| Photo ID # | e03.30.08_292_MIC_FLM_0075_1 |
| Car #: | #292 |
| Driver (s) : | Al Michalchuk |
| Location: | Flemington, NJ |
| Date: | 1975 |
| Photographer: | George Koyt |
| Photo provided by: | George Koyt |
| Comments: | Al
started off the '75 season with a Gremlin racecar that he told me he put
together for around $3500 with motor. The frame came from Mike Kostic
and Al did the rest. The car started the season looking pretty sharp,
but an opening night accident did a job on the spectator side door.
Its kind of hard to see, but one thing that I thought that was pretty cool about his car was that if you look close at the front bumper, it had "A L" welded into the center of it (hard to tell from this angle). Also, check out the corner of the rear bumper. Al was trying a lot of things to help keep the bumper from grabbing a hold of the then still wooden fence at Flemington. Hey.. the way Al drove, it wasn't a matter of "if he was going to hit it"... He knew he was going to hit it... He was just trying to find a way to keep the car controllable once the corner of the bumper did hit. Al continued to run this car for the rest of the 75 season and then painted it light blue for 1976 and had some great runs with this same car painted white for the 1977 season. The last time the car raced was when a car got together with Pete Madsen between turn 1 & 2 at Flemington with Al catching the worst of it and ending up going up and over the fence and landing in the parking lot. Al scrapped the car after that and pretty much stepped away from racing for a while. He drove the Tony K Pinto bodied sportsman a year or 2 after this... and then came back in the mid 80's driving for Barry Schenck in a back up "A" car. Al closed out his racing career with a little experimental car that he was tinkering with running Bridgeport on occasion. He was experimenting with narrowing the rear and some other stuff... That's just the way he did things... The car was a light color and owner Barry Schenck had it lettered with Al's traditional #292. From what I hear, George Garies ended up with the car and later sold it to a person in New York. |
| Visitor's Comments | To add your comments about THIS PHOTO - Click Here | |
| Date: | Visitor's Name: | Comment: |
| 05/11/08 | Charlie Miller | Now I know the rest of the story. Since I first found this
web site I have been reading about the many exploits of "Big Al". I feel like I know the man personally. Even though I never saw him race, I believe I would have cheered for him too! |
| 05/11/08 | 3Wide | It didn't matter if Al was running 1st or 21st... If he was on the track, it was probably a good idea to keep an eye on him, and this is something that Bill Singer was well aware of too. He had a way of saying, "..and in the number two.... ninety two........... Al Michalchuk." |
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