FORESTVILLE - Dolly Hendricks handed the picture to Russ Smith, who took a few moments to look intensely at his own image nearly 60 years ago.
"That was when I had teeth yet," said the Reading driver, smiling to reveal the gaps between them now. "He was a pretty good-looking guy."
These days, Smith had to be helped through the window of his No. 11 Saturday morning at Big Diamond Speedway for the second annual Coal Region Racing Reunion. Smith, who said he was "78 and counting," then roared off to drive laps in the car he has owned for more than a half-century.
Before that happened, though, a few former rivals, including former four-time Anthracite Speedway sportsman champion Stan Weitzel, wandered to Smith's pit stall to greet him. It was a scene repeated over and over as former drivers from several former Schuylkill County tracks gathered from far and wide to swap stories.
About Anthracite, Weitzel, who journeyed from Millersville for Saturday's event, said, "They used to give us steak dinners for two to the feature winner at Club 69 in Pottsville. I won a lot of them steak dinners, a lot of them."
There were no steak dinners at stake Saturday morning. Instead, trophies were up for grabs as the racing engines sounded at 8:45 a.m. for the Blast From the Past Vintage Stock Car Club, a Reading-based group which conducted a program of one heat and two 15-lap features.
They were welcomed back onto the race track by a familiar face. Wearing a jacket from Anthracite Speedway, which was located in Schoentown, Warren Thomas returned to Big Diamond's flagstand for the first time in nearly 40 years.
"It made me think about how long it's been," the Port Carbon resident said. "It was a long time. It was something I enjoyed, and it was fun again today."
Thomas said he offered to start the races in the same fashion he employed years ago - waving the green flag while standing on the track and then crossing the track after the cars passed. Instead, he was told insurance regulations prohibited the move.
"I told them, 'You want to have an old-timers' race. Let's make it an old-time race,' " Thomas said. "But they said, 'No, we can't do it.' "
However, one incident brought back a former habit. Thomas had to bring out the red flag when Leesport's Donnie Eskey's No. 77S modified rolled during Saturday morning's program.
Eskey laughed off the incident, which he said was the first time he was upside down in a race car since his racing days at Anthracite Speedway.
"The power steering went out," he said. "The steering locked. I started going up the bank, and weighed in on the brakes. I saw the big tire. I thought I missed it, but I couldn't steer away from it. I caught it with my right front (tire), and up and over."
It was the latest memory for a group of drivers and track personnel who recalled accidents and told stories about the greatest drivers to pilot their way around Schuylkill County tracks.
Hendricks worked at the former Fort Lebanon Speedway in Deer Lake. She said Fort Lebanon drew Sunday afternoon fans in the mid-1950s who would refuse to pay the 25-cent admission fee. Instead, she said, they would climb a tree located off the second turn for a free view.
It was seemingly a wise move that backfired one day when a car veered off the speedway and hit the tree. The impact knocked several fans off their lofty porch.
There was no danger of that occurring on Big Diamond's smooth surface for the Blast From the Past group Saturday. Its trophy winners were Brian Gagliardo, who used a last-lap pass to take the heat race, and Rob Phillips.
The group's members include Big Diamond track announcer Tim Pitts, who hours earlier had presided over the weekly Friday night racing card. Driving his own "MOO" modified with a Holstein paint scheme, the ice cream shop owner then faced a trip to Orange County (N.Y.) Speedway later Saturday to announce the races there.
"People up in the stands say, 'He should have done this. He should have done that,' " Pitts said. "When you're in the car, it's a whole new perspective, a whole different world."
For some, such as Reading's Jack Reifsnyder, Saturday offered a chance to practice what he owns. Reifsnyder said he has 12 buildings stocked with racing memorabilia that he hopes to place in a new wing to be built at the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing, located south of Harrisburg. That museum is also the eventual destination of Schuylkill racing historical materials being collected by the organizer of Saturday's event, Mike Clay.
Reifsnyder was another former driver who joined Blast From the Past. The club was founded by Vince Gagliardo, who wanted to give vintage cars places to race.
"These are fun," Vince Gagliardo said. "You're not supposed to crash because a lot of these cars are irreplaceable, but sometimes things happen. It's racing, but it ain't full-bore racing."
Instead, Saturday was a day to reflect upon a bygone era when drivers often built their own machines and took them to tracks such as Branchdale, Circle M, the Schuylkill Valley Fairgrounds, Gold Mine and Mahanoy City.
For Weitzel, one memory overshadows them all.
"Winning," he said. "Winning is the most fun."