The Scoop
“THE BEAR” REGETH’S CHAMPIONSHIP RACER FROM 1976 IS BEING RESTORED!

Posted on: Sunday December 20, 2020

A true slice of northeast Wisconsin racing history is in the process of being restored.

Wisconsin Rapids’ John Alft, an avid racing enthusiast and former Central Wisconsin Racing Association (CWRA) president has obtained the championship Frings-chassis car constructed by Dennis Frings and Mike Randerson. This familiar pink and blue Les Stumpf Ford number 96 was driven to close to 75 feature wins by “The Bear” Roger Regeth of Kimberly in a three-year span from 1976 to 1978.

How Alft even found out about this car and where it was located is a story unto itself. “I was chatting through Facebook messenger with Jacob Hashbarger about our passion for restoring old race car chassis,” said Alft, who has successfully restored Rich Somers “Thunder Pony” mustang and currently owns it. “Jacob was looking for some old 3rd design Howe chassis and he knew of a guy who had some.”

Through their chats Hashbarger informed Alft in July that the original Frings chassis was quite possibly located north of Green Bay near Pulaski. “A guy by the name of Eugene McGinnis had the car and had still owned and raced it as a dirt late model up until the 1994 season,” Alft explained. “Turns out it was actually the second late model chassis that Frings had constructed. When they debuted that car in 1976 it was cutting edge technology back then. It really was.”

To get confirmation on the car itself Alft placed a phone call to the man who helped build the winning machine and was crew chief for two full seasons on it – noted car builder Randerson.

Accompanied by “The Bear” Regeth himself, longtime Regeth crew member Geno Weber and Alft’s friend and former racer Steve Moll met up one cold, windy day in October to check out the old race chassis. “Mike was telling me some things over the phone about the car but said he wouldn’t know until he got to look at it up close,” Alft said. “Once he saw it, he knew that was the one. It had Holman Moody shock cages. It had the original ball joints, spindles, rear end and trailing arms. Same roll cage and upper control arms too.”

In ’94 Green Bay’s Art Siefert had wheeled the dirt late model for McGinnis at Seymour Tri-Oval and at Shawano Speedway as well. “Eugene had acquired the car after Steve Wishart owned and briefly drove it,” Siefert said. “I had actually raced that car for the Van Pay’s in the late 1980’s on the dirt for a season too.” Siefert confirmed that 1994 was the final year that car raced with the number 56. The car had sat for decades on McGinnis’ property ever since.

Let’s back up even a few more years. Steve Van Pay had purchased this Frings chassis from Roger Van Roy before the 1984 season. “That car turned out to be R.M.’s very first late model he had run,” Steve Van Pay recalled. “After R.M. ran it that year in ’84 we shoved the car in the shed for a few seasons and I don’t think we dragged it out for Art (Siefert) to drive until the ’88 or ’89 season.”

Prior to Van Pay’s obtaining this vintage racer, Darboy’s Van Roy raced the car successfully for several seasons on both the dirt at Shawano and Seymour and on the tar at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna. “I bought the car from (original car owner) Jerry Sheriff for $9,000 race ready in 1979 with the motor and everything in it,” Van Roy said. “That would be something like $30,000 nowadays! I won some features with that car on dirt.”

Van Roy even put a high-profile “hired gun” in the car for a while in 1981 – Regeth’s long time arch-rival J.J. Smith. J.J. copped some feature wins in ’81 at Shawano against the likes of M.J. McBride, Terry Anvelink, Scott Hansen and on occasion when he was racing locally national dirt late model hall of famer Pete Parker. “That’s when we were running those big plexiglass spoilers on the cars,” Van Roy recalled. “Hell, my brother Ron even raced the car one night at a special at Luxemburg and was leading the feature until he overdrove the car one night. That thing was fast.”

Roger’s brother Ron Van Roy was his chief wrench. “I remember I cut that car in half in the mid-section and shortened the wheelbase from 108 inches to 104 inches,” Ron Van Roy recalled. “That car was fast.”

At the time, Randerson was one of the first on the area half-mile, dirt track circuit to switch to a small block powerplant. That’s what was dropped under the hood of the Frings car beginning in the ’76 season. “I remember one time during the off season another driver (Dan Johnson) came to Randerson’s shop once, saw we were putting in a small block and laughed and said ‘well I guess you guys won’t be running any features this year,” recalled Regeth. “When we won the first six races of the season that shut him up pretty quickly.”

While estimates on just how many races Regeth won vary, “The Bear” estimates the average is close to 30 features a year. “We won on every track in the area and won the most probably at Leo’s Speedway in Oshkosh and at Shawano,” Regeth recalled. “When we beat Rich Somers at WIR one year that was a big deal because his car was specifically built and setup for asphalt. We’d change everything over in the car, including the rear end, just to run WIR on Thursday nights. We’d change it over after we’d usually win at Oshkosh on Tuesdays. Mike (Randerson) and Geno (Weber) were the best. They made it easy for me to win with that thing, that’s for sure. We all had full time jobs and somehow we still worked on that race car pretty much every night of the week.”

For a time, the 96-team experienced so many engine woes with the big block Randerson resorted to asking his wife Phyllis to lend a hand. “I was working at U.S. Oil and we were so busy I’d have Phyllis loosen all the bolts with the motor to save time when we were able to yank the motor out,” Randerson recalled. “When we switched Carl Wegner began building us our small block motors we were pretty much good to go after that. In fact, Carl used to joke to me that he blames us for getting him involved in building motors for oval track racing!”

In the early ‘80’s when Van Roy owned the car Regeth once hopped behind the wheel for an old timer’s race at Shawano. Even with the big plexiglass spoiler on the back he still won. “I remember one night when J.J. was driving that car he climbed out of the cockpit at Shawano after he won one night and said, ‘no wonder I could never catch Roger all those years,” Regeth said. “This car is fast!”

“I’ll tell you Dennis Frings treated us really well,” Randerson said. “He was probably one of the best craftsmen of all the stock car builders at that time. His workmanship was second to none.”

Jerry Sheriff was the owner of the car Regeth dominated with. “I remember when we were having some engine troubles and didn’t win a feature one week,” Randerson said. “Jerry (Sheriff) called me on the phone and left a message and said, ‘what’s the problem?’ Well right after that we won six features in a row. I called and left him a voice mail and said ‘what’s the matter? Is your phone broke?”

As for the restoration of this classic racer, Alft is admittedly a patient guy. “It might take two years to complete,” Alft admitted. “I’ve got some contacts. Dennis Frings is sending me the old book with info on these cars from 1976. I have a steel body I’ve obtained which we’ll use. Geno (Weber) found all the old setup papers from the car and also has the original tachometer. and Mike (Randerson) sent me close to 50 pictures of the car too.”

Randerson even went to far as to call Stahl Headers located in New Jersey to inquire about bending the header pipes up. “Sure enough I got ahold of a former long-time employee there and he still had the bend cards from 1976 on how to bend the pipes up for that car so John will have those to work with,” Randerson said. “Luckily, we’ve got some pretty good documentation of this car.”

“This one shouldn’t be as tough to replicate as the Rich Somers car was,” Alft admitted. “We’ve got a lot of pictures of this one.”

Randerson joked: “don’t let those two cars get into a fight at your shop!” referring to the fact Regeth knocked off Somers and his asphalt-specific racer at WIR with his car used on both dirt and tar.

Here at joeverdegan.com we’ll stay on top of this neat story about restoring a piece of northeast Wisconsin racing history and thanks to John Alft for stepping up and committing to this project!

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