MTFCA Forum

Still cleaning house, kinda, and ran across a couple of 50 year old advertising posters for the old Calistoga Classics dirt track races that were held in conjunction with the Antique and Collectors Revival, a gigantic (for the time period) antique sale, held at the Napa County Fairgrounds in Calistoga, California. Those races were truly exciting, the grandstands were full of spectators and of all the exciting things that happened, we were very fortunate, nobody got hurt. These posters are $100.00 each. We're currently working on editing the hundreds of feet of film shot by some of the competitors, professional photographers and spectators, to be put on DVDs that will be available for purchase sometime next year. Long overdue, it's something that you won't want to miss. You'll see young Dan McEachern, Wayne Sheldon, Dexter Clary's son Andy, Dan Erceg, Ed Archer, and I know I'll hear from those that you might know, that I forgot to mention here.

Ed aka #4

I never got to participate. I went as a spectator in 1974 but in 1975 I was in boot camp and 1976 I was stationed in Japan. My brother Dan rode with dad on his three wheeled excursion through the infield.

Andy

AndyClary wrote: ↑

Tue Oct 29, 2024 8:09 pm

I never got to participate. I went as a spectator in 1974 but in 1975 I was in boot camp and 1976 I was stationed in Japan. My brother Dan rode with dad on his three wheeled excursion through the infield.

Andy

And I was right behind them! A really wild half a second trying to avoid the two cars ahead of me and one to my right behind me!

I bet some good shots of Vic Sala also.

Tim

At the time, it just something else fun to do with the cars and our friends. Speedsters were just becoming popular in the hobby. The SCVMTFC endurance run was several years old and very popular. There was a core Northern California group that went south every year for to do friendly "battle" with the SoCal go fast guys at the Long Beach Hill climb. The SoCal guys included Doc Pruden, Wes Cooper, Ellis Gray, Chris Eggsgard (Billy Poobah), Willie Chambers, Don Bell, Joe Gemsa and countless others. The NorCal group, included of course, Clem, Bill and Vic Sala, #4 Ed Archer, Tim Stangland, Will Faustich, Al Uslanghi, myself. When Calistoga, took place, and pictures were snapped, no one thought about 50 years down the road and how special those pictures would be and how wonderful the memories would be. Looking back, the only regret is that I should have made more movies and taken more pictures!

Doc Pruden was sharp. He bought every speed part he saw back when everyone wanted stock cars only.

Vic Sala was quite the character as well.