Yeah I know, it's GREMLIN, not GREMLEN.
   
 THE GREMLINS

   A gremlin is a folklore creature, commonly depicted as mischievous and mechanically oriented with a specific interest in aircraft. Although some gremlins are interested in auto racing, those are not the Gremlin's referred to herein. Our Gremlin's are the American Motors Corporation's "Little Purple Bastards", a nickname given to the Gremlin (the first were all painted purple) by the autoworkers at AMC. In reality, the only thing Gremlin on the cars below is the sheet metal, two quarter panels, (a right and a left) a roof panel, and maybe a rear body panel.
   This was the start of the move away from the ever increasingly scarce coupes, and the start of an era where the cars were taking advantage of the technical advances offered to the car builders. The emergence of specialty chassis builders was at hand, like Lape and Conkey's "Champ car", Budd Olsen's chassis's, Troyer, Teo (Bobby Hearn's stuff), and Pete Bicknell's chassis. Like it or not, this was the beginning of the trend we see in todays stock cars.

 
      Ray Dalmata.

 

      Larry Dalmata.

 

      Tommy Corellis.

 
      Lou Lazzaro and his pal Blackie.

 
      Kenny Shoemaker with the Bobby Rossell-built Leto #50.

 
      It's either Gary Balough or Billy Osmun in one of Tony Ferraiuolo's #73's on the Syracuse Mile.
Some of Tony's drivers of the #73 were, "Whip" Mulligan, Sammy Beavers, Bobby Bottcher, Billy Osmun, Gary Balough, Ken Brenn Jr., "Pee Wee" Griffin, "Rags" Carter.

 
      Ken Brenn.

 
      Merv Treichler with his Syracuse rig.

 
      Jack Farquhar's Vega.
Jack, I hope it's fast, because your not going to win a beauty prize with this outfit.

 
      It's a Pinto with a radar tracking unit in the front.
Photos courtesy of Jo Towns.
 

   My first and only racing experience on the Syracuse Mile was an eye opener; it was 1957 and most of the cars that were racing there that day had V8 overhead valve engines (mine had a flathead Ford engine). The heat races started eleven rows of cars, three abreast, and I drew number eleven starting position in heat one, with a skipping car yet. Out on the track for the heat race the flag man kept motioning for us to go faster as we were coming down for the flag, and by the time we got to the flagger my car was wide open. Entering turn one in a dust storm is the best I can describe it, you couldn't see anything, hearing sounds of cars crashing close by, but somehow making it through unscathed. We all stopped on the front stretch and waited for the tow trucks to drag out smashed cars, and watch the ambulance's go by with their injured occupants. The heat race resumed and ran to completion without incident, but I recall getting lapped at least once by Norm Mackereth, his rear wheels sand blasting the hell out of me as he went by. The merciful gods let a rainstorm descend on the Syracuse Mile, which continued until Ira Vail called the day a rain out, with the remainder of the program to be run on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. My crew and I hooked the racecar up to the tow vehicle, and I was never so happy to get out of a place in my life, plus I had to enroll for college at Broom Tech in Binghamton NY the next day. A bent intake valve was the skipping problem it turned out, and was caused by hitting an improperly machined head. I was beginning to dislike flat head engines.

   NEXT: NAZARETH SPEEDWAY'S RACERS.