South Mountain Raceway – Whenever you pull into South Mountain Raceway, you just don’t know what kind of cars (or trucks) you’re going to see. The diversity of hot rods at South Mountain is just beyond compare. On this day, one of the unexpected sights is a vintage ’53 sprint car. Seriously, you just don’t see a sprint car every day at a drag strip. Especially one that looks this good. This particular car is owned by one Dave Lounsbury. Lounsbury was happy to share some information about the car. According to him, “It’s like a ’53. It’s an aluminum body ‘53 sprint car. It’s got an odd-fire flathead in it, fuel injected. It’s original. I bought it from a fellow in New York State, probably, maybe, 15 years ago and we’ve been fooling with it. I put a trans in it this last winter to try to do this kind of stuff (drag racing) you know, and have fun with it and use it. So, just trying to work the bugs out of it now.” Dave’s been running the car ever since he took ownership of it, so this car is no stranger to the race track in its’ current life. As Lounsbury says, “I ran it on dirt a couple times and in New York State and in Pennsylvania at Williams Grove.”

That usage was surely fun, but not enough. Lounsbury would add, “I didn’t get enough use out of it on the dirt track because, you know, you don’t want anything to happen to it. Now I’m trying to do this 8^th mile (South Mountain Raceway) and with a flathead. It’s got König heads on it which are pretty rare, and magneto and Hilborn injection.”

The choice here was to get the car on the track and drive it in an atmosphere that would present little risk to damaging the car. And as time would show by the smiles on everyone’s face, a good time was had with no incidents for car or driver. That’s a big win whether you come in first or not. Stop in at South Mountain Raceway if you get a chance. You just might see Dave Lounsbury and his sprint car. And even if you don’t, you’re guaranteed to see some cool cars and great racing. Be there!

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