Wimble Still Unbeatable At Stafford Springs Stocks

Wimble Still Unbeatable At
Stafford Springs Stocks

July 17, 1964

Bill Wimble of New York State made it eight victories here at Stafford Springs Speedway. When tonight he again won the feature event of the evening. This New York dairyman reaped in the harvest again. Though tonight it was a lot harder than usual! This is the way it went:

The first heat of the evening was won by Bill Slater and then Wimble came along and won his heat. The large crowd of fans knew though that they were in for a night of terrific racing. Such notables in the NASCAR ranks as Lou Lazzaro, Ken Shoemaker, Ed Flemke, Rene Charland, Irv Taylor, Gene Bergin, Bill Slater, Ernie Gahan, Ron Narducci and Don Rounds were on hand plus a large field of cars and drivers from all over the East.

Bill Wimble battling it out at Stafford.
(Photo from the Danny Pardi Collection)

Wimble started in 15^th place with Lazzaro in 14ht spot. Shoemaker was 13^th and as the green flag was waved Hully Bunn took over the lead, but Irv Taylor in the No. 1 blew his engine and a complete restart was called. The race restarted with Bunn in the “X” again in the lead but, but on the third lap a big pile-up on the 4^th turn knocked out a few cars including Bergin in the “99” and Gahan in the “50”. But Gahan wanted to race bad tonight and took over for Slater in the #15 car.

The restart had Lazzaro in second place and when the fifth lap rolled by he had the lead. Shoemaker was second and Flemke third. On the 10^th lap Lazzaro was still leading but Wimble had passed Flemke to go into third place. Wimble managed to get inside of Lazzaro with three laps to go and the two would race side by side till the finish with Wimble taking the win by half a car length. The finish would by Wimble first, Lazzaro second, Flemke third and Shoemaker 4^th.

A thrilling finish to a great race!