Backfire

Your story in the October issue about the Rodtoberfest Reliability Run in Round Top, New York, represented a moment in time for me. Many at the event were from Upstate’s Tri-City area where my wife and I grew up.

As a kid going to St. Mikes in the late ’50s, I had a summer job with Hood Ice Cream out of Ravena. I worked the freezer, but was also called on to make ice cream deliveries to country store customers. The route I had was Round Top and vicinity. I took this refrigerated truck full of ice cream through the mountain roads to Leeds, Cairo, Freehold, Greenville, and as far as Ellenville and New Paltz. Little did I know that my bride lived in Norton Hill then, and, with her brothers and sisters, went to Round Top for the ice cream I delivered.

Thanks for the memories.

Carmen and Barbara Casile Via email

smirked a little at Matthew Litwin’s article title in your November issue. He insinuates that a 1957 Starfire 98 Oldsmobile with a J-2 engine was a luxury cruiser that became a street-legal racer. I understand the author’s reference to the J-2R engine that NASCAR disqualified versus the civilized version offered by Oldsmobile as the J-2 engine. In reality, the weight disadvantage of this particular model of Oldsmobile made them dogs even by 1957 standards (9.1 seconds for 0-60 mph). In my younger days, there was a lot of racing going on at Route 22 in New Jersey between the Adventure and Garden