I am new to this forum (I found it by accident) and I think I can answer the question asked on how Steve is related to Charlie Jr and Grant.

Some background - When I was a child my parents rented a duplex from Charlie and his wife Beaulah. They lived on the other side and they took a liking to me and I went to the races frequently with them and spent every minute I could in the shop with Charlie. Charlie and Grant would be Steve's uncles. I new all of the brothers. Bud was the youngest and I recall some of his kids one of which may have been Steve. My best friend lived next door to them so I was over quite a bit. I am pretty sure that Grant was the oldest and Charlie was next in line.

I have really great memories of that time. Charlie would let me help do things with the car. One of my jobs was snapping in the seat padding before every race. For an 8 or 9 year old, that was pretty cool stuff. One thing that really stands out was that often the night before a race Charlie would go to a shed and mark with chalk the tires that we would take to the track. I would horse the tires out of the rack and roll them to the trailer where I would load them up and pass the chain through them so he could secure them. A few times, he would take a slick and lay out various patterns on it with chalk and then I would take a tool kind of like a wood burning thing but with a rounded loop on it and I would cut the pattern into the tire (he called that "making them groooovy"). I don't know if that's still done. He would let me do anything I was able to do with the car (like changing the number with tape and things like that) and at the time it made me feel like a real racer. Sometimes in the pits he'd get asked if I was his son and he'd laugh and say "No, Davey is my pit crew". For a little guy, it was a big time.

Something of note about Charlie is that he lost a driver at Eldora. Charlie never really talked about it but Beaulah told me that when the car rolled, the driver came out of the seat far enough that he was pinned between the roll bar and the ground. I do know that when they got back from that race, Charlie worked all night and put a full cage on that car. I am not sure but I believe that as a result of that crash USAC mandated full cages for all sprints. I know that the crash affected Charlie very deeply and that drivers broken helmet hung on the wall of the shop for as long as I lived there.

It was my understanding that Charlie started in midgets and I seem to recall that Bud raced modifieds and Grant didn't drive very much at all. I was actually surprised that the race results above show him as a driver. I know that Grant built modifieds because he had one at his service station and I was there quite a bit as well.. Charlie didn't drive often either.

I could go on with about a hundred great childhood memories about those days, but I'm sure it's already getting boring for ya'll.

Regards
David Lovitt

Gregg,
Found out recently that my dad did drive in that race. It was car owned by Junior Beanblossom and Uncle Bob.

Thanks Marv, for this post. It brings back a lot of memories for me. My parents were good friends of Howard and Aline Jackson who owned Orville Yeadon's 98 car. I saw him win quite often as a youngster.

CDLovitt,
Thanks for sharing your memories, it made me remember some of my own!
Pretty cool stuff!

PS, Welcome to IOW!

I was at that race and was 11 years old. They ran twin 75 lappers also. They ran a sprintcar back then to see how many laps they could run and came up with that number, 75..plus a few more. Hoping for not many cautions. Cecil Beavers and Ross Smith were my hero's then!

damn, i knew you was way older than cecil.

Wait a minute, I know for a fact he is a little older than me. This is funny because I saw him last nite at the burg and someone called him an oldman and he turned to shake my hand thinking it was me and I told him I could'nt call him oldman because I could fit that description too!

well george if it makes you feel better i'm in my 40's and cecil tought me in scool. i didn't learn a damn thing though.