Ascot Speedway racing !

[JonGriffin]

James "Jim" Griffin #22 buggy Ascott

[colorado_aircooled]

Thanks for jumping aboard ! Looks like your 1st two pictures didn't work. How many years did Jim race ? Did he have more then one race car. Always nice to give credit to the early VW races. Glad you found this thread. We look forward to more info and pictures.

[colorado_aircooled]

Just got a later program from Ascot July 1983

This is Dave Greiner in a AutoHaus sponsered car

Perhaps brothers ? Below is Ron Greiner

Point standings as of mid July 1983 were:
1 Jim Vanzant
2 Dave Greiner
3 Dave Throgmorton
4 Dan Arant
5 Stan Moore
6 Ron Greiner
7 Karol Vanzant
8 Randy Lowe
9 Rick Pazanowski
10 John Schoeneman

If you have any additional pictures or info on Volkswagen powered cars at Ascot. Please post ! Thanks

[Sandwinder2]

Here's one of my dad in 1968 at Ascot and one of him and I with my car taken in 2012.

[colorado_aircooled]

Great to see you guys featured in Hot VW's this month !

[Sandwinder2]

Ray Harvick and Don Rountree. I know I have more I will keep looking.

[colorado_aircooled]

By pure luck I ran across this children's book. It has many pictures from the early days of racing at Ascot. They come up on eBay and Amazon every now and then, usually cheap . 40 pages and several full page shots of the early VW race cars. Copyright date of 1971 . Neat book and the pictures are all in color !

[young5o]

Greg Murdock (driving a Grizzly)

His shop teacher was Mike Griswold. How cool is that!! Your high school teacher gets you into racing !!!


Love this thread. Mr Griswold was my high school drafting teacher. I didn't know about the Ascot racing, but I recall him talking about building a Pike's Peak race car he built. Hey, mid 80's. It's all kind of a haze...

[GDRBO]

John Johnson took his sprint bug to the SCCA driving school at Sears point. He got his SCCA liscense and later drive for Porsche in places like Daytona, Sebring and Le Mans. I enjoyed 2 days and 2 laps with him as co-driver at the last VORRA Virginia city race. Great tales of Fremont and Ascot. Also my dad and Don Guth were partners in a 33 Ford Hardtop back in the 50-52 era, before Don moved to Ca. A friend also raced Fremont, Manzanita and Ascot, sometimes all on the same weekend. He drove a bug called "Super Fly" his name - Hank Williams. Hank said Roger was the better driver but Rick could tune the cars better and that made him a better driver than Roger ultimately. His opinion, as one who raced against both.

[Heyalex40]

Hello, New to the group. Stumbled across your forum looking for old Ascot photos as my Dad drove many different types of cars their in the 60's and 70's. You have already posted a few and this one is may favorite. That's my Dad posing with a trophy girl and my Mom. I like it because Mom is looking at him like, "get you hands off her". Thank you for posting.

[/quote]

[richdean2]

I know this thread is pretty old, but I just stumbled upon it today. These pics and all your posts are great!

My Dad used to take me to the buggy races at Ascot...I can't remember the year, but sometime between '70 and '75..

My Dad built a buggy to race at Ascot, but he had a friend actually drive the car. I can't recall his name...Bob Falcon?? Bill Falcon?? Does that sound familiar to anyone?

It's neat to see the driver profiles. Lightfoot was my favorite driver back then!

Great memories. I wish there was a track that would run this type of class again. Everything is so big bucks with off-road racing today. I'm sure all the safety regulations would make it difficult...one can dream, though. lol

Fun stuff! Wish I had found this thread 5 years ago!

[dustymojave]

The safety regs would not be all that terribly different today. My brother's father-in-law Elmer (Ernie) Waring was the Chief of Tech for the Sprint Buggy and Bug races at Ascot. I attended a number of the races back in the 60s on the not very common weeks that SCCA races were not happening. I worked as a Tech Inspector at the SCCA races then. That was how my family and I got to know Ernie. He also worked Tech at SCCA races and was the Chief of Tech for NORRA too.

I met a number of the drivers shown in this thread when they raced desert races with SCORE and the various other California and Nevada organizations that I worked Tech for.

A few posts back in this thread one poster quoted one of the Ascot racers (Hank Williams) as saying that Roger Mears was the better driver, but that Rick Mears was better at figuring car setup. Having grown up around SCCA sports car racing, Sprint and Midget racing, my observation was that Roger was the "wilder" and more aggressive driver, but that Rick was by far the smoother driver. Wilder may occasionally be faster. But smoother is nearly always better. Note that Rick is a co-record holder having won Indy 4 times. Roger didn't make it trying at Indy. Wild doesn't make it in some forms of motorsport. I have for decades felt Rick was the far "better" driver. One of the best I have ever seen. And I have a Championship trophy hanging on the wall next to me to show that I know whereof I speak.
_________________
Richard
Offroading VW based cars since 1965
Tech Inspection 1963 - 2012 SCCA/SCORE/HDRA/MORE/MDR +
Retired from building Bajas, Fiberglass Buggies and Rails in the Mojave Desert. Also Sprints & Midgets, Dry Lakes, Road Race cars. All types New and Vintage
SoCalBajas Member
Kicked Cancer's A$$...1st and 2nd round...Fight ain't over yet.

[L5wolvesf]

I was cleaning out some old boxes of stuff and found a program from Ascot from 1981. It has the following 2 VW mini stock pics.

Later in my racing activities I read mini stock rules that said – “No VWs”. I guess they were just too dominant for the other cars.

_________________
Amonster Motorsports

SNORE # 1196 sponsored by:
- www.356carburetorrescue.com/home.html
- Barnwerks Fabrication & Welding
- ArtSpeed Graphics

“Racing's important to men who do it well. When you're racing, it's life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting.”
S. McQueen

[GDRBO]

I just bought an old Ascot car. It ran as number 47 and was named Bollweevil. Owned by William Boll and driven by Ray Harvick. Any help with history or other jnformation would be appreciated.