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Thread: Never knew this about a guy who lived down my street-local racing legend

  1. #1
    Pendulumswingingdoomsday Rune Blackwings's Avatar
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    Never knew this about a guy who lived down my street-local racing legend

    My dad did, but I always thought he was the old man with the cats...

    Senior Moment From Russ Dodge:
    Plane Stories Continue With the Wild Man

    A read or re-read of the last installment of Senior Moments is suggested before you begin this edition.

    One more Elton Hildreth fact, the "Wild Man" nickname came in 1957 when Elton bought the 16-J and had it repainted to orange and black, the color combination of the Williams 717 he drove in 1956. As the sign painter was applying the brush, it was suggested by the "gang at the garage" to have "Wild Man" painted over the windshield. The title then appeared on all of Elton's cars until his career went into a "hiatus", I won't say retired and catch grief again because at 93 years old Elton, says he never retired but is just waiting for his next ride to open up!

    To pick up where we left off, the question was how did you land an airplane on a garage roof? Elton's response, "It was easy, all I did was jam the landing wheels through the roof!" I thought about and said, "It must have been one heck of a sudden stop!" To which he responded "It was. But what was harder was landing a plane without any wings!" So at that point I just said go ahead, this has to be good!

    Grahm, a buddy of Elton's had a crop dusting business and had just purchased a couple older used airplanes which were built mostly from wood but had good engines he wanted to use as replacement in is other crop dusting planes. He got the "brain storm" if Elton could land the plane without wings, they would film it and sell it to T.V. or something and gets some good money for it. When they agreed how he would do it they went to the airport and measured the wing span of the plane. They then drove around the wooded perimeter of the airport landing field and looked at trees until they found a couple that looked the right distance apart. After careful measuring, they found a perfect match.

    The plan, fly the plane in for a landing between the trees and let the trunks shear the wings off the airplane, with the plane then dropping the rest of the distance, landing with no wings!

    Well how did it go I asked. "Great, it cut the wings off perfect, just like you had used a saw and you should have seen the looks on guys faces when I taxied up to the hanger with the wings off! It never hit the prop of hurt the engine."

    Obviously my next question was how did you make out with the film they took? "Oh they were using some kind of movie camera and got the film messed up in it, never did get it on film!"

    From the Old Bridge reunion a few years ago, Ed Duncan remembers in our comments, the interview of Elton and Pete Frazee together. Pete told of one of his flying adventures with the "Wild Man". Pete said he had come to Bridgeton at Elton's request to be a guest speaker at a Kiwanis Organization luncheon. After the meeting, Elton asked Pete if he had some time he would take him up flying. Pete having time said that sounded good so off to the airport they went.

    "When we got to the airport Elton got out of the car to go inside the building and told me to get into his plane" Pete recalled, "I knew I might be getting into trouble when I asked Elton which plane is that?" To which Elton replied, "The first one you find that has a key in it!" Pete told the group at the reunion. He went on to say," I really don't remember a lot about the flight other than Elton asking me if I wanted to fly over the Vineland Speedway and I remember us flying so low there were trees tops brushing the bottom of the plane!

    Elton's passion for flying equals his desire to race. I'm jumping over to one more Fact or Fiction plane question, "Did you really fly under the Delaware Memorial Bridge?" for a story about a third passion of his, Motorcycles! Fact of Fiction, did you really tear a porch off of a house with a motorcycle and side car?

    "Well it wasn't exactly a side car but more of a flat platform attached to the cycle like a sidecar. The cycle was used by an appliance store in town to make deliveries. My friend wanted to sell it and put it out for sale. After no movement for a few days I told him he could put it out front of my garage on Pearl Street where more people would see it. He agreed and I told him I would run it up to my place."

    I'm not familiar with which cycle had what in the 50's but I do remember that some had gear shift levers on the side of the gas tank. Maybe you can see where this is going!

    "I hit a red light going up Pearl Street and pulled up alongside of my buddy driving a new Oldsmobile! Well the red light gave us a chance to rev up things a little waiting for the green. I slid my shifter forward into low and when the traffic light went green we both took off! Him forward, me backwards, flipping me over the handlebars as the cycle backed up across the street, up on a front lawn and came to rest after tearing the heck out of the front step and porch of the house on the corner!"

    Elton hadn't paid attention and forgot the shift reverse position on that cycle was where 1st gear was on his own cycle.

    Sometime I'll come back to Fact or Fiction and find out about riding a motorcycle non-stop from California to New Jersey or perhaps a few stories about waterskiing!!
    "Alienated-so alien I go!"

  2. #2
    Pendulumswingingdoomsday Rune Blackwings's Avatar
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    One of the most colorful drivers to ever compete in the Modifieds, Elton “Wild Man” Hildreth (October 5, 1917 – September 2, 2013) is best known for his exploits in his orange and black No. 16-J, a 1937 Chevrolet coupe that was powered by a small-block Chevy engine.

    A resident of Bridgeton, New Jersey, Hildreth actually began his racing career in open-cockpit cars back in 1932 and the story of how he got involved with his first race is as fascinating as any that has ever been told.

    While just a lad of almost 15, Hildreth was quite mechanically inclined and he was invited to help a Big Car (Sprint Car) team from the Midwest that was using his father Japhett’s garage as a base while they were in town to compete in the races that were being held at the old half-mile dirt Garden State Fairgrounds. Initially, his job was to handle the car’s set-up and make any engine adjustments that were needed, but all of that changed when the driver got a telegram to return home due to a family emergency and Hildreth was offered the ride.

    The fact that this would be the first time that Hildreth ever drove a racing car did not seem to bother any of those involved, so he made some impressive practice laps before he went out and set a new track record in time trials and then won the race. And that initial success led to Hildreth becoming a rather successful Big Car driver in the 1930s before he stopped racing to begin his business life and start a family.

    Although Hildreth stepped away from racing, he still had an interest in motorsports and the desire to race once again became real for the alignment shop/garage owner and Nash dealer with his Hildreth Motors when NASCAR introduced its new late-model racing series.

    From 1950 through 1954, Hildreth ran a virtually-stock No. 1 Nash in most of NASCAR’s early Grand National (Cup Series) events. With this underpowered car he competed on half-mile dirt tracks, the famed old Daytona Beach-Road Course (where he once led the race with two laps to go before running out of gas on the last lap) and on the legendary Darlington International Raceway. In all, he had seven Top-10s in 51 starts with his best finish of fourth in a 200-lapper on the old half-mile Bloomsburg (Pa.) Fairgrounds in 1953.

    Hildreth also devised a series of chassis, suspension and engine parts to help make his Nash more competitive, but these were ultimately cited by NASCAR as not being legal for use.

    In 1955, Hildreth opted to run the Modifieds and after some success in Neal Williams’ black No. 717 1937 Ford two-door sedan, he began to field his own orange and black No. 16-J 1937 Chevrolet coupe in 1958.

    The various editions of the 16-Js – which always carried a small American flag whose wooden shaft was mounted on the right-front of the car – were Hildreth’s signature rides. Although small-block powered, they were fast, well-handling machines that gave him the edge at many of the tracks that he visited. And while Hildreth would occasionally change his engine’s triple-carburetion intake to fuel-injection, he would always return to his original setup.

    A skillful and tough competitor and one of the best traffic drivers of his era, Hildreth was a top runner at such old New Jersey tracks as Vineland Speedway, where he won an all-time record of 33 races; Old Bridge Speedway and Alcyon Speedway in Pitman. He was also tough to beat at the old Wilmington (Del.) Speedway and at the old half-mile Nazareth (Pa.) Raceway.

    Hildreth also won a major 100-lap event in 1960 on the old one-mile asphalt Trenton (N.J.) International Speedway and he was a regular at the big events on both the dirt and asphalt incarnations of the old one-mile Langhorne (Pa.) Speedway.

    The “Wild Man” billing that Hildreth enjoyed was something that came to him honestly as he was not afraid to add a little bit of color and excitement to what was taking place on or off the track. It was not unusual for “the forever 39-year-old racer” to place a pair of Dixie cups under his shirt, slip on a wig and roll up his pant legs or put on a print dress so that he could compete in a Powder Puff Derby. And when it came time for the kids to ride around the track at Nazareth with their favorite driver, Hildreth’s 16-J always had a long line of eager youngsters who were anxious to have him do that job.

    Hildreth even took “driver comfort” to a new level on a hot August Sunday in 1964 when he drove his No. 16-J in a major race at Trenton wearing nothing more than his helmet, a white athletic under shirt, a pair of white boxer shorts, and his shoes and socks.

    When “sanctioning wars” looked like they might cause him a problem, he “disguised” himself by wearing a working man’s billed cap, a Vandyke beard, a long-sleeved work shirt and blue overalls and raced a No. 5 1937 Ford coupe at Langhorne under the assumed identity of the corn-cob-pipe-smoking “Hoss Hayes from Lexington, Kentucky.”
    The highly-popular Hildreth retired from racing in 1973 and as an “elder statesman” of motorsports he was a welcomed guest at any racing activity where he enjoyed meeting people and took great pleasure in telling a wide variety of his unique racing stories.
    "Alienated-so alien I go!"

  3. #3
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    I have heard of Hildreth. As mentioned in the article I think he was best known on the east coast dirt track circuit, but I have heard of him in relation to mid-west dirt racing as well.

    Just goes to show, you never know about people. When I first started working for the company I work for, we had an old guy that worked on the dishwasher in the cafeteria that I got to know pretty well. One day we were sitting at the lunch table on break and the subject of the one of the space shuttle disaster’s came up in conversation (I don’t remember which one). This guy became very upset, got up and left the table. We had no clue what we had said or what was going on with this guy, it was just wierd. Later I found out that this man, who everyone just thought of as an old dishwasher, had been a decorated B-24 pilot in World War II. He had flown dozens of bombing raids over Germany before his plane was shot out of the sky. He parachuted out of this plane and was the only member of the crew to survive. He was captured behind enemy lines and held prisoner for a period of time before the war ended. His whole story was the stuff movies are made out of. To us he was just this old man running the dishwasher, but he had this whole crazy life prior that none of us knew about.

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