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Photo ID # I06.19.12_MIS_IMP_UNK_0050S_1
Car #: #NA
Driver (s) : NA
Location: Wilmington DE
Date: 1955+
Photographer: NA
Photo provided by: Russ Dodge
Comments: Senior Moment From Russ Dodge:

Mission Impossible
NASCAR - NADCO - TRI-STATE

The three names listed are that of auto racing organizations.  The majority of viewers of this site recognize NASCAR, less will recognize Tri-State, which operated in 1971 and the least recognizable would be NADCO from 1955.  I've selected the Wilmington Speedway program from 1955  because the races were sanctioned by NADCO (National Association of Drivers and Car Owners).

Its Purposes: Nadco was organized by a group of car owners and drivers who saw and experienced a lack of good planning, lack of management, distribution of Prize Money and general all-around abuse of contestants in stock car racing.  Its purposes are to enforce changes that will better racing in all its phases.  Its aim: The purpose of the Tri-State group is to established rules that can be used for a period of years without having to build a new car every year and to keep the race cars competitive to make equal competition for all participants.

Now that  the stage is set, the rest of this Senior Moment is just  my opinions and thoughts, that can be totally wrong.  You can redirect my thoughts and I sincerely hope you do.

NASCAR, the oldest of the three groups is still around because it is a dictatorship!  That doesn't make them right in what they do,, but it does allow them to move on as they deem necessary!  It's interesting that NADCO's president we "Mr. Independent, The Old Master" Frankie Schneider.  Frankie and his fellow officers found that you couldn't organizes a group of independent (I didn't say Bull Headed) people with each having their own solutions to the problems in racing.

A brief over-view of Tri-State was it had reached a point where most of the Reading cars were running 36" engine set-backs, New Jersey, New York and some PA. tracks were using a 24" engine setbacks. Tobias  and a few others brought the sprint car style design to modified racing   Toby used to kid with Al Tasnady and tell him," I can always tell a Jersey Modified by the "Jersey Slant"  meaning the tire stagger and body angle,  with the car setting lower on the inside.  To be competitive at Reading and Flemington for example, basically two different cars were needed.  Yes , later on this wasn't necessary when the rules opened up in time and were adapted by all the tracks.  Tri-State wanted to keep the cars heavier at 2,800 pounds to eliminate the cost of needed light weight components.  As a side note it is interesting that speedways selected that weight, which goes back to the factory weight of a i937 Ford!  Leon Manchester headed the Tri - State movement .  Ironically, Frankie Schneider helped spark Leon's drive when he told Leon, "you'll never organize these guys.  I tried and it couldn't be done".  When someone told Manchester he couldn't do something he would work twice as hard!  History repeated itself as Tri-State  died the same as NADCO  years before.  Many felt that if Tri-State had included drivers and not restricted membership to car owners, it would have been successful.  NADCO had allowed them and it hadn't helped them.

Regardless of the fact the Tri-State did not focus on the operation of the speedway as NADCO had done, promoters feared that any "crack in the dam" would create an unending list of demands in the future.

I formed the opinion that if Tri-State had made it, the careers of drivers like Tas and other older drivers who "drove their cars in the turns" may have added a little more longevity to their careers.  tri-State was aimed at saving the "stock car" style they were use to.

Was Glenn Donnelly and DIRT an example of what  an earlier club could have been had they been successful?

I'm not trying to present a historical perspective of the working of any organization, such as who did this and why.  It's just my mind having a Senior moment when I opened this darn Wilmington Speedway program.

Thanks for listening.
Senior Moment by Russ Dodge.

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