Jerry Sims
The first "half chassis" car
When Ralph Moody rolled this little Ford out on the Hickory dirt (for the second time), he was making racing history. To try and keep up with the smaller Plymouth and Dodge intermediates, Ralph left the big Galaxie at home and chose to build a new Fairlane for the racing wars. Disqualified at its first outing because the Galaxie front suspension was too wide. Moody cut the crossmember to narrow the track and the rest is history. This basic chassis was run by teams through the eighties under all types of cars.
Thank you, Jerry. That is a fantastic piece of history, and I never have been able to find a photo of that car. With your permission, I'm going to save it and probably post it on the Historic Stock Car Photos thread on jalopyjournal.com. Like I said, it's a piece of history.
John, I would be honored for you to use my picture but I've got a little confession first. This photo isn't a picture of that car, it's a picture of my model version of that car sailing around my styrofoam dirt track with the corrugated cardboard guard rails.I used some decals done by a friend of mine on this build and they are not 100% accurate for the car though. I've got a color shot or two of the real car around here somewhere and some footage of it racing at Hickory too. Do you think that me and my model photos would be welcome on the jalopy site?
That's a fantastic recreation if it's just a model. Great work. About your other photos, I'm not sure models get much attention, but any photos of race action or old cars would be great. Take a look at the Historic Stock Car Photos thread (might take a little time) and see what you think. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about posting some of my stuff on this site when I get the time.
"if it's just a model"???!!?? It most certainly is a model and if you'll take a look around my photo hosting account ( http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v69/mitchum/ ) you can see that I've got photos of mine and my brother's models that have fooled a LOT of people including Leonard Wood, among others. I can still see him bumping into that guy in the garage area while walking off looking at the photo I gave him of his brother's '57, shaking his head and talking to himself after I told him it was a model car. All my models are of old cars and they are real, just not real big. LOL