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Rollie
Velte by Fred Hoster |
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Rollie Velte raced from the infancy of the modified era to end of its golden age. Born in 1926 in Waterloo New York, Rollie has lived all of his life in Waterloo. Rollie started going to the races at a young age. He would sneak into the "big car" or sprint car races at Maple Grove Speedway in Waterloo and watch the cars of that era race at amazing and dangerous speeds, around the odd shaped oval. As a child his father took him to the midget board track in Solvay. These events sparked the interest and love of racing that he has never lost. After Rollie graduated from Waterloo High School, he went into the service, serving in the Pacific during World War ll. After the war, Rollie joined the regular Army, spending a year in Europe. When the Army hitch was over Rollie returned to Waterloo. He worked at several jobs, before he started working for Sylvania. Rollie met his wife to be, Elizabeth, at Sylvania. They raised three sons, John, Jim and Jeff. Rollie worked the next thirty six years at the plant that manufactured electronic components and specialty race car parts. The stockholders were probably not aware they manufactured race car parts, although they were probably a top priority. Rollie got his first taste of driving during the brave man era, in 1947. That ride came behind the wheel of a sprintcar owned by Johnny Paulsen. It had a four cylinder model B engine with a overhead cam, wire wheels, no roll bars, and no seatbelts. "Back then the idea was to get thrown out of the car in a accident, because there was nothing to protect you. They felt it was safer." As a driver, it was your duty to hit the fence, if you had to avoid a driver thrown out of his car, onto the track. Rollie drove the sprinter at Caledonia and Palmyra. This was before the stockcars had started. Rollie's start in the modifieds began as a spectator in 1949. He would watch the races at Brewerton, Naples and the Coliseum in Buffalo. Rollie was a spectator on the Sunday at the Naples race track when the police came in and shut the facility down for violating the Blue Laws. The Blue Laws forbid much activity of any kind to take place on Sunday. Rollie recalls that the raid turned into a ugly scene and nearly resulted in a riot. I asked Rollie who some of the great drivers were when he was a spectator. He replied," Johnny Torissi was a great driver. A while back they were listing great drivers. I was mad that they did not list Charlie Barry, he was unbelievable. Bobby Cameron was cool and smooth, he won a lot of races, and Dutch Hoag of course. It went in cycles back then. One guy would do all the winning, and everybody was trying to catch him. then someone else would do the winning. It was not like it is now on the DIRT circuit with 15 or 20 guys can win the race. Now everyone buys there cars and parts. We did not have anywhere to buy parts back then, and even if you could, it was against the rules." Back then you had to figure out how to build a fast car yourself. With the closure of Naples, five brother decided to build a race track on Town Line road, south of Ovid. The track was named South Seneca. When word of the Ovid track got out, everyone in the area started to build cars, with seven or eight cars being built in Waterloo. Rollie fondly remembers how much fun the racing was in this era. It was fun because the cars were strictly stock. A clean sweep, winning the heat, semi, and feature, would pay twenty five to twenty eight dollars. Rollie says it was plain old bang them up stock car racing. "If a guy got in your way, you knocked them out of the way, it didn't make any difference, that is the way it was." "The track ran two years and shut down in the third year because Waterloo got going." Don Cleveland, who was involved with the Naples track, first tried to get Waterloo going. The track had no lights, making night time racing imposable. Don once again wanted to put on races on Sunday afternoons. "All of the do gooders in Waterloo had a meeting about racing on Sunday, and said you can't do it, the Blue Laws won't allow it." The expense of putting lights around the half mile oval was to costly for Don, so once again he lost out to the Blue Laws. The start of racing at Waterloo sounds like it was similar to the end of racing at the track, legal problems. Rollie recalls that a sprint car driver known as Red Ryder appeared in town, and found the funds to put lighting on the fast half mile. After the third week of racing, Red Ryder rode out of town with all of the money collected for admission that night. That left many unpaid bills and no purse money. It seemed we were not destined to race at Waterloo. At this time I got married. When I returned from my honeymoon my brother called me and said, "they are racing at Waterloo this Saturday night." That was October 2, 1953. Up to this point Rollie had driven his own modified cars. He had gone thru four cars and decided he wanted to give the owner title to some else. In 1954 he talked Charlie Luffman into building a car for him to drive. The car was numbered 99jr. It was in this car Rollie had a violent accident, breaking the frame in half. "Going into the second turn I saw a wheel. I thought it was someone else's. My car dug into the track, and away it went. I smashed that car all to hell. Ron Narducci was driving the 99 at this time for Tony Vitti, it was a top notch ride. Ron decided he wanted his own team and left the car. Tony called me and asked me if I would drive for him. I started driving for them at just the right time. Johnny Forgione was the mechanic and the brains on the engine and setup. Johnny had that car flying. I won a lot of races in that car. Willie would get so mad at me, I can hear him yet. He would say I heard a noise out of turn two, I looked and then you would go by on the outside. Nobody goes by on the outside." "Johnny never wanted to race the 99 anywhere except Waterloo. In 1963 Canandaigua was still running Nascar sanctioned races on Sundays. We wanted to race there but Johnny said no. He thought we would not be competitive there. One Sunday we were sitting in the dinner talking, and Johnny was not there. We decided to go to the garage, take the car without Johnny knowing about it, and race at Canandaigua. It so happened that after we took the car, Johnny went to the garage to work on the car. Johnny found out what we were doing and came to the track. Johnny said, look at these cars here, we can't run with them. This night turned out to be my proudest moment in racing." "We were running a 280 cubic inch motor, with a standard rear end. We were racing against the stars of Nascar, with there 300 cube motors and quick change rear ends. Being our first time there, we had to start last in every race. We went out and won our heat, semi, and the feature, a clean sweep. a couple years later Vitti started promoting Canandaigua, so we ran there every week." "The ride in the 99 came to a end when Johnny committed suicide. No one ever knew why he did that. We could never figure it out. To this day no one knows why. My next ride was with Clint Meade. The biggest disappointment I ever had in racing was in Clint Meade's car. It was at the State Fair race on the Syracuse mile. I started twenty seventh in the heat. By the time I got to the second turn I was in second place, with only Bobby Cain ahead of me. There was a big wreck and we had to go back to the original start. On the next original start I was in second again on the first lap. One lap later I was in the pits. Clint would not run a air cleaner on his engines. That was not uncommon back then, unless you were running the Syracuse fairgrounds. I told him you have to have a air cleaner at Syracuse, that is stone dust at the fairgrounds. Milt Johnson came by and said, no air cleaner? Everyone told him to put on a air cleaner, but he would not listen to anyone. In two laps we were done, the stone dust got under every valve. That race I had a fast car that I could have won Syracuse with." "When that ride ended, I drove Charlie Hefferon's car for a one race deal. It was a big race at Waterloo, and I came in second place. On the fifth lap of that race, Willie Allen flipped over in the third turn. I like Willie, but this is what got me about the organization. If that had been Buddy Llewellyn they would have pulled the car off the track and went racing. When Willie flipped over they dogged it. They were working on his car, while the track crew was playing around with the fence. They got Willie back in the race and he won it, but I was right on his tail, pushing him, hoping something would break on his car from that lap five accident." "I started driving for Nick Frantangelo. I drove for Nick for a couple of years. We ran Spencer, Waterloo, Weedsport and Canandaigua. We started with the car numbered one, then ruined it, and numbered the next car 1jr." It was in Nick's car that we blew three speed shop motors in one week. That was terrible." "Then I drove the number seven for Don Paine. Don's car handled like a million dollars. You could go anywhere with it. You could pass on the outside with that car at Waterloo, and that was hard to do at Waterloo." ( for those who may remember, there was a figure of Charlie Brown on the roof of that car. On the last lap of the race when Rollie was leading in the 7 car, which was nearly all the races he drove that car in, he would flip a switch and light up Charlie Brown.) One night he was spun out on the last lap while leading. I asked him if there were words over that. He replied," you do not want to get mad out there. You have enough to do without getting mad. If you miss a spot by a inch, you could end up six feet out. Those things always seem to come around and even out." Rollie and Don had the point title won at Weedsport. They won every race they finished at Weedsport that year. "Every week the Weedsport club would try to find something illegal on that car, but they never could. That made them mad. The last race of the year when we pulled into the pits at Weedsport, we were told the club voted not to let us race, and our points were taken away, along with the championship." That is how dominate we were in that car. We ran that late model at the fairgrounds against the modifieds and came in fourth in the Labor Day race. Dick May finished in fifth. After the race Dick told me, I saw that late model in front of me, and boy was I mad I could not catch it." "At Waterloo we ran that car against the modifieds in a big open competition race. Everyone was there from New York, PA, New Jersey and Canada. Some people were mad that they let us run with the modifieds. We finished fourth in our heat race, qualifying for the feature. A driver from Lebanon Valley, Jerry Townley punted me, sending me flipping. That was the end of Charlie Brown." "I never got hurt racing." ( an amazing accomplishment in that or any era.) "I had a lot of fun racing, met a lot of nice people, and have no complaints. I won 86 races, nine championships, and never got hurt. I wrecked them bad. I made it to the street in the first and third turn at Waterloo. The third turn wreck was during a trophy dash. I was in the 99, stating last. I decided to make a charge. The motor blew in the third turn. I ran thru the oil from the blown motor, and went over the fence, toward the trees that surrounded the third and fourth turn. The oil pan was torn off the motor by a tree stump. That is the tree we cut down earlier in the week, it was the same tree that a young lad named McConnell hit the week before, and it killed him. It is a dangerous sport. I was just lucky, its all a mater of luck." I asked Rollie, who was the best driver he ever ran against. He paused, thought about it a minute, and said "oh boy, there were a lot of them. Cliff Kotary of course, he was good. He had a way of setting people up that was unbelievable. I never had any problem driving wheel to wheel with him. One night I was leading the feature in Nick's car, the number 1. I felt a bump, Cliff was pushing me. He was not trying to spin me, it was similar to the bump drafting they do today. When I got to the first turn I said I'll fix him. I put the brakes on, of course nothing could happen, he was right against me. I shifted up to second gear and took off. He still caught me and passed me on the last lap. He came over to me after the race and said, What are you doing putting the brakes on? I said what are you doing pushing me? Kotary replied, I figured I would let you see how it was to go fast for a change. We both laughed about it. Everything we did and said was all in fun. That is the kind of guy he is. I never, ever, saw him do anything against anybody. He was a smooth driver and a good driver, and his brother Al gave him a good car. "There were a lot of good drivers that I watched over the years, who drove clunkers. They did not have the money or a good mechanic, but they were good drivers. They would have been great if they had a good team. I was lucky, Vitti got me going. Otis Dunham once came down to my house and tried to talk me into running his cars. I was wanted to. Willie Allen won the fair that year in his cars. The five and the 5jr were good cars. Boy I wanted to do it, but I was committed to these guys. A lot of drivers would have taken the ride, but I could not do that to the guys. Boy, I wanted to do it, but I didn't, I felt committed to my team." When asked about having any on track problems with drivers? Rollie replied, "One night there was a accident at the start of the feature. During the red flag a driver came over to me and asked me why I hit him. I did not hit him and I told him so. Well, I won the feature that night and slowed down after the checkered flag. The same driver drove into the back of me. I shifted into second and took off. He chased me. When he got behind me I slammed on the brakes, and put his radiator back to his motor. We had Ozzie Schweitz on Vitti's crew. He met that driver when he came in the pits, pulled him out of his car and he had him by the neck, up in the air when security got there. Ozzie got kicked out for three weeks, but I never had a problem with that driver again." " We had a lot of fun also. When Tommy was my mechanic on the 99, Frank Tantalo, the mechanic on the eleven car driven by Johnny McArdell would come over to our garage and look the car all over. He would even climb under it and take measurements. Those guys were friends and had a friendly rivalry. On a Sunday, Tommy took a big piece of metal and tack welded it to the rear end and the frame of the car to see what Frank would say. Sure enough, Frank came over and look at the car. Frank saw that big old piece of metal under the car, climbed under the car, took tape measurements of it, and then drew a diagram of it. Come Saturday night McArdell's car had a identical piece of metal on the 11 car, just like ours did. Of course we had taken ours off. That piece of metal bound his car up, and the rear end would not stick to the track." "At that time we were burning methanol mixed with gasoline, so we could run 14 to 1 compression ratio in the motor. You had to put a catalyst compound in with the methanol to get it to mix with the gas. Dominick Tantalo, the owner of Johnny McArdell's car came over to our shop and said he wanted to try running methanol. He asked if he could buy some from us. We said sure, and sold him enough to run the races next week. Well the next Saturday night they could not get that car to run. It skipped and sputtered. They had to run the consi. They came over to us and said, we can't make the car run on that stuff. We asked them if they put the catalyst in. He said, what catalyst? We never told them about the catalyst, on purpose of course. We told him you got to have a catalyst mixed in with it or the car won't run right. That is the way it went on all the time. They did not get mad, we were having fun with each other. Johnny McArdell and I had a lot of fun racing together." I asked Rollie why he quit driving. "I was getting old, and it was getting tough to find a good ride, so I decided to get out of it. Rollie is a easy going person with a out going and friendly personality. I barely know him, but after a few minutes talking to him it was like talking to someone I had known for years. It was a enjoyable evening and a pleasure talking to Rollie Velte. For me it was like the times Rollie had when he was driving, a lot of fun. |
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