Hello. I’m afraid I came to Dover earlier than Dino. I raced a green 6cyl Chevy truck (N stock at over 44 lbs to 1 hp) in 62 and a ’63 Chevy Impala 409 in 63 and part of 64. I have pictures I’ll dig out. Even have some movies of friends and them of me. I’m afraid that after high school graduation in ’64, my racing really ended. But I have some really great memories of my friends and myself at Dover. I was there when Coppolo (spelling?) ran out of strip and into the sand.
I have heard two versions of the story behind the Danny Cappola ( I think that’s the correct spelling… ) accident that wreaked his dark blue Plymouth. One story is that he had a trailor accident, but the other story is that he took some really bad advice from Billy Lagana about disconnecting the rear leaf spring shackles for some sort of traction advantage which workef fine I guess untill it came time to apply the brakes… and that’s when poor Danny got upside down… and fast. (that’s what I heard anyway…)
He came back with it after the mishap and still raced it as probably the worlds ugliest Altered…!!! You gotta’ love that guy’s determination to say the least…
Does anyone know more about this than I do…? I’m not even sure if it is true. But if it was, I wouldn’t want to have been Billy Lagana who was a big guy but Danny Cappola was an even bigger guy… I guess that’s one way to eliminate the compatition.
the way I remember was Capolla and Lagana were going to match race and Capolla really striped the car of everything that can be removed including the rear shocks , the car was all over the track , the car went over before the finish line and he crossed the line on his roof … this happened on the first time run , so the match race never happened … Billy
dino.
dougf