doesn't do it for me... Can barely see the tops of their helmets anymore...) As much as I like the looks of this car Ronnie, it doesn't exactly look like a lightweight.. Did it have it have power steering and did the angle of the steering wheel help you keep it between the fences at Flemington? - Thanks. |
| 09/03/06 | Greg Saeger | A lot of guys during this time ran stock steering boxes from cars mounted
to the frame up front. In order to connect the steering wheel they used basic farm
equipment universals. So to exit out of the cockpit and make it down along the frame the
steering wheel was usually on a weird angle. The Stock boxes where actually quicker then the racing boxes made at the time. We used to put a basic Monroe shock on the pitman arm to slow it down a bit and put the feel back in the drivers hands. Also keep in mind, the cars usually had larger steering wheels then compared to the little ones of today. The race team I helped had a few spare boxes on the truck and were a lot easier and faster to change then today's cars. With today's cars the younger guys without the bellies usually have to climb in and be directed by us older guys to change these steering boxes in the Modified's of today. (I can still change one myself between a heat and a consi, but I'll need oxygen and a shoe horn to get me back out. Ha Ha Ha.) Thanks for the memory of the better days gone by. Greg Saeger |
| 09/03/06 | Ronnie G | Yes Joe, this car had the standard GM power steering box used at that time. The car handled fairly well & wasn't as heavy as it looked. I did spend my fair share of time in the Flemington boards & went thru quite a few right side spindles!!! One thing I forgot to mention with my steering wheel set up is that it was input from Tas that helped me set it up this way. Anyone who was a Tas fan will remember how he drove the Piscopo #39 & the Cozze #44 with his arms stretched straight out. His philosophy was that he felt that positioning gave him better arm stamina,especially for long distance races,as he was using his shoulder muscles for steering strength & his arms as guides.So I used his input to offset my wheel so that I was using more of my shoulder for strength than the arm since it was weaker. Hope I didn't bore you with all this!!! |
| 09/05/06 | Bob Smith | Now that is one cool looking car !!!! |
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