Chapman Super Maverick

A few years back, my nephew, the Kid, and this olelongrooffan paid a couple visits to the Daytona International Speedway for the Subway Nationwide event on Friday as well as the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday. As usual, we spent most of our time wandering around the garage and pits leaving just after the first round of pit stops to get to the best place to watch a NASCAR race. On TV in the Kid's garage.

While we were out there, in the garage area at the entrance to pit road, I spotted this truck that TNT (who televised races back then) utilized to serve as a camera platform.

I thought it was pretty damn cool and gathered up a bunch of images of it as I had never seen one previous to that Friday.

This truck is based out of MickeyMouseLand down in the Sunshine State and made the trek to the Speedway for these events.

The big guy on the right in the above image operates both the crane and drives the truck to and fro.

I peaked at the invoice on the windshield at Saturday's happenings. TNT paid Chapman/Leonard Studio Equipment $6,000 for the time period of 9:00 am on June 30 to midnite on July 4th. Soon serious cash this olelongrooffan thinks for what was a few hours racing on Saturday and a three hour round trip from Orlando to Daytona Beach.

The truck is built on a deuce and half chassis and has an electric motor that can power it up to 6 mph while the gas engine gets it to about 50 mph.

Its overall weight is 26,000 pounds and has six wheel drive and six wheel steering.

When I saw this beast I knew a blog about it was somewhere in my future. I did a little research on this and

was able to come up with a link to the Chapman-Leonard website outlining the specifications and capabilities of the Super Maverick. You can check them out here.

I couldn't find out anything about who designed or built these beauties but I am confident someone knows a ton about them. The operator did mention about 25 of these were built in the late 50's and early 60's. He also mentioned the central pivoting mechanism is from a USS Constellation but mounted inverted. While the operator told me it was built on a deuce and a half chassis, it did possess a Chevy truck steering wheel circa early to mid 1960's. It seems my 66 one ton panel delivery Chevy had one just like it.

This truck also has unique body panels that are obviously designed just for this application. Try as I might, I could not recognize any of the panels being used on other vehicles this olelongrooffan is familiar with.

It has a removable fiberglass roof and the doors are merely frameless canvas and plexiglass panels ala early Jeep CJ's.

And trust me, these were the only Firestone tires inside the garage area of the Daytona International Speedway that weekend!

And this truck was so cool to me, I just had to add another image, this time with me with it.

Barn Find: B & D Racing Selling Entire Kid 2 Race Team

Up for sale is a Barn Find 2003 Pontiac Grand Prix Stock Car bodied stock go cart. Successfully raced throughout many series when new with Valvoline Racing livery under guidance of team owner thejeepjunkie. Driver the Kid Lee was noteworthy with this setup and suffered only one minor mishap when he tapped a fellow driver with the front spoiler. Repairs shown and successfully completed in the B & D Racing race shop in Tampa, Florida. Back up driver, AcrossTheStreet Bubba, also collected lucrative finishes in minor racing series recording several victories also under the Valvoline livery. 

An expected growth spurt in 2009 resulted in the sale of the race team to the B & D Racing race shop to be raced by "Kid 2" Racing. The "Kid 2" designation was included as the managing partner of B & D Racing could never remember the name of the neighborhood kid driving for them that week. As James Lee will always be the Kid, all subsequent kids were named "Kid 2". It was after this sale to B & D Racing that John Deere was brought aboard for sponsorship. 

At this time, the team was able to upgrade to new tires and spares as well as a modern, self contained race trailer which is included in this sale. Under the John Deere sponsorship, several drivers have pursued their aspirations but none had been as successful as the Lee/Bubba driving partnership based out of the Birthplace of Speed. 

B & D Racing is liquidating their race team holdings with the sale of this package. 

The managing partner of B & D Racing is known to have said in a fit of disgust, that "if it don't have 5 lug nuts, it ain't stock car racing." 

"The John Deere, Bass Pro Shops, Sunoco fuels, Mike's Welding, Pabst Blue Ribbon Pontiac Grand Prix has been a successful venture for us, even without corporate support," he continues. 

"I only wish we could have acquired that Oldsmobile Aurora the Kid liked so much so he could have driven it for us in the Rolex24 at Daytona," he lamented. 

This sale includes: 

Race car with stock chassis, suspension and ** HP Briggs and Stratton engine 

Self contained race trailer with tires and spares as shown 

John Deere and co sponsor livery included with sale 

John Deere Tractor Tow Vehicle Not Included 

Please note the racing components have been idle since 2017 after competing successfully for several seasons in the Bay area.

No Trophies are included. 

Contact info listed below:

Goodbye Old Friend

It should be noted that this blogpost was written for another site in 2013 and was thought to have been lost to these interwebs forever. I was lucky enough to have found it and with a bit of doctoring, this olelongrooffan was able to bring it back. Hope you appreciate as I do.
 

This olelongrooffan has previously shared some of the vehicles my family and I have owned over the years. But one of the most beloved vehicles was the one my older brother, Bus-Plunge, owned for over twenty years. I am, of course referring to the short bus that has played an important role in not just Bus-Plunge’s life but his kids, grandkids, family members and friends.

Every year at Christmas time, Bus-Plunge, on the far right standing behind my Mom, would gather up whoever wanted to go for a ride and tour around the Queen City of the Ozarks and check out all the Christmas lights and decorations. In the image above, that is my Dad, TheGentlemanFarmer on the far left, Bus-Plunge’s PrvtRN is in the white slacks and Mom is on the far right. The dude with the pipe is the neighbor who went with Bus-Plunge to Colorado to retrieve that old Willy’s thejeepjunkie got running while this olelongrooffan was on my epic road trip.

Now that shorty bus is not the only oddball unique vehicle that has ever resided in Bus-Plunge’s driveway. He has this cool ass old Airstream that he and lovely wife put to great use. He currently has a later model Suburban to haul it around though. Last summer they had a great road trip through Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois and southern Missouri and this olelongrooffan would have loved to been along on that sightseeing trip.

Back when the Bus-Plunge made a living owning several “joints” in the carnival industry these are the trucks he and his Hooned up and down the highway in up there in the great state of Iowa.

One summer this olelongrooffan worked for them and drove this C-30 box truck towing a 24′ enclosed trailer. Yeah, I was all of sixteen years old that eventful summer and still remember it like it was yesterday. Fun, but loads of windshield time.

Meanwhile, Bus-Plunge piloted this bobtail towing a 32′ skeeball enclosed trailer while his PrvtRN drove his big ass blue one ton towing their huge house trailer. Yeah that summer was fun but after the kids started school, they decided to liquidate their stuff and live a more conventional lifestyle.

Conventional, that is, if you consider owning one of these three wheeled Cushmans as conventional. Which of course Bus-Plunge does.

Soon he decided to get into all things air cooled. The only time this olelongrooffan saw his Volkwagen Thing it was painted white. A few years later I got a copy of this photo and wasn’t surprised to see it was painted camo. My fellow Hoons will see why this olelongrooffan wasn’t surprised just aways down.

Yeah, he got into VDubs in a huge way. Not seen in this photo are the other two Buses he owned along with a handful of Type I Bugs. That boy in this photo? His name is LilJim. He is now pushing 40, has a burgeoning family and Hoons around in a M880. These days this olelongrooffan refers to him as NotSoLilJim. Yeah, as far as vehicles go, like father like son.

A little later Bus-Plunge picked up this cherry Porsche 911 to Hoon around with his lovely wife. He sold this when NotSoLilJim turned 16 and has never regretted that decision.

And Bus-Plunge doesn’t do things in a minor, tepid way. No Siree. He jumps in with both feet. After he tired of adjusted valves on a daily basis on his air-cooled livery, he unloaded all of them and picked up more than a few military vehicles. To his credit, they were put to use.

Yeah, a big way. Not just late model ambulances but this jeepy thing as well. And that trailer out back, damn straight Bus-Plunge had to have one even if he had to drive several hours there and back to get it.

. And, of course, for Bus-Plunge, one ambulance is not enough, let’s get another.

Well, after his lovely wife denied him the authority to purchase an old car transporter truck and trailer to haul his cache of military vehicles around he decided to liquidate yet another collection of cool trucks and pick up this Stovebolt 5 ton to match his shorty bus.

Yes, back to the bus. A year or so ago, Bus-Plunge was contacted by an advertising agency about the possibility of using the short bus in a McDonald’s commercial up in Chicago. He kept putting them off and they kept raising his compensation until finally Bus-Plunge gave in and loaded that shorty bus on thehorsefarmer’s trailer and put his grandsons in his newish Burban and headed off to Chicago for that filming.

They even got Bus-Plunge a uniform to wear while driving that bus. The commercial was destined for broadcast over in jolly old England so Rust-My-Enemy, keep your eye out for it.

Well, as Bus-Plunge ages, he, like many do, has decided to liquidate a bunch of his stuff. And as the short bus was driven less than 100 miles last year and less than 125 miles the previous year, he decided to put it up on the List that is Craigs and see what he could get for it. I did a little Hemmings type research and mentioned to Bus-Plunge the value of that bus. He was quite surprised as he was thinking it was worth less than half the amount this olelongrooffan expressed.

Well, it turns out that a grandfather down Texas way was on the lookout for a bus just like this to tote his grandkids to school, Hoon around bar hopping with a bunch of friends, use it in parades and general stuff like that. Which is exactly the same use for it Bus-Plunge had over the years. Hell, sixteen of us rode in it to my Mom’s funeral a whiles back. She loved the bus by the way.

Well, Bus-Plunge and that grandpa struck a deal and on Saturday morning one of the truck drivers who works for grandpa showed up to pick up that short bus and take it to its new home. That is NotSoLilJim in the yellow jacket.

All loaded up and off to make some grandkids very happy and provide a ton of memories for a whole damn bunch of other folks.

A final handshake as Bus-Plunge and the driver exchange goodbyes and the short bus rode off into the distance.

And as Bus-Plunge put it, “We had a blast with it over the past twenty years but it was now time to turn it loose and let someone else have fun with it.”

Oh yeah, that 1954 shorty school bus sold for $16,000.00. Yeah, Bus-Plunge was surprised as hell about that.

This olelongrooffan calls that “Well Sold.”

Image Copyright 2013/longrooffan

The 79th Indianapolis 500 or Ed and John Get Comped

Initially Posted Memorial Day 2014 on Hooniverse.com

So this olelongrooffan has been somewhat Hoonisilent this past month or so. Ever since relocating here to FantasyLand and hanging out in the toney community where I earn a buck or two, my motivation for posting all things Hoon has been somewhat lacking. Yeah, I know, I’m a Slacker but how many times can this olelongrooffan do a post about a ubiquitous Maserati? However, as a means of attempting to motivate this olelongrooffan into sharing some stuff with my fellow Hoons, I backtracked and checked out some of my previous posts and, as a result, the comments on those posts. It was on one of them about some of the forgotten images I had gathered and my, presumed, switch from a HP product to that fruit so forbidden to Adam and Eve and it was in the comment section of that post that fellow Hoon Hycospeed left the following: "Olelongroof, I could give two shits what computer, software, smoke signal generator, whatever, that you use, just as long as you keep sharing your adventures and stories with us! I am with you, certain cars, certain car sights, certain car smells, can instantly bring back memories of people now gone, and to me that is one of the awesome things about old cars and old stuff, the ability for it to connect you to a person, a memory, and help keep them alive in your heart." Thanks Hycospeed.

Well Hoons, it was that comment which provides the motivation for this olelongrooffan to share with all ya’all a brief tale about the 1995 Indianapolis 500 and thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan’s attendance at it. Appropriately enough this Indy 500 Sunday nearly 20 years later. I relocated from the Queen City of the Ozarks to Fantasyland in 1988. thejeepjunkie, thesungoddess, the Kid and the Kid’s yet to be born Sister relocated from Joplin, Missouri (yes that Joplin) to Fort Lauderdale in the early 90’s. thejeepjunkie was able to finagle a transfer from a corporate store up there to another corporate store on the other coast. He was so successful at selling those yellow shocks in his new location that in 1995 Monroe offered him an all expense paid trip for two to the Indianapolis 500. Of course, thesungoddess wanted nothing to do with this adventure so this olelongrooffan was the lucky recipient of that second undesirable ticket to the The Greatest Spectacle in Motorsports.

It was at that race that I acquired the above shown T-shirt, one of the few I own other than free ones I got from Chevrolet out at the Daytona International Speedway and the Hooniverse T’s the Missus sends my way pretty much any time I ask for one. Do any of my fellow Hoons own a nearly new 19 year old t-shirt?

So that fateful Memorial Day weekend Saturday morning in 1995, this olelongrooffan left my 3 month old daughter and her Mom and jumped in my not quite pink Fleetwood D’Elegance and sped across Alligator Alley to gather up thejeepjunkie and head out to the Fort Lauderdale International Airport, just off Eisenhower’s Interstate 595 to check our bags and hitchhike a ride to St. Pete to catch that charter heading to the my Holy Grail, the Indy 500.

That 30 minute flight landed us in St. Pete at 9:30 that morning. Without the need to gather up our luggage, thejeepjunkie looks at me and asks, “What’s up?” My response? “Let’s see if the bar is open.” And it was. We headed on in, ordered us up some frosty beverages and commenced to having a good ole Lee boy time. Slowly that morning the bar began filling up and by the time our flight was called, it was full. At that announcement over the PA system, everybody in that bar called for our tabs and the entire bar emptied out and the entirety of its occupants headed down to get on that plane to Indy. Needless to say that was a rowdy, yet fun filled flight to Indianapolis.

Upon arrival in Indy, our plane was directed to an area removed from the terminal where there were several buses waiting to transport us to our hotel. I asked thejeepjunkie which bus we were getting on? “Let me check,” was his response. He set off down that row of buses stopping off in each one and the coming back out to head down to the next one. When he entered the last bus he entered that afternoon, he shouted, “It’s this one longroof.” I headed down to that bus and climbed aboard. thejeepjunkie was settled into the second row of seats and gave me the window seat. I asked him how he knew this was the correct bus? “It’s the one with Bud Lights in the cooler.” Makes sense to this olelongrooffan.

So we got to the hotel and got our room cards at the check in table and feasted on a few sammichs and a few more cold carbonated beverages. We inquired about our luggage and were informed it was already in our room. Yeah, we were flying high that day. Not to bad for a couple boys from the Ozark Mountains. That evening we went out for a bite to eat and ran into a couple buddies from Indiana, Pennsylvania and had a grand ole time. I think the cab was the most coin we spent that night.

So, the next morning we climbed aboard that bus, yeah, the Bud Lights had been replenished, and they dropped us a ten block walk from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Now, my fellow Hoons, that trek to the Speedway was unlike any other this olelongrooffan had yet been on. The Speedway is not located in the swankiest part of Speedway, Indiana and there was one home just outside the entrance that possessed a sign encouraging passersby to toss their empty aluminum cans in its fenced yard. And we did. Upon leaving several hours later, that yard was two feet deep in aluminum cans. Just one entrepreneur’s way to make a buck off the event held just across the street.

We were then directed to our seats just at the start of the front straightaway with turn 4 in sight just to our left. After we settled in, thejeepjunkie commented on the lack of beer vendors in our area. It was then we noticed that nearly everyone, except those of us who were Indy 500 virgins, had a jumbo cooler filled with cold carbonated beverages.

Well, thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan headed down to the vending station and spent a not small amount of folding and gathered us up a just few cold beverages emanating from the city with the Arch and returned to our seats. We got to see the start of the race and it was on the first lap over on the out of sight turn 2 that Stan Fox unfortunately suffered a career ending head injury after slamming into the outside wall. Now, he lives on and all is good but, damn, that clean up took some time.

Meanwhile, thejeepjunkie and I decided to head into the infield to see what could be seen. Well we caught some of the garages, the pits and stumbled upon the staging area for the sky boxes high above. Under one of those skyboxes was an unattended utility bed golf cart laden with an uncountable number of chilled 12 packs of thejeepjunkie’s favorite beverage. He and I looked at each other, started laughing and we each grabbed one in each hand and beat it the hell out of Dodge.

Well, needless to say, upon our return to our seats, we were the most popular guys of all of those dudes wearing their free Monroe Shocks hats. So by this time the race had gone green and we observed a great number of laps of full speed racing while enjoying our ill gotten refreshments.

Alas. soon, however, our beverages were depleted and we contemplated heading back to the infield to see if we could pull off a round two of our experience.

It was thejeepjunkie who noted that in the next section over in the aisle seats were two totally trashed, to the point of passing out, dudes with an empty cooler in front of one of them and a nearly full cooler in front of the other. Well, Hoons, thejeepjunkie being who he is, stood up and walked the short distance to that nearly full cooler and grabbed us a couple cold beverages out of it. And they were Bud Lights. It was hilarious and everyone around us started laughing their asses off. One of the drunk dudes woke up at all of the laughter, looked around and promptly passed out again. Yeah, they slept through the sounds of 20+ Indy cars passing by at full speed but woke up to the sound of laughter coming from the crowd. And we tried our best to empty those passed out dudes' cooler.

Well, needless to say, by the end of the race that Jacque Villenue won in only his second start, thejeepjunkie and this olelongrooffan were pretty inebriated and totally Indy Car Racing satisfied.

And as I have said previously, a visit to the track is not all about race cars. Even the guy in that golf cart my buddy, TheGoodAttorney, spent an afternoon chasing around a football field years ago seems to agree.

Yeah, thejeepjunkie has hooked this olelongrooffan up pretty good over the years and this one is one of the more memorable.

But having said that, much like the Daytona 500, the experience is not to be missed if you have the opportunity but the best place to watch the Indianapolis 500 is from your living room, something this olelongrooffan is going to do right this moment.