was wondering if some of our members remember when the Late models started running the outlaw bodies is something that came from the dirt tracks carried over to the asphalt tracks and since only Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio run them now did other states run them in the past

Yes...I remember. Not sure about the idea that the bodies came from the dirt, I seem to remember Jr. Hanley getting wild WAY before Charlie Schwartz.

Here's a photo album of one of the last years of "wild".

Outlaw Super Lates

Your link is bad Bob... I'm getting a 'Bad Request error" message.

me2

Not sure if this is it but I saw pictures.

http://photobucket.com/images/baer%2520field/

S'what I get for not testing the link...

Try again...

Super Lates

btw...the other stuff was mine...but a hodgepodge of years and classes.

Bob,
Cool pictures, especially the one with Dale Earnhardt in the #5 Larry Zent super.

Andy

scroll tru these pics of Mt clemmons,,,Look at Varney's SLM and Senekers SLM from the late 1970's to the early 1980's pretty wild,,,

http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com/speed...amp;noinfo=true

I do not know who started the shovel nose / outlaw body craze in our area. But I would have to guess it was due to the fact that many racers back in the MSPA days ( and maybe before that ) would run one car on both dirt and asphalt. The promoters changed their rules to allow the dirt guys to be able to compete on asphalt with their dirt cars. They had a lot of dirt chassis's running at AC, Owosso, Spartan and I believe even Kalamazoo had a few drivers running a dirt chassis.

I suspect this shovel nose idea got its roots on dirt, but then am not sure. Those dirt boys were / are pretty dang creative. . That and dirt body rules were always a little more open then asphalt.

When the specific asphalt chassis's hit the tracks, the dirt guys couldn't keep up and had no choice but to go with chassis's made by Howe, PCR and others. The bodies stayed the same.

Chris

Back in the times that many of those pictures were taken (late 70's early 80's) alot of outlaw/shovel nose/missle looking stuff came out of Speedweeks at New Smyrna. Nobody was more outrageous than Jr. Hanley. Back when He was building cars it was not unusual to see all that strange looking stuff on the cars of Gary Baloguh, Billy Harvey, Dickie Anderson, Dick Trickle and a few others that were Hanley cars.

I absolutely loved those cars and the funny thing is that if you look at todays outlaw cars, they are really not much different in looks than what they were when the newer style Camaro body came out. These things have been slab sided for a very long time. The biggest difference today is that the nose pieces are different but the truth of the matter is, if you pulled out an outlaw bodied super from ten to fifteen years ago and put it on the track with the outlaw bodies of today they wouldn't look that much different. This applies to asphalt cars not dirt cars.

Even though I am basically a tar baby I like the outlaw bodied dirt Super better. I got to watch a super feature from the infield at I-96 a year ago and it was one of the neatest things I have seen in my years at the tracks.

I still love the 70 style Camaro outlaw bodied car like we had at Mt. Clemens. They were the hottest ever.

Don't forget Randy Sweet and Ed Howe. Their Camaro's were ahead of the times. Butch Miller and former Earnhardt crew chief Kevin Hamlin (out of Kalamazoo) took the Outlaw bodies to the limit before they moved south at the end of the 80's period. Kalamazoo and Berlin had some radical wedge bodies in those days.

There are still some outlaw bodied cars run in other states. New England has a series for outlaw cars and Phil Bozell won a outlaw race down in Alabama not to long ago. Sure wish the outlaw thing would take off in other states I think the outlaw car looks way cooler than the template taxi cabs.

The start of the Aerodynamics was with the advent of the wing on a Super Modified with Jim Cushman. That was 1959. The supers were always an open comp class, and different designers tried shaping their bodies similar to the wings that were on the roof. Oswego, with several innovators including Jimmy Shampine ran wegde bodies and high tail spoilersin the early 70's. The Late Models never tried much other than a top wing on a few cars on a spot occasion. Dick Debolt did this at Union, Kentucky. A few did this out west in Colorado and California. When NASCAR ran the Modified cars on the big track in the middle 70's, {part of Speedweek}, the East Coast boys, including Richie Evans, Jerry Cook, Brian Osgood, and Southerners Neil Bonnett, Bobby Allison, ran very areo bodies, with flares over the wheels, wedged and elongated bodies, cars looked like bars of soap. It caught on down at New Smyrma during their speedweeks with Gary Balough and Junior Hanley. They had rules, but none denoting how much the spoiler could go in front of the bumper, and how long the rear end could stick out. I got pictures with Dick Trickle adding segments of sheet metal each day to stay with Balough and Hanley. They even did it to the East Coast Modifieds running in the same night. Then they really started on the aero for Late Models. Those ASA Cars that year really looked slick. The Dirt Late Models stayed with them. They learned how the air goes through the car with skirts and spoilers, as opposed to the pavement car with a windsheild where the air goes around the car. That was Ground Effects. Gary Balough really set the Racing frat on fire when he brought that 1981 Lincoln Continetal Wedge Body Modified to the Syracuse Nationals. He was over a second faster in Qualifying. The other 60 drivers complained about the body because it was so wide, and the roof acted as a wing. His reply was " Look at the rulebook, does not say a thing about body construction." He was right. Nothing was ever attempted like this before. Some of the other competitors tried to change their body to look like Balough's car, and to their astonishment, picked up a second plus on their laps. He won the race handly, getting a chorus of boos. Now these outlaw bodies were everywhere at tracks without a body rule. Mt Clemens with Hanley was one. Others knew hewas a winner and copied. New Paris, Baer Field, Indy Speedrome, Galesburg, Kazoo, and Berlin, went to the open rules. Remember the Randy Sweet mobile that ran Galesburg? Some tracks called for a 10" spoiler, others 12", some as high as the roof. The Dirt scene in So. Ind. and Kent. were really far out. The had bodies over 3 feet longer in the back-skirted for downforce. The ran roof wings, a wedge body from front to rear, and plexiglas up to 8 feet tall. Some tracks liked them, other said, let's go back to 8" spoiler, the front no more than 42" hub to the bumper, no wider than 78", Full Windsheilds, and a limit on rear end length. Now the cars were split up again. Toledo ran a series of open comp races, and C.J. Rayburn showed with a wedge bodied, the roof was a good 24" high, acted as a wing, and plexiglass up to 10 feet high, maybe more, and demolished the track record. He had trouble with traffic, but the car was a one of a kind. No rules, why not. With the outlaws, the seperation from the top 10 was usually quite a bit, and that deterred the racing. Zent and Nyari were always a good .5 ahead of the others, and that's not good on a quarter mile. In this time frame {86-87} the Magnum Oil Series, Winchester, Salem, Baer Field, ran the outlaw bodies. Very cool, as some guys ran windsheilds, other just dirt guards. That series died out, but was the cornerstone of the now CRA Series. Outlaws were pretty much done in the early 90's as New Paris and Galesburg went back to regular Late Models. To see some current outlaw bodies, go to INDYSPEEDROME.COM , and look at the driver section. They still run some very liberal body rules. It's like looking at a place set back in time, but with 2008 tech. A bit long, but with my photo books and memoribilia, it was easy to type up. Thanks, Ron Verash.