MONTGOMERY 1958  BARC home page            page 2 1958          Montgomery 1959       Montgomery 1960

An epic battle in the history of American Road Racing.  Montgomery was an unused SAC base near Newburg, New York about 70 miles north of New York City.  Lance Reventlow had just finished building his fantastic new Scarab Sport Cars.  Early success on the West Coast was fine, but if the Scarab's were real they had to come East and beat the dreaded Cunningham Lister-Jaguars.  Their first race was scheduled at Montgomery - a perfect venue for a light, powerful car.  Montgomery was a basic triangle of runways with a few cones and hay bales thrown in to form chicanes.  BARC was there for this fight between east and west.  We tell our story, and also included is the original Competition Press coverage by Art Peck.  But enjoy the shots of one fantastic day of racing back in the day.

The Montgomery track layout was a big reason Reventlow decided to debut the cars here.  Drag race and stop - drag and stop.	Early morning and Crawford's Lister is still spotless.  It will not finish the day that way	The Scarab's got lost on their way in from California.  They arrived late Saturday night with almost no time for preparation	Organizers wanted the Scarab's in a fair fight and created a special practice session Sunday morning.  Here Daigh and Reventlow get ready	Lance in #6 (note the 1 is blocked out from his favorite #16)  comes in for a quick word during the early practice session.
Flag drops and Crawford, Daigh and Windridge drop the hammer.  Hansgen and Sadler just behind	End of the first lap and Momo signals Hansgen, who is in 2d.  Daigh, in first, has gone by.	Prize winning shot of Hansgen's Lister during the record breaking laps trying to catch Daigh	Early on Crawford leads Daigh. Note Jag still looks good but Daigh has been hammering on him	Now Daigh leads Crawford. The Jag has damage on the RR and the Scarab is showing more dents
While Daigh and Crawford are beating on each other Hansgen, Reventlow and Sadler are fighting at the front.  Here Reventlow slides off the track at the chicane leading to the start finish line.  This might be where he retired from the race.	Hansgen is in the pits to change the blown LR tire and yelling something at an SCCA official while Momo kneels to check how work is progressing.  Gordon Mackenzies C type passes in the background	The starter signals a beat up but still fast Chuck Daigh Scarab that there is one lap to go.  Hansgen is chasing, setting lap record after lap record but ran out of time to catch up. He fell 9 seconds short.
			Nicholas & Tierno remembrances from 49 years ago and how the BARCboys nearly saved the day. clik to open & again to enlarge	Art Peck's Comp Press Article on all the days racing clik to open & clik again to enlarge