| 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." |
