Here is a page out of the July 1974 Hot Rod Magazine. This is an Awesome looking Sprinter out of Phoenix driven by a shoe named Roy Fields. One of the Best Looking Sprinters that I have ever seen! Click on thumbnail and check it out. Hate to see his chrome bill. Anybody remember this car??
Originally Posted by Rpracing1:
Here is a page out of the July 1974 Hot Rod Magazine. This is an Awesome looking Sprinter out of Phoenix driven by a shoe named Roy Fields. One of the Best Looking Sprinters that I have ever seen! Click on thumbnail and check it out. Hate to see his chrome bill. Anybody remember this car??
Boy that brings back some memories yes it was a beautiful car I think he got hurt in it though. As I remember it was very close to a copy of a car that Leo Ruggles had and was called the twister II built by Skeet Gibson. The twister II was driven by some great AZ. drivers a name some of the IN. folks will remember was a rookie named Ricky Hood, Buddy Taylor, Frank McDaniels and others. The picture showing the Manzanita grand stands is priceless.
Do you think that the chrome roll cage on the car was properly heat treated to remove the hydrogen embrittlement after it was chromed? While chrome looks great, it can hurt you....
Do you think that the chrome roll cage on the car was properly heat treated to remove the hydrogen embrittlement after it was chromed? While chrome looks great, it can hurt you....
Originally Posted by Rpracing1:
Aren't chromed cages banned today for this reason? Still looks killer though!
Chrome roll cages were never banned because of chrome....only because all of the chrome roll cages were bolt on, instead of welded on. And the vats you dip parts in, were never big enough to accomidate a whole frame. In the late 70's at some point USAC mandated welded on roll cages......maybe by 78 when the outlaws started, I'm not sure. Steve Stapp was about the first USAC car builder to weld his on. Chassis like J&J, Nance, and Trostle started building them that way too and Gambler never did build a bolt on. The first car I drove in 76, the cage was cut into 4pieces to fit in the vat. I agree....it was an awesome look though.
---------- Post added at 09:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:47 PM ----------
Not sure about other parts of the country, but one of the main reasons for chrome cages in the midwest was that IMCA was under pressure to legalize cages but didn't really want them so they made it as inconvenient as possible by stating that you could run a cage but it had to be chromed.
I seriously doubt that many cages in that era were treated for hydrogen embrittlement.
Originally Posted by mscs20:
Chrome roll cages were never banned because of chrome....only because all of the chrome roll cages were bolt on, instead of welded on. And the vats you dip parts in, were never big enough to accomidate a whole frame. In the late 70's at some point USAC mandated welded on roll cages......maybe by 78 when the outlaws started, I'm not sure. Steve Stapp was about the first USAC car builder to weld his on. Chassis like J&J, Nance, and Trostle started building them that way too and Gambler never did build a bolt on. The first car I drove in 76, the cage was cut into 4pieces to fit in the vat. I agree....it was an awesome look though.
Steve
I've seen a McElreath sprinter with a chrome cage that was welded on. Touchup paint around the welds. However, the tubes stopped at the upper frame rail instead of going all the way to the bottom. Not much safer than a bolt on in my opinion.
In John Mahoney's book,Full Tilt,there are two photos from 1971 with welded in cages. The 29 car, says Stapp on the hood but that was Boston Louie Seymour's number, with Joe Saldana at the Hulman Classic on May 1 and Paul Leffler's car with Sammy Sessions in the same photo. There is also another photo of the Leffler car at New Bremen in April. That's the earliest photos I could find of USAC cars with welded in cages.
Originally Posted by mscs20:
Chrome roll cages were never banned because of chrome....only because all of the chrome roll cages were bolt on, instead of welded on. And the vats you dip parts in, were never big enough to accomidate a whole frame. In the late 70's at some point USAC mandated welded on roll cages......maybe by 78 when the outlaws started, I'm not sure. Steve Stapp was about the first USAC car builder to weld his on. Chassis like J&J, Nance, and Trostle started building them that way too and Gambler never did build a bolt on. The first car I drove in 76, the cage was cut into 4pieces to fit in the vat. I agree....it was an awesome look though.
Steve
You are all wrong, Larry Cannon had the first chrome cage and the the first roll cage in Usac in the 60's First usac we were at with it Gary B., called us a bunch of sissy's
