My Racing Photos: TAE Racing

	That's my boy! Erick Sanderson holding my lucky gold plated Craftsman crescent wrench on a weight jacker bolt of Ronnie Ramer's #166 super modified after the races. Check out the cool Fairgrounds Speedway shirt.
	June 6, 1983, Taloga ATV Raceway. 8 year old Erick's first Odyssey. This was his third time to drive he finished 3rd in both the heat and main. This was a really well used Odyssey, but we had Charles Jarvis at J&A Racing add side bars to the cage. As the class grew so did Erick's abilities and after 2 months of racing this Odyssey as it was when we bought it, we had the motor rebuilt and before it ever made it back to the track it was stolen along with his Honda 3 wheeler. Nothing was ever recovered.
	September 1, 1983, Oklahoma City Fairgrounds - Erick making a pass on his way to 4th place at the Oklahoma City Short Track Nationals.
	August, 1984 - This is a newspaper clipping from the Del City News, for some reason they used a photo taken at the 1983 OKC Short Track Nationals.
	September 30, 1984 - Erick Sanderson in the #73a Honda Odyssey on his way to winning the Youth Stock Odyssey (15 and under) class at Interstate Moto-X in Oklahoma City. Erick led every lap of both the heat and main, lapping all but 2nd place in the main. Erick was 10 years old at the time and had already won a Taloga ATV Raceway Championship, the OKC Winternationals, the Stock Odyssey (adult) class A-Main at the Northwest Oklahoma Fall Nationals at Taloga, and finished 2nd in the Stock Odyssey (adult) class in the Oklahoma State Fair Championship series.
	Lawton Speedway - Erick sits behind the wheel of the #21 OFIXCO Champ Dirt car after an NCRA race.
	February 9, 1984 - Chickasha indoor race. Here's Erick at age 11 driving his first micro sprint race. He finished 3 in his heat and didn't finish the A-main due to a loose throttle cable.
	Summer 1984 - Erick's waiting to go on the track at Southwest Raceway in Carnegie, Oklahoma.
	Summer 1987 - Left side view of the Auto Sports Center/Racer's Corner micro sprint with new body and paint. Photographs could never do this paint job justice. It was Corvette Yellow (also known as Jim Stewart yellow), candy blue, candy purple, candy red with silver pin stripes
	That's my wife! September of 1983 Anne Sanderson is on her way to one of several A-Main wins in the Powder Puff Stock Odyssey class. This shot was taken by Shelly Hollingsworth at Taloga ATV Raceway in Taloga, Oklahoma. Anne had a couple of wins at Taloga and one at Chickasha before retiring from racing. Just so you know she really raced hard, it took D.E Suggs and me a whole day to straighten the cage, frame and swing arms after she flipped this Odyssey at Taloga.
	Play Time! In the winter we raced and played with 1/10 scale dirt R/C cars. This was my Tamya Frog with an old sedan modified body. Painted by sign painter Jim Chesnut. We also spent time at the local slot car track along with Shane Carson.
	Oklahoma City Modified - one of my rare on track moments. This was a Johnny Gilmore chassis with a Chevy 6. This was 1982 I believe. The wing is really a flat sheet with side boards, the rules required the leading edge to be sit directly on the front hoop of the roll cage. This was the only wing/top I know of that had height and side to side adjustments like a real wing. The wing-top was made of reinforced sheet fiberglass on a wood and aluminum frame.
	Oklahoma City Fairgrounds Speedway - October 1982 - Here's a real memorable shot of me (Terry Sanderson) from my racing folly. It was at the OKC Winternationals, I don't recall what year. I had blown a transmission in my modified a few weeks earlier and a friend offered his Walker built modified. After picking up his car I realized it was not really race ready, so I made some repairs, corrected some problems with the shocks, spent 2 full days checking, repairing the car, mounting up my rear tires on his wheels and put my adjustable airfoil top on. I even repainted the car and got Jim Chesnut to letter it. On Saturday I went out for hot laps and blew a transmission hose off and got my leg bathed in hot transmission fluid, I was so mad I didn't even feel the hot fluid. We fixed the hose and the trans seemed to work okay. Heat race time, could not keep the car running we got the officials to let us switch to the last heat, still no luck, our day was over. Took the car home and found the gas tank full of water (too much water to have been an accident), spent the night taking the fuel cell apart and cleaning the fuel system. Sunday hot laps go pretty well and we see I'm in the H, I or maybe it was the Z feature, there were a ton of cars. Well at least we get to race and I fell confident I could at least advance to the next feature. Time to line up for the race and see I'm at the back of about 15 or 16 cars and this is only going to be 10 laps, then I notice there are some really good cars ahead of me, what are they doing in this race. The track is a typical daytime dry track and there were several restarts due to crashes, I am hanging on for dear life, the brakes in this car are less than good. I think I could have been dragging my feet and had better brakes. Anyway thanks to the crashes I have gained about 6 spots and we haven't even completed a lap, wow this may not be so tough. Finally we get a good start and I pass about 4 cars on the first lap, still going pretty well and feeling good I pass about 3 more cars. Now I'm thinking if I stay cool I can win or at least run 2nd, then ka-boom, smoke everywhere; the transmission let go in the middle off the back straightaway! What a weekend, my buddy Gene Campbell and I worked our butts off all weekend, got transmission fluid stains all over my new Hinchman uniform, blew a transmission, gee ain't racing fun. The following day former modified, super and sprint car driver Danny Swick calls and says he knew some guys who were impressed with my performance and wanted to hire me to drive for them, then I made my mistake, "what do they want me to drive?" Swick's reply a mosquito fogger truck in Louisiana. A couple of days later Danny brought by the entire smoky sequence of events preserved on film for me to share with everyone one of my great moments in racing! This was the only photo of the 7-photo sequence I found after the 1999 tornado wiped out our house.
	Oklahoma City Super Modified 1983 - The following year, in the OKC 6 cylinder Super Modified (class name & slight rules changes, 4 barrel carbs and real wings added) - a Jack Walker chassis with Ford 6 for power this time, another rare on track shot. This is the same wing/top from the above photo with bigger side boards, a shaped underneath panel to turn it into an airfoil (wing) and mounts like a normal wing. Did my homemade wing work? I never drove the car with it when it was running on all 6 cylinders, every time I drove it we had motor or fuel problems, after about 4 racing weekends the owner and I parted ways and I gave up driving to help my son win a bunch of Odyssey races and championships. (Note: I don't know too much about this car's previous history, but I believe it once belonged to another OKC racer Mike Spivey).