mscs20 (Offline)
#16
8/6/11 12:47 AM
QUOTE=rwbeavers;246185]Cecil was my uncle. As I recall the events that you are referring to Cecil bringing his car late in the season to Bloomington was because Steve Kinser who was leading the points championship had mechanical failure on his race car (believe it was owned by a guy named Shields). Cecil's car had been rebuilt since Calvins fatal crash in July but had not been raced. Cecil offered to go home (Bedford) and bring the car back for Steve to drive so he would have a car for the feature event. As you stated, he started on the tail of the feature and ended up winning the race. This was before Steve started driving for Karl. Steve ran Cecil's black #57 several more times before the end of the 76 year. In addition, let me share this, the car that Calvin got killed in and Steve later drove was a brand new Hill chassis out of Tennesse which was a prelude to what became Gambler Chassis Company. At least that is what I have been told as far as the Gambler Chassis. The car had an engine built by O'Clarey Automotive out of Louiseville, KY. Cecil had over $10,000 invested in that car he told me. This was a lot of money in 1976 for a locally run sprint car. It had the best of anything Cecil could buy for the car. It is mistakenly believed that Calvin was killed in Cecil's old sprint car which was not the case. This was a brand new car for the 1976 season.[/QUOTE]
The Hill chassis was "Hill-Bilt" which was ownesd by Jack Elam and is now J&J. In 76 and 77 CK Spurlock had 2 cars that were the "Loretta Lynn Specials" that Charlie Swartz drove. One of them was a Hill-Bilt. In 78 he started Gambler and that frame looked nothing like Elams. Cecil was one cool dude...and so was Butch :-)
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