"Bring It Back Like You Took It!"

This Bob Farlee photo of Ralph Smith at Langhorne in 1963 offers a short story along with igniting many memories of the October race at Langhorne.

Ralph Smith is a name that is not widely remembered by many old timers in New Jersey. Alcyon regulars from the 50's will gladly tell you about him though. He was a heck of a nice man and could get the most out of any racer he ever drove.

 The two rides he had up here (as we say because his home was in Aberdeen, Maryland) were the red and white number 88 coupes which came out of George Heffner's Putty Hill Garage and the 44 coupes of Neal Williams. In the early 60's, with Alcyon gone, Ralph, PeeWee Pobletts and others who had made New Jersey a weekly stop in their stock car program, made the switch to the "Bugs" that were running in Pa. at the Grove, Lincoln, Susquehanna and Port Royal Speedway.

To build interest in the October Race at Langhorne Speedway, Langhorne promoter Al Gerber and Irv Fried would go to the various short tracks in the Northeast during the summer and hold a Langhorne Qualifier's night. Usually the 1st Sportsman car who finished the feature would receive a silver engraved bowl from Gerber or Fried and were guaranteed a starting spot in the October race . The sportsman cars were limited to 1 carburetor and the Langhorne race was for sportsman powered cars.

Langhorne Qualifiers were held at most tracks regardless of whether they were running "bugs" or "heavies" (term for regular full bodied stock cars) In 1963 Ralph Smith was a regular at Susquehanna Speedway and won the Qualifier. That meant he would be a starter in the race at Langhorne! Now with a qualifying spot made, a new problem had to be solved. What car could he race there? The bugs were eligible to run there but they had limited success. In 1962 they were starting to phase out of the race and in 1963 there would be even less. Ralph wanted a traditional car to race.

Faced with this problem of needing a car, he called his old friend and competitor Jim Delany. (Jim had won the big race at Langhorne on 3 previous occasions) Jim said he would help them out with a car he had which he was not going to run himself. He made the stipulation they could use the car but it had to be returned in the same condition is was in when they picked it up. The deal was made. Now with one of Delaney's all white number 4, 1937 Ford sedans they would be ready. Well, almost! Ralph's car owner would not run Langhorne with the car unless it was painted red and yellow and lettered like their bug they ran regularly.

 As the photo shows, his owner won out! To keep their word to Jim, after the race, yes, they repainted the car white and renumbered it before it was returned!

One more little Senior Moment sidetrack!  Ralph Smith ran Middletown, New York with pretty good success in 1958 when he was driving the 44 for Neal Williams. In 1955 , 3 years earlier Ralph won a race at Syracuse New York driving the 88 car of George Heffner with NOTARC Hall of Fame mechanic Bob Wallace, as chief mechanic. Pitted at Syracuse a young driver who had flat towed in, like they had, parked next to them. Bob Wallace was peoples person and started talking to the young driver and felt sorry for him because the tires on his racer were so poor and the ones he used for towing.

 Bob asked George Heffner if he would mind if they loaned the guy one of their mounted spare racing tires for the race. With Georges O.K., they did. That day always stuck out in Bob Wallace's memory because that started a friendship with that young driver, Jim Hurtubise!

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