I spent my professional racing career driving a 250 mph funny car for the NHRA. Three years ago I was doing research to build my ’32 Ford Sedan to look like a stock car, but it really is a street rod that I have had since 1958! This got me all fired up on vintage oval racing and I decided I had to have a real vintage race car. I bought a 1946 Hilligas V8-60 Midget, finished restoring it to its original #71 form and at 64 years old made my first laps on an oval track. Wow! It is so much fun, even as a “rookie”.

My wife, Cookie, and I talked about me going on a two month tour to celebrate my 65th birthday. I grew up in Indiana and Illinois and lived in Denton, TX for 26 years. I now live in Cape Coral, FL. I got out my Vintage Oval Racing Magazine and started marking X’s on the events I wanted to attend in the Midwest. Three days before I was to leave, Hurricane Charley hit and did some major damage to 1/3 of our house. Cookie said, “Bill, you are a racer. Get someone to cover the damaged roof, hook on your race car trailer and go racing”! She said she would stay home, teach school, make me some money and oversee getting the house repaired. Little did we know that Florida would have three more hurricanes. As it worked out, none of the others hit us.

My base was at my life-long friend’s (Lonnie & Cindy Businger) home in Monticello, IN. I worked on the car between races at my bother-in-law’s (Butch & Marcia Siegle) shop in Goodland, IN and at Ollie Stair’s welding shop. Ollie worked for me at my welding shop in Sheldon, IL when he was a teenager.

On my birthday, Sat., Aug. 21, I was making laps on the Springfield, IL mile track with the Midwest Old-timers Vintage Race Car Club! Our show was with the USAC Silver Crown 100 lap feature. Those guys ran a little faster than I did. It was great! Sunday I ran at Tri-State near St. Louis on the ¼ mile. Due to a weird deal, I “hydrauliced” the motor and kicked a rod out the pan. Racing is still racing. Back to Indiana after 1000 phone calls and a week’s work, I have a fresh motor ready for Kalamazoo, MI. Heavy rain storms caused that trip to be cancelled. Racing is still racing!

The next Thursday I went to Auburn, IN to the Krause car auction and swap meet. Fri.-Mon. I went to the NHRA Drag National in Indianapolis. Can’t miss that one, my 47th year! The next weekend, I went 480 miles northwest to Webster City, IA with the IMCA guys, ½ mile dirt. These guys run hard! This was a three day show with a lot of neat cars and I met so many nice people. Lou Fegers was the class of the field of midgets, but I did win the V8-60 division and of course the “long distance” award! I met a real great guy with a V8-60 beautiful car. His name is Herb Schratt. He is from Chicago and knows V8-60’s inside out. I later found out that he and I were both at Lane Tech High School in Chicago at the same time!

Back to Indiana again to work on the car, drink beer with old friends, then 450 miles north to Marshfield, WI. This ½ mile asphalt track was fast and it scared me every corner! This was also with the IMCA group. I ran real well here and won a race here as well. I wore out the right front tire that weekend alone.

Back to Indiana to a street rod meet the next weekend. The following weekend I went to the Jungle Park Reunion, a still show. What a neat place, a lot of old midgets, sprint cars, drivers, etc. from years gone by.

Back home to FL for only 3 days (to catch up on things) and off to TX to see kids, grandkids, and the Good Guys Street Rod Nationals. From there, back to Tampa for the NSRA Nationals. Home at last in mid October. There is no place like home even if some things still aren’t fixed from the hurricane. We are working on that.