SURGES/RICHARDSON PHOTOS
John Surges (vintagemodman@msn.com) seems like a nice enough guy, though I've never met him in person. I mean, it's hard to fault a guy who is able to save a box of beautiful photographic slides on their way to a landfill, and then be willing to share some of them with our FODS Nation. And I was perfectly willing to be his pal...until I discovered that John has no fewer than three beautiful vintage race cars and is working feverishly to finish a fourth! The only thing "vintage" in my garage is me, and this guy has four race cars? Is that fair?
Still, I'm determined not to speak ill of John, since I have it on good authority that the very next time I'm in Milwaukee he is going to let me drive each of his cars and then pick one for my very own. And I pick the '63 Ford. (Hey, come on; a guy can dream can't he?)
Here's the e-mail that John sent me early in our e-mail exchanges:
"I'm glad you liked the slides. You are right, slides always look like they were taken yesterday. I purchased a bunch of racing slides from a guy in Milwaukee who got them from another guy that went into a nursing home. He said this guy was going to throw them out!
I am the president of the Vintage Modified Stock Car group and the Southeastern Wisconsin Short Track Hall of Fame. I was hoping there would be some cars from our tracks in the roughly 2,000 images. There was a mixture of Indy, Can Am, Sports Cars, Classic Cars and these type of Stock Cars but none from our area. they date from the 1950's through the 70's.
I think the photographer's name was Richardson, but I will try to find out from what's on a box. You have my permission to use anything I send you for your site. I own 4 vintage race cars and I know what a good feeling it is when something like this surfaces after all of these years. Stan Kalwasinski of Illinois put me in touch with your site when I sent him a couple of slides to try to help identify them He too said they were from a MARC series. I will try to send more images as I get them scanned. Check out our sites at www.vmsconline.com and www.sewishorttrackhof.com I also put out a neat newsletter every two months loaded with pictures and stories from our local archives.
John Surges"
Even though none of John's cars ran at Dayton Speedway (as far as we know) I'm going to share them with you here because they are wonderful examples of a time gone by.
Below, after the photos of John's own cars, you'll find those beautiful slides of mid to late '50s racing action. We don't know much about most of these photos. Some are clearly from Dayton, but Winchester and Salem Spedways are both represented. If you can help us caption them, please contact me
here.
Mickey
January 21, 2009
The #8 was originally driven by USAC Stock Car Champion Paul Feldner.
The photo below shows driver Frank Smith next to his #1. The car that John Surges is rebuilding will be painted and lettered to match the Smith car.
John has made quite a bit of progress on his Frank Smith recreation. Below are two shots of the car as of March 16, 2009.
All of John's vintage racers are on display in the photo below.
