The Car That Shaped His Life: One Man's Mission To Bring Back West Haven Speedway's Fire-Ball No.4
- Dominic Konareski
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
When authoring my ‘Gloves, Engines & Glory’ book in late 2025, I came across countless photos, memorabilia and people sharing their memories of the once Savin Rock track that was West Haven Speedway. Through all the people I met and spoke with, I can say confidently that I never expected one of them to be restoring a modified from the speedway.
Gary Babineau was born in Stratford, but was a Westie at heart. Whenever he had the chance he would attend auto racing in West Haven. Despite deep West Haven roots, Gary now lives closer to the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway than the quiet waves of the West Haven beach, roughly 790 miles away. Gary is currently working on restoring the Fire-ball No.4 Modified that raced at the West Haven Speedway and was most famously driven by Tommy Sutcliffe.
The original chassis has long since been destroyed and likely used for scrap not long after the Speedway closed in the mid-1960s. The original chassis was a coupe shell of a pre-war 1934 Plymouth. Gary is currently reconstructing a chassis and car frame to match the ‘34 Plymouth. Surprisingly, the original engine of the Fire-ball 4 still exists, and Gary is working on restoring the nearly century-old engine.
The Fire-ball 4 car was an earlier generation of an SK Modified. SK Modified racing is still extremely popular in the Northeast, with weekly divisions at local tracks with the highest level being the NASCAR Whelen Modified Series, which used Tour Type Modifieds.
When I asked Gary what made him want to bring the Fire-ball 4 back to life, his answer was simple but deep. “When I was a kid, roughly five or six years old my dad would take me to West Haven (Speedway) and Tommy Sutcliffe who drove the Fire-ball 4, that was my favorite car,” while adding “that was my car, that was my car, that was who I wanted to win.”
Gary recalled his time spent at the West Haven Speedway, saying that everyone felt like family who were there, while also reminiscing how uniquely figured the track was. “Everyone in the stands knew somebody who raced,” said Babineau.
The engine of the Fire-ball 4 was found by a friend of Gary’s who still resides in Connecticut. On the front of the car above the windshield there are letters ‘PSP’ and he was trying to decipher what those letters actually meant, and later found out it was for the owners.
One of the owners of the modified, Johnny Palotto, was found by Gary and he would end up calling Johnny’s cellphone and leaving a voicemail that would change the whole rebuild of the Fire-ball 4. “I’m trying to find a Johnny Palotto connected to a car at the West Haven Speedway,” was the voicemail Gary left and just a day later he would receive a call back.
The person on the other side of the phone was Johnny Palotto Jr, who told Gary his dad worked on the modified car and was still alive at 93-years-old (he is now 96).
They started having weekly phone calls discussing the construction of the call, with Gary asking questions such as the size of the wheelbase and how the frame was constructed so the car can be rebuilt as accurately as possible. One phone call would lead to the conversation of the motor, which was still around but was with Johnny’s nephew.
Gary bought the engine, a 25-inch Chrysler six-cylinder flat head.
The rules at West Haven Speedway were unique compared to other tracks in the area. If you had a Ford, it needed to be a Ford engine, if you had a Plymouth, it had to be a Plymouth engine and so on.
One of the reasons why the engine never got scrapped or blown in later years is because it wasn’t used for racing outside of the West Haven Speedway. When West Haven closed and was torn down in 1967, the engines of the modifieds were out of commission essentially. Other tracks in the area allowed V8 engines, but West Haven Speedway was six-cylinder. “(the engine) just languished in the corner of a garage somewhere for 60-years,” said Gary, who is now refurbishing the same engine he heard when he was 6-years-old.
“The car kind of shaped my life,” said Gary as he talked about the Fire-ball 4 and the West Haven Speedway had him fall in love with cars. Gary would build race cars for 30 years, and moved to Alburn, Indiana, in 1991, after living in Indianapolis for over a decade. Gary has built all shorts or race cars but has primarily built Indy Roadsters (era IndyCars from 1950s-60s).
Gary says that the overall state of the car is 70% complete, with body work and installing gauges being the biggest tasks left before painting. Although he doesn’t remember exactly when he began it, Gary said it was around 2023. The ultimate goal once finished is for it to be a show and exhibition car, with no plans for doing any type of official auto racing.
Even though the West Haven Speedway has been gone since 1967, the land that it once stood still shows the remains of the turns that the Fire-ball 4 once went around at high, heart-racing speeds. The outline of turns 1 and 2 can be seen from an aerial view.
“The speedway was great; the speedway was awesome,” says the now-68-year-old Babineau as he continues to work on the car and preserving West Haven history over 700-miles away.