| Website visitor Jim Basel
remembers the Bocar Stiletto in action:
"During the early 60's I
may have gone to one of the race tracks you're trying to identify.
On the page for Dudley Cunningham's Bocar Stiletto, I believe this
picture might have been taken at Lake
Garnett, Kansas.
The track is located just
south of Kansas City, and is comprised of park roads around a city lake.
The SCCA ran races there starting in 1959,and continued intermitently until
about 1970.
I was a spectator at an SCCA
National race there on July 7, 1963, and remember a Bocar running in the
Modified race. I doubt there were many Bocars racing in SCCA back
then, and I remember being quite excited at the time to learn that one
was in that event.
From where I watched the
race, at the indentation known as the "chute" before the start/finish line,
I could see across the lake to the back straight, which was the fastest
part of the course. At the beginning of the race, I remember
seeing a flash of red as one of the trailing cars flew by several others
on the straight. When they came around in front of me, I recognized
that it was the Bocar. Evidently, it didn't qualify all that well,
but it sure could go in a straight line!
This race was somewhat famous
for another reason, as reported in the October, 1963 issue or Road &
Track, pp.62-63. It was the first time that a Cobra beat all the
Modifieds. The factory Cobra team came for what was billed
as a showdown between the Cobras and a Grand Sport Corvette, along with
several top production Corvettes, including the then new Stingray.
Ken Miles had added an oil
cooler to his car, but wasn't allowed to use it in the A, B and C Production
car race, in which he finished third behind Bob Johnson and Dave McDonald,
also in factory Cobras. The Shelby team then put the oil cooler back
on and Miles took the #98 car out and won the C-G Modified race, beating
Dick Thompson in the Corvette GS, Harry Heuer in his Chaparral, and Jack
Hinkle in a Cooper Monaco. That's the race that the Bocar
was in, and as I recall,
it was as fast going down the back straight as any of the others, but didn't
finish very well, if at all.
I don't remember now if it
was the Kansas City region or the Kansas region of the SCCA that organized
the race, but perhaps the national office would have some record of it.
Most of the cars that raced at Lake Garnett in that period, would also
have raced at Mid-America Raceway in Wentzville, MO and Warbonnet Raceway
near Tulsa, OK, if that's at all helpful.
Hope this helps,
Jim Basel |
