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August 1, 2007
"Where have all the Supers gone?"
You just can’t go to the
annual Carquest Extreme Tuesday show at Stafford Speedway and not be
blown away by the Supermodifieds.
This year had a special
thrill in store when 65-year-old Bentley Warren became the first
ever to time trial on the monster half-mile at under 17 seconds in
his winged big block.
Often considered the
asphalt equivalent of sprint cars, Supermodified racing grew by
parallel evolution in pit areas across the country in the ’60s.
There were tracks in Florida and the Southeast, Northern California,
the upper Midwest and Ohio, the Northeast with the New England
Supermodified Association, and, of course, Oswego, New York.
As cookie-cutter stock cars
and spec motors have become increasingly in vogue over the last
decade, there has been a notable decline in Super activity. Few
teams have been able to keep pace with the financial – and
engineering – demands of this most challenging and creative form of
racing.
It’s a shame, because along
with the unlimited cars came some unlimited characters. Amazingly
talented racers and memorable personalities such as Rat Lane, Jim
Shampine, Don MacLaren, and Davey Hamilton come to mind.
One of the most colorful
Supermodified devotees of all times, though, had to be Armond
Holley, the wandering Southern hot shoe who died two years ago this
month.
Check him out in this
story, originally published in Speedway Scene in July of
2005.
TEAROFFS Story on Armond Holley
© 2007 Lew Boyd,
Coastal 181
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