Big Dave Kaut
Car #44

Page 5 of ? Pages

Welcome to Page five of 

The  Racing Years

By David L. Kaut

1971

Note from Dan: many of the articles and pictures from Dave's 1971 scrapbook were loose in the book.  Adhesives in the tape had long ago failed.  As a result, I have had to abandon the organization of the material and will leave that to the reader.  

Eighteenth race- Saturday, Aug 28,1971- Came in 3rd in my heat and 8th in the "A" Feature.  They were really running super hard tonight and I couldn't get around any of them.  Won $20.

Nineteenth race- Saturday, Sept 4,1971- I won my heat and came in 3rd in the trophy dash and won the "A" Feature.  The car totally surprised me tonight. I did nothing to it this week and it ran like a different car. In the "A" Feature I got a couple of good breaks and too advantage of them.  Looking forward to next week with my big engine.  Won $145.

Twentieth race- Saturday, Sept 11,1971- FINAL RACE OF 1971- Won my heat, the trophy dash was like a demolition derby.  I came in 4th. The "A" Feature was a hard running race. I was in 4th behind Johnson, Van Doorn and Beam when the transmission blew.  Won $20.  I was lucky to finish in 6th spot. 

I got a blue trophy for point championship, and I got $94.72 in point money.

In  the early part of the season, my partner,  Jim Mikesell was transferred to North Platte, Nebraska.  If it wasn't for Dutch and Larry, I would have never been able to finsh the year so successfully and there is no possible way I could thank them enough.

LONG LIVE #44!  These are the accumulation of trophies I have won in the past two years.  They are from trophy dashes, mid-season and season Championships and Memorial Day Classics, etc.

Total winnings- $2,231 for 1971.  Total "A" Features won- 11 out of 20, won 5 of these in a row.

This picture was taken some time the first year after winning a trophy dash. 

    Left picture is when I started the super stock class.  Right picture  is the 57 just after it was first built. Jim ??? and I built it in the back yard at his house. He had Shop with the tools we needed. Mike was a friend of my father-n-law. That’s how I met him. We raced the first year together. His job transferred him to North Plate Ne. 

Left picture above is a side view of the first super stock. The right picture above  is when Playland had a team race with two car teams I don’t remember how many laps it was. Gray Durum and Larry White raced their cars in it. Larry was a neighbor of mine at that time. He raced at Playland also. We came in second to Ron Tilly.

   

The  picture above left was taken the next year 1971. The car had a 327 engine. The trophies are from 1970. Starting from the left. Larry???, Dutch ???, and I. Larry helped me with the car a little. Dutch and I became great friends. He lived next door to Larry White. He helped me the second year and every after that. He was as much a part of the car as I was. 

He came over every day after supper to work on the car with me. He went with me to every race and helped me in the pits. I could not have done it without Dutch. 

I owe him so much. He worked so hard on the car. He never wanted anything. He just wanted to help and watch me race the car.When I told him I sold the car in 1975 it really disappointed him.