Racing Hudsons and their wheels

dougson

Weather is dreadfull and I'm bored :rolleyes:, so time to dream up some trivial questions about Hudsons and racing. I've not yet seen any pictures of racing Hudsons with anything but what appear to be stock rims. Were any Hudsons equipped with the early racing wheels such as Halibrands?

hudsontech

It is my understanding, that in the first few years of Hudsons NASCAR racing days all cars pretty much used stock rims.



However - (always a However, isn't there) from what I've heard around the cirquit it didn't take long before the Hudson rims started failing in the turns. Forces generated on the rims would rip the centers out of them. So those racing Hudsons had to use beefed up rims. Exactly what the modifications were I don't know off hand.



The other thing that plagued early Hudson NASCAR racers was broken rear axles - particularly the right side. And when the axle broke on the right side, guess where the car went - since it was usually in a turn the car and driver took a ride over the fence. From what I've been able to find out the fix was to turn down Cadillac axles to fit.



Hudsonly,

Alex Burr

HudsonTech

Memphis, TN

Unknown

Walt Chapman Told Me One Time That They Took The Centers Out Of Stock Wheels And Welded Them Over The Stock Center To Make Them Double, Just Pull Off The Hub Cap Clips And Lay It In And Weld. I Dont Know If This Was Legal, But He Said It Helped A Great Deal, Bill Albright

Ol racer

From what I read Vince Piggins (the young Hudson Engineer who later when Hudson ended their Racing Program went to Chevrolet to help develop the new Chevy V8 into a Winner with first the 'Power Pkg' and later the Z28). Vince attended many early Stock Car Races and when a part failed he had the Factory build a stronger Severe Duty component such as Spindle, Hub, Wheels (which were doubled dished) and rear Axles to name a few.



Hudson was the First Factory to openly support NASCAR Racing to help sell cars.



I also heard, but cant verify, that NASCAR eventually permitted a Ford type 3/4 Ton Floater' RF & RR Hub on the Cars for Safety.

Park_W

From NASCAR info I've seen, it appears that after just the first few races they still required stock rims but allowed reinforcing the centers as Bill Albright describes above. That was the only modification they did allow on the cars for some time. At an HET meet many years back, Tim Flock told me a special problem with the Hudsons was that when an axle broke, because of the rear fender design the wheel often stayed trapped in the fender well instead of flying "who knows where," and on several occasions, one of them fatal, that caused the car to flip. Not long after the Hornets appeared, NASCAR rules did permit use of factory-provided "severe use" items such as Hudson's heavier axles, Twin-H, etc., as long as the items were available to the general public.

Unknown

Trivia question: What Championship winning Hudson NASCAR DRIVER was seriously injured at a 1953 NASCAR Race where other Hudson drivers placed 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, even though that driver was not racing at the time?

Who was that driver?
What was the injury?
How did he sustain his injury?

dougson

...... I fitted my stepdown with late 70's Chrysler rims in 1998.[/QUOTE]



Lot's of good information, as usual. Were the 70's Chrysler rims actually Chrysler or another MOPAR? Were they 5 or 6" wide?

Unknown

This is good to know, my car throws the full disc hubcaps off the front wheels frequently and I think the rims are flexing enough with the radial tires to do that. I'll have to look at getting some Chrysler rims.

Unknown

Jimalberta wrote:

This is good to know, my car throws the full disc hubcaps off the front wheels frequently and I think the rims are flexing enough with the radial tires to do that. I'll have to look at getting some Chrysler rims.

When cornering, dropping your speed below 50 mph may help.

Unknown

Thats just no fun at all.

Ol racer

Heart Of Texas wrote:

Trivia question: What Championship winning Hudson NASCAR DRIVER was seriously injured at a 1953 NASCAR Race where other Hudson drivers placed 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, even though that driver was not racing at the time?



Who was that driver?

What was the injury?

How did he sustain his injury?

I think it was Tim Flock while napping in the Infield after driving all night from the previous Track got ran over by a Champion Sparkplug representitive severly injuring Tim for months with head injuries putting him out of contention after winning the previous years Championship. As we know, Tim lived to Win again Tthen later work for NASCAR.

Unknown

Ol racer wrote:

I think it was Tim Flock while napping in the Infield after driving all night from the previous Track got ran over by a Champion Sparkplug representitive severly injuring Tim for months with head injuries putting him out of contention after winning the previous years Championship. As we know, Tim lived to Win again Tthen later work for NASCAR.

Exactly right... the wheel of the car actually stopped on Tim's head and the rep got out to see what all the other folks were screaming about. He fainted! State troopers at the track lifted the car off Tim. Tim had tire marks on his chest too.

ivanz62

Hudson did have Motor Wheel and Rim (St. Louis?) make "7X" wheels with double centers that were, in effect, just a cap over the stock convertible wider wheel. When building my Hornet race car, I cleared out Smokey Yunick's Hudson parts in 1994 and I got a pallet of wheels with three double centers that were also welded at the end of the joint of the center to the rim as well as riveted. I got some more convertible wheels, I think from Bill Albright, and welded centers cut from stock wheels over the top to double up the lug nut area just like the originals. I did use modern stock car one inch lug nuts and high quality wheel studs as well.



There are pictures in the old magazines of Herb Thomas grinning and pointing at Ford truck front hubs on his race winning Hornet as well. It is true that Nascar was forced early to allow wheel/tire/hub/axle mods in order to have enough "strictly stock" cars finish the popular Southern 500 and longer races on the rough and rutted dirt tracks that deteriorated with longer events having grooves and berms created.



My deal with Smokey back in 1994 was based on putting full floating axles in my Hornet--he said he would not help at all if I didn't do it as he had had too many friends hurt and even killed as the result of a rear axle failure in a step down--just as Chapman told Albright.

[Deleted User]

Ken U-Tx wrote:

From what I have read was that most of the racers then used Chrysler rims as they were welded, not riveted as the Hudson Budd rims were. Same bolt pattern and hub ID. The Hudson rims are rather thin pressed steel centers, they bend easily. They were also not designed with the lateral cornering forces of modern radials in mind, thus their were numerous instances of HET'ers having Hudson rims fail when shod with radials. I fitted my stepdown with late 70's Chrysler rims in 1998.

Do the stock Hudson Stepdown hubcaps fit on the Mopar wheels?

[Deleted User]

Ken U-Tx wrote:

From what I have read was that most of the racers then used Chrysler rims as they were welded, not riveted as the Hudson Budd rims were. Same bolt pattern and hub ID. The Hudson rims are rather thin pressed steel centers, they bend easily. They were also not designed with the lateral cornering forces of modern radials in mind, thus their were numerous instances of HET'ers having Hudson rims fail when shod with radials. I fitted my stepdown with late 70's Chrysler rims in 1998.

Ken U-Tx,



Do the stock Hudson Stepdown hubcaps fit on the Mopar wheels?

Unknown

DaveFury wrote:

Ken U-Tx,

Do the stock Hudson Stepdown hubcaps fit on the Mopar wheels?

You have to move the clips from the Hudson rims over to the Mopar rims. or use a 54 style hup cap.

[Deleted User]

SRCraftsman2 wrote:

You have to move the clips from the Hudson rims over to the Mopar rims. or use a 54 style hup cap.

Pat,



Thanks for the info. I really like the factory '51 hubcaps so this is good news!

Browniepetersen

I run 1950 MoPar rims on my 1952 Stepdown and have had no problems with them. I selected rims that had the clips in them for the dog dish hub caps. They work great...