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How I got started....
#1
   
  When my Dad first started karting he had sprint cars for quite a few years. They raced at a little track in Rendon just south of Ft. Worth. There was another small track between Ft. Worth and Dallas that they raced at and sometimes practiced at on off days. I was really to young at that time to race, this was early '60s, but I had the burning desire and just getting a ride was big fun. I guess I though they were big bumper cars. One time at one of those little tracks I conned a ride promising to go slow and be careful. I managed to get around a couple of times and was just getting into it when they started trying to flag me in so I decided to get one more lap in and coming down the straight I floored it just to feel the power. Well that old Mac torqued so hard it pinned my head to the back of the seat and before I could get off of it I was in the old tires at the end of the straight...... didn't get hurt or bend any thing but I didn't get anymore rides for a long time either. But that one short burst down the straight had hooked me and after that I would do anything just to get my hands on one, even if it was just cleaning parts. So for a long time that's all I did was clean parts. The Dad and several friends would all go to the races on the weekends and the kids would stay home because they were out past our bedtime. After a while I started to earn the trust back got some rides at the Green Stamp warehouse parking lot. Going round and round breaking in new engines.
  Then sometime in the mid '60s Dad asked me if I wanted to ride down to Waco with him on a Saturday. I ask why? To pick up a new kart. Duh??? Would I like to go, what are we waiting on!!! So we went to Waco to Mercury Machine Tool and picked up a new enduro kart. I'd never seen one, or anything like it as far as that goes. I rode all the way back to Ft.Worth looking out the back window of the pickup at that marvelous looking machine in the bed. I don't know what ever happened to those old sprint karts. But those new ones were the thing, those long track machines. It was during this time Dad met George Dixon while doing some electrical work at the Santa Fe depot in Ft.Worth. George was a carman for Santa Fe and also raced. They started building and racing karts together. We had a lot of fun hitting every long track within a days drive. When I got into High School they started entering me in races after I got my license. They had another young driver, a family friend of Georges named Corky Daily. He was a natural. He won more races than anyone else I was ever around. That guy was something else on the track, he and another driver came around me on the outside of a turn at Green Valley one day and I couldn't believe how fast they were going. Of course I tried to keep up with them but it didn't last long. Just like High School, seemed like forever, but then it was over. I started an apprenticeship with the Electrical Workers Union and between working days and school at night there was not time for much else. Kart racing got left behind.....


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  " If you don't like the way I'm living, Just leave this long haired country boy alone"
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#2
So that's what got me started. My Dad passed away several years ago. We always talked about the karts and what was going on with them now days. He had macular degeneration in the last years and he went nearly blind. Just before our Mom passed he had been involved in Mountain Man events in the area. He was always competing at something, and the knife and tomahawk throwing events kept him active and involved for more years than he would have lived otherwise. After he passed I found his race diary. That is what keeps me into it now. I get more enjoyment from this website and working on this Rupp MM I'm restoring than anything I've done in a long time. Over the years I found a lot of things to do but my heart was never far from those Karts....


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  " If you don't like the way I'm living, Just leave this long haired country boy alone"
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#3
Nice piece Loyd. It is always interesting to see where karting takes us.
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#4
Thanks for that reply Steve. One of the stories told about the Dad that I had never heard....
Seems as though he was on the way home after a weekend race out of town. On a Texas farm to market road. He ran out of gas. The kart was in the back of the pickup and there was not much traffic on a Sunday evening late. So he got the kart out gassed it up and with a spare fuel can took off back down the highway to the last small town he had come through. He made it to the town and the first station he came to he stopped and got the can filled. He had just started back to the truck and was just outside the small town when he ran into a State Trooper. Now he was going wide open when the Trooper passed him going the other way.... and he looked back over his shoulder and sure enough the DPS car was turning around and had the lights on. You would have to have known Papa Joe to appreciate this, knowing he was caught he just pulled it over and killed the motor. The Trooper comes flying back down the road and sees him just sitting there waiting, pulls over and gets out of the car looking at the kart and shaking his head. Now I suppose you've got some kind of story he says, still eyeballing the kart. Well Papa Joe has this silly grin on his face and tells him what happened, says " I'm late getting home and I could have walked back to town but I was afraid if I left this kart in the back of the truck, well it wouldn't be there when I got back."  "So I took it with me."  Well the Trooper had to think about that one, asked him about the kart and the races and told the Dad to start it back up and follow him, and gave him an escort back to the pickup. Stopped and helped him load it back up and told him to be careful on the way home. Thank God for those pull start Mac's... back in the Day.

  The Preacher who did the memorial service for Papa Joe related this story to us at his funeral. Only Papa Joe could have pulled that off.....
  " If you don't like the way I'm living, Just leave this long haired country boy alone"
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#5
that is a Dandy
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#6
(03-01-2017, 09:14 PM)steve welte Wrote: that is a Dandy

  Thanks again Steve. I've got one more. It's been bugging me ever since this happened.
One of the guys that we raced with was a distributor for Champion Spark plugs. A real nice guy plus he always had lots of plugs. He called and talked to the Dad one Friday night on an off weekend, no races. When the Dad hung up the phone he hollered at me and I was wondering what did I do now. He said "Bill got his boy a mini bike of some kind and was wondering if you could come over some time this weekend and show them how the gears work. They can't figure out the shift pattern" "Oh" I said, sure I can do that. Then it dawned on me that I had never seen a mini bike with gears?
  Saturday morning I was over there early. It was a Bonanza with a little Hodaka Ace 90 motor on it. Coolest thing I'd ever seen up till then. I was riding my little Honda 50 scooter. Little did I know..... It was a one down three up gear box as I recall. Bill said ride it see what ya think. That was the fastest thing I'd EVER been on. I just let it roll down the steep drive way at Bill's house. I had it in first gear and on the other side of the street I got it pointed down the street and cracked the throttle a bit... The next thing I knew I was at the other end of the street. It covered the distance of that city block in a heart beat. I was sitting there shaking and talking to myself wondering if I should push it back. It had been a couple of feet from the curb when I gave it the gas and it stood up on the back wheel and feeling somewhat like it had a gyro built in proceeded to do the 0 to 60 thing on the back wheel in a second or two it seemed. Some how I managed to get it back to Bill's house with both wheels on the ground. He was grinning like the cat that ate the canary and said "well?"  and I don't even remember what I said. I just wanted off that thing. I don't know what he ever did with it, his boy was only about 7 or 8 yrs old then. I know he did not ride it then...... Sure wish I had it now!!!
  That was one of those times my heart actually jumped up in my throat....
  " If you don't like the way I'm living, Just leave this long haired country boy alone"
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