Sunday, May 17, 2009

Ray Charles Texaco #57


Here's another photo of Joey Cooper on the right and myself on the left.....graduating from push mobiles to the real thing(See the picture way down "Summer of 1958"). We had just painted and lettered our friend Charlie Miller's '57 Chevy Hobby Stock to be ready for racing the first year at Riverview Raceways here in Thunder Bay(formerly Fort William), Ontario. The picture was taken in front of "Ray-Charles Texaco"(what a cleaver name!). Co-proprietors were (Ray)mond Joseph DeFoy and Charlie(Charles) Miller. "Ray Charles Texaco" was located at 906 Victoria Ave., the present site of Knight Optical. This picture was taken in the early summer of 1967 about one month before my own car was ready to race. Charlie took on the number and later colors of Barry Kettering's car....the famous Red/White #57. Barry's unique racing career and untimely death while driving his sprint car in 1976 in the United States will always be remembered by racing enthusiasts all over the Midwest but mostly here in Thunder Bay. Charlie is still doing great and we meet with mutual friends about once a month for lunch....oh yes, and still no mustache on Joey yet!....we need a mustache photo.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

doesn't look they had any food at nome

Anonymous said...

we pulled that race car to riverview with that old jeep. most of the time it had no brakes . we did not look forward to the ride down the super step hill .