Where'd That Number Come From

[Tower Man]

I always wondered how some drivers/teams picked a number. I think it would be interesting to find that out and share some stories.

When I was the 37, it was for my girls. The twins were born in March, #3 and Jessa was born in July, #7, thus the 37.

Any takers?

[Lad3der]

I got my number by combining my fire department badge number with my Grandfather's badge number. I took the first digit of my badge (353) and the first number of his (218) and put them together to get 32.

[wayne]

My Father's # Was 43. So I Picked 42, And In The Pro Trucks 42 Was Taken, So I Chose 41.

[W. J.]

Gee Matt, if you added either of the numbers, 383, or 218, they equal 11. Maybe that should have been your number, LOL!

[Fast&Legal]

Gee Matt, if you added either of the numbers, 383, or 218, they equal 11. Maybe that should have been your number, LOL!


Walter.... Last time I checked 3+8+3=14 Maybe you should have cut english instead of math....LOL

[tstiles]

My son was born in 2004, hence #4.

[Fkraft99]

TK was the 9... therefore figured the only thing better then one 9 was two... hence 99

[Wheel Racing]

Great Topic Tower Man!Here goes: When my grandfather passed away I decided to be #60 which was his fire dept #. My father switched his number from 21 to 06 (60 backwards), but it turned out that the #60 was already taken. Now it was too late to find a new combination, so I settled on #16 and then figured out it was Richie Evans #61 backwards. It was also a combination of Charlie J's 1, then the 6 from Richie. I have grown so accustomed to the number that I had to buy it back from Gary Hartcorn one year when he registered the number after I had sat out a year. (Now we know how he originally picked the #18, I'm not sure how that then became the #1 when he last raced.)




#16 For Life!

[RacinRob]

It seems like every division I race in has my favorite race car drivers number taken...19 for Bob Park. So 55 was given to me by the track office in the trucks. Timmy Gersbeck is 55, so now I'm 5x in the Blunderbust....the X is for my teammates Rob McCormick(17x) and Greg Zeleski(2x)

[Hollywood2017]

When I bought the Charger car, 91 was the # on it, so I stuck with that for the last 2 races.. now I chose the 22 because my hockey # in high school was 22.. along with the fact that deuce's are always wild!!! (This season will show and back that factor completely) :cool:

Tom
"Hollywood"

[gac21bb]

I picked #21 because that was my number in football throughout high school, besides #00 was taken (my hockey number) if Tommy W. wants to give it away, he knows who to call!

[Rubbin&Racin]

Our #84 was the year our youngest daughter was born. :)

[DriveitinDeep]

I started out with 35 at Riverhead, which was the taxi number I drove while in college.
When the powers that be took over Riverhead while still running Islip, Hank Kramer had the 35, so I had to change. I had a football jersey from HS that was #39 soooooo, and you know the rest.

[Crazy Horse]

I choose #38, that's for the amount of times my friend Steve was arrested :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :lol: :lol: will you ever learn???

[pitbull113]

I choose #38, that's for the amount of times my friend Steve was arrested :cheers: :cheers: :cheers: :lol: :lol: will you ever learn??? Dude you made me cry I laughed so hard. Last time I tell you anything!

[Sac-Man]

My first demo I was assigned 027 and I finished 2nd in my heat. :) I ran that number successfully at Bridgeport Speedway but at Mountain I felt it was losing it's magic. :rolleyes:
Then I decided to step up my racing program and start buying vinyl numbers. I switched to the number 6. The number 6 has always been my favorite... :cool:

[310fig8]

310 was my Dad's Modified number in the very early 1950s. When Islip put the scoreboard in, we weren't allowed 3 digit numbers anymore, so I dropped the 0 to make it 31. When I went with NEETS, I was able to use my 310 again.

[Tower Man]

One year I drove the 38 in the Figure 8's. So when I drove for Sean Hansen he decided we needed to turn things around and make the car the 83. Should have stayed with the 38.

[W. J.]

310 was my Dad's Modified number in the very early 1950s. When Islip put the scoreboard in, we weren't allowed 3 digit numbers anymore, so I dropped the 0 to make it 31. When I went with NEETS, I was able to use my 310 again.
Something you could try, no matter what you're runing, is different size characters for your numbers. Since NASCAR only allows 2 digit numbers, you could put yours on as 31o, and they'd score you as 31. I've seen this done for various reasons. Another variation was Frank Saladino's solution when he was not able to use 11 after he switched from Freeport to Islip. Frank changed to 00, but the 'circles' in the middle of each digit, if you looked cloesly, were formed in the shape of a 1, allowing him to keep his former number, if only in spirit. :applause:

[broz]

I remember that when my Dad decided to run his own car he took the #22 because Fireball Roberts was his favorite driver of all time. It was a way of honoring his memory.
When I used to race online, I took the number #71 to honor both Fireball and my Dad who raced under that number too. A little known fact, but Fireball's first professional victory was in the #71 Sam Rice owned Oldsmobile. He is most remembered for the #22 but early in his career drove for many different owners.

[Scotty Wolf]

Well, pretty much all my cars had a 2 in the number from when I was a kid and I took a liking to Bobby Allison (#12), and after a while 2 became my favorite number. It all started in go karts around 1976, # 112, me and my Bro shared the driving duties, he wanted # 1 and I wanted #12, so we made it 112, lol. Eventually, my bro did not want to drive it anymore, so I changed it to #2 (12 was taken I think). My Freeport Speedway Bomber was #92 because I was being helped out by Bill Hutchinson and he was # 90. I wanted # 91, but that was taken, so hence the #92. When I moved on to the Riverhead Chargers, #92 was taken, so I took #29 ( #92 backwards, lol). When I moved upto the SK Mods at Waterford, it was still #29, then Riverhead Mods, #29 was taken, so I took #28. I went back to Chargers, #20 ( #28 was taken). Returned to Mods in 1995, #28. When George Brunnhoelzl made his return, I gave him back his #28, hence the #25. In the SPT, it was #99 because my partner, Joel Krammer, liked how that number looked on the truck, lol. In my Legends car I returned to the #20 because that was the number I did the best with, and also because I had become a Tony Stewart fan. One more, lol, when I did some 4 cyl racing at Catskill Mountain Speedway, I ran #08 because the car I bought had a #03 on it and it was easy and cheap to simply change the #03 to an #08, he he. Well, Tower Man, you asked, lol, good topic I would say.

[Scotty Wolf]

OH yeah, yet one more, #90 Blunderbust, simple one, it's Ronnie's car, lol. ;)

[W. J.]

I've got to say Scott, with all the different numbers you've used, you should have a really good inventory of vinyl #'s at this point, LOL!

[Rubbin&Racin]

Have to agree with Scotty, good topic, :applause: thanks Tower Man. Keep this going, pretty neat to see how we all picked our numbers. Just another thing to pass the winter until Racing starts. :wave: :)

[pitbull113]

I agree it's a great topic. I've always wondered why some people picked the numbers that they did. I ran the enduros at Flemington and wanted #13 because it's always been my favorite number but it was taken so it became #113 plus my son's birthday is Jan.13th. Than I ran the tar-car modifieds also at Flemington and when I bought the car it had #34 on it (the PO was a Richard Petty fan so he reversed the #) I didn't have the cash to repaint and number it so I left #34. Ran the 4cyls at Mountain #13 also ran the 6/8cyls at mountain with #535 because the car was a BMW 535.

[Gravel]

My original # was 104. The guy who started me, Frank "Rocky" Romanek was 103, so it seemed natural. After one bad year, I said to myself,"Time to start anew." When I started thinking about numbers, I saw a saying, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." So the #1 came into effect. Not to mention the fact that my painting really sucks.

[Fig8 T.K.]

#9 came from my hockey days in High School. My jersey had #9, and 9 was the most goals I scored in one game. #8 for the past three years was not my choice, just convenient for the car owner.

[dynamite]

This is Chris Turbush. I picked 81 because my father was 8 and my grandfather was 1, so simple as that, 81.

[richardpetey]

Ya know Joe........interesting post.................. :applause:
I never had a chance to pick a car number........it was assigned to me by the promoters of the old 1/2 mile dirt track in Nazareth, Pa. in a pre-race registration...................... :rolleyes:
At the time, I painted the car in the same color scheme as the current Winston Cup car with the identical number........................ :cool:
My first race, I got caught up in a couple of altercations that the kinda got the fans in the stands making noise.............................. :help:
It also got the managements attention and they asked me to bring the car back for the next race with the same paint scheme and number............. :D
To this day, I have never raced at any venue or any division without my current number and its associated colors................... :eek:
UNCLE PETEY........................ :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave: :wave:

[nitros77]

I used the 39 in Chargers because it was my father's number in modifieds. When I went to mods, the 39 was taken. My father said your number has to mean something to ya, so I was married in '93, and I won my first go-kart race in '93 and flipping 39 is 93, so that's where 93 came from for me. Sal Accardi Jr., # 93 modified. :wave:

[310fig8]

Walt, believe it or not when I changed to # 31, there was always a very small "0" next to the number!!!

[W. J.]

Sal, good explanation, but where did the '77' in 'nitros77' come from?

310Fig8, I'd never noticed, thanks for the update.

[Duke22]

I wanted something in the 20's because of Roger Maynor's #28. I saw a picture of Lenny Boyd's modified and thought the old style 22 looked cool on his car, so I took 22. I only had the old style #'s for 1 year. Because of the hard luck that I've had in racing, my friends say you've been 22ed when something bad happens to you. Good topic, Joe.

#22 figure 8 Bill Batsche Jr-not retired, don't know when I'll be back.

[MODFAN15]

Rumor has it that the #15 that is on Wayne Anderson's car and was on that of his father, Axel, was derived from Daytona, Axel's best finish racing there, on the beach, was 15th. I'm not sure what year that was.

[figure849]

Bill the figure 8 division sure could use you back, anything we can do help make that happen let us know. figure849@aol.com

[Scotty Wolf]

W.J., LOL, not really, my long time Friend, Joel, at East Coast Pinstriping, has the inventory lol.

[nitros77]

Good? The 77 came from a Camaro I purchased in 1989 that was eventually turned into an 8 second drag car beleive it or not, in 1993 that i raced up to the point of me getting a ride in George Crocketts Charger. I've got to say if it wasn't for that car, I would've been running Riverhead a long time ago. Who knows what might have been.

[Tower Man]

Thanks for the kind words folks. I figured here was a topic no one could bash anyone or put anyone down. Entertainment for all.

Having fun reading this stuff. And I can attest, T.K. played hockey for Copiague H.S....believe it, or not.

[W. J.]

You're right Joe. It has cleared a lot of things up. All these years, I figured your Fig-8 car was numbered 37 because you couldn't count to 38, LOL. Now we all know better.
Thanks for the story on the 77 Sal, it's quite interesting to learnn about your fast Camaro, wish I could have seen THAT run!

[CSLMOTORSPORTS]

The first car that I drove was my fathers #7 street stock at Islip speedway, then when Tim and Steve Halpin and myself decided to go racing on our own we chose the #7 because it was my father's number. Then we took a few seasons off and when I came back the #7 was taken and we chose #16 because it was my sister's birthday and I wanted to remember her in a special way. So now I will always be the #16 in some way or form. My son CJ, who will drive a street stock in his rookie season at Mountain Speedway, is #13, which was his football number for a few seasons and he ran it on his go-kart.

Scott Lehmann

[don38]

My dad Gave me the number 38 when I started racing gokarts back when I was 6. It was our house number. I've been racing with that number ever since.

[deathwish86]

I use #86 for my birthday, Aug. 6. It might not always bring good luck, but it makes it harder for people to forget my birthday. :)

[Rubbin&Racin]

Keep this going, it's pretty cool to read how we got our numbers or what they mean to us. Great topic Tower Man so, let's keep it going, how many cars are in the pits and only 42 replies.
Happy Bud Shoot Out! :applause:

[Tower Man]

Okay, back from Daytona...

My Uncle Johnny Kraft was the 39. If I remenber correctly, he told me he arrived at Freeport in an unnumbered car, the track assigned the numbers. he was asked what car, he said a 39 Ford. The guy at the gate said, not taken. You are the 39.