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Senior Moment From Russ Dodge:
Tangents!
I want to thank those of you who have
taken time to read the Senior Moments posted periodically on this site. In
writing them, I've always tried to follow some advice from an English class
years ago which said," Your story should be like a woman's dress! Long
enough to cover the subject but short enough to leave it interesting".
Because of that, each of the 100 Senior Moments already recorded usually
could be written with a completely different accompanying story.
After selecting this photo the realization came that it offered too many
stories to tell. So for fun I'm going to list all the tangents that readily
come to mind. Each of which could be developed into a complete moment.
a. The first 300 car appeared in 1956, but won 6 features at Vineland
Speedway in 1955 as the Brown 44 driven by Ken Marriott.
b. Case farm tractor dealer Joe Pustizzi was the principal new owner and
painted the car Case colors of cream and orange. 300 was a model number of
a Case tractor
c. Bridgeton driver Jimmy Marks was to be the driver for the new team but
Jackie McLaughlin soon became the most successful driver of the car.
d. The 300 was the backbone of McLaughlin's 1956 & '57 Flemington
Championships.
e. Bob Pickell's admiration and friendship with Jackie, initiated his use
of the number 300 on his own cars.
f. Ken Marriott was the second most
successful driver of the 300, I recall while it was driven also by Freddie
Fehr.
g. It's usually a safe assumption to make that when Otto ended up driving a
South Jersey car, if only temporarily, Sonny Dornberger had his wrenches on
it sometime. Otto was one of "Sonny's Drivers" and Sonny did his best to
secure them rides.
h. The owner of the 300 at the time of this photo was Millard Paulus, who
lived next to Palatine Lake in Salem County.
i. Palatine Lake was a summer swimming-picnic grove, great for "Sunday
School" groups, etc. Something like a buck admission or maybe $.50 back
then!
j. (A real tangent) my cousin worked there as a lifeguard when he was a
teenager and I always was glad it was a shallow pine water lake, since he
couldn't swim!
k. Buddy Wagner managed the family facility and was a good friend of Al
Tasnady. (Tangent beyond belief from their adventures!)
l. After Alcyon closed the 300 sat under a tree for a couple years in
Millard Paulus' yard. This made periodic drive-by's mandatory with the
fantasy of buying it and going racing!
m. One day Ray Parks stopped in and caught Millard at home and asked if he
wanted to sell the car. Millard told him, "you see the number on the car?
That what I'll take", so Ray bought it. I believe the rear had to be
repaired and I don't think the a motor came with the deal.
n. Ray ran sportsman at Vineland Speedway with the car until I believe it
crashed out.
o. I was away at school "work'n on my learn'n"about that time but I recall
a former Busty Luzzo #98 (Budd Olsen) car sitting in Ray's yard and don't
know if he ever ran that humpback sedan as a 300 or not!
Thank you Joe for bring back some vault photos. Who knows what "NEW OLD"
stories we may hear! Thanks for listening.
Senior Moment By Russ Dodge |