Speedster and Racer Hall Of Fame Part 2

[Byron Warwick]

The following is Al's story of Nebraska.
The Nebraska trip was really neat. Our American hosts were super-organized, and gave us a very warm welcome. The folks belonging to the Model T Club were so much like me, totally wrapped up in their particular vehicles, but keen on sharing information about the "racing T's" in general. Larry Sigworth, who presented us with the plaque has two Paco speedsters just a bit older than the King's Special, one at least with an engine designed by Roof, the same guy who created ours. In fact, our Victory Eight engine followed the production of 16-valve rocker-arm heads that had their beginning as early as 1916. Jim Roof, grandson of the famous Robert Roof, was there with a stripped down "T" equipped with the early production head. Jim said that his grandfather boasted that his head could double the power of a Model T, and on Saturday morning, he put his car on the dynamo and proved that the statement was not too far off: the 20 hp engine developed 38 hp with the Roof 16-valve head!

Over 130 people attended the event: four days of interesting activities. The first day involved registration and touring of the museum. It's hard to imagine the enormity of the Smith Museum of American Speed. The collection of racing engines, cars, and memorabilia extends for thousands of square feet on three floors! Our interest took us to the second floor where the 1920's was well represented with many, many, complete race cars, some in the condition they were in when last raced, others immaculately restored. (The picture of the car on the old rusty truck was raced until 1935, mounted on the truck, and has been there ever since, so they say. We saw these vehicles when they were part of a private collection in Washington State many years ago). Many designs of Roof engine conversions were set up as stand-alone exhibits, with all the brass and aluminum accessories polished to a high luster. The interesting thing we found was that there was no engine that looked like ours; there was no "Victory Eight" to be seen. The knowledgeable staff knew that ours
was a production engine, because it is described in the early literature, but nobody we talked to had ever seen our particular model. We were quite pleased to discover that the King's Special has such a unique engine.

Over the next few days, we spent a lot of time in the vast collection of the Smith Museum of American Speed. Of interest to most people, who are not necessarily keen on viewing the real cars, is the top floor, which features toys, models, pedal cars, and even small airplanes from the early days. Everything is well displayed, but to see everything, one would have to spend several days examining the exhibits.

The second day of events involved a road trip of about 130 miles. I was amazed at how so many Model A's and T's ran along at 45 mph without any problems, many of these running overhead valve conversions that were almost 100 years old. When they returned to the hotel parking lot, I didn't see any that seemed stressed by the run, things such as steaming rads or excessive oil dripping. One vehicle that really impressed me was a '31 Ford truck that carried a race car on it's deck, the total weight of both approaching 7000 pounds. This truck was driven up the freeway from Texas, powered by a Model A engine! The truck would cruise at 70 mph and run air conditioning to boot! Needless to say, the engine was fine-tuned with modern upgrades, including a five-bearing crankshaft and a Miller overhead valve head.

Friday's big event was the hill climb, but I don't have any figures regarding what speeds were attained by the time the cars reached the summit. There were many classes of cars: flatheads and overheads for Model T's; several other categories for Model A's. Sandra and I found this activity quite interesting.

Saturday was devoted to running the cars on a dynamo to see how much horsepower they had developed. Again, I don't have the details, since we didn't participate in this one, but there were some very impressive powerplants in some of those cars. The banquet was in the evening, at the Museum, where we, and several others, received recognition for preserving part of the racing history of the Model T. The King's Special was the only car that received the honours this year. The fellow who presented the plaque to us had been following the progress of the King's Special restoration for at least ten years, and was almost as familiar with the car as I am.

The executive members of the Speedster and Racing division of the Model T Club went out of their way to make this Reunion a success; the Smith family who owns the museum and runs Speedway Motors and their staff did everything they could to accommodate us at the museum. The whole affair was a wonderful experience.

We left Nebraska and drove straight home, fifteen hours, which was near the upper limit for our old bodies to endure anymore.
Attached are a few pictures of the event; what you see in any one picture of museum displays is only a fraction of what there is on each floor.

The orange racer is the car that won last year's award. The yellow speedster has an original wooden body formed in the fashion that canoes are made. Note the overhead valve arrangement in the engine compartment.

Sandra and I had a great time.

Cheers!
Al
Hope you enjoy the story, Byron W.

[Vicky]

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Nice write up and glad you enjoyed your time in Lincoln.

We had the Ivory Colored Model A Speedster, and plan to return in 2017.