Rich Vogler’s midget

As part of the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum presented the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit which included Rich Vogler’s midget.

Rich Vogler won his first United States Auto Club (USAC) national midget title in 1978, and then would go on to win the national midget championship in 1980 (the same year he won the national sprint car title), 1983, 1986 and 1988. Vogler repeated as the USAC sprint car champion in 1989. Vogler was the first man to win the midget and sprint title in the same season.

During his career, Rich won all the prestigious midget races - the inaugural Chili Bowl Nationals in 1987, the Night Before the 500 at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 1978, the WWRA Florida Winter Nationals in 1983, the “Hut Hundred” eight times, the midget portion of the 4-Crown Nationals  at Eldora Speedway  four times, the midget portion of the  Copper World Classic twice and the Hoosierdome Invitational twice. Vogler also drove in the Indianapolis 500-mile race five times, frequently qualifying for the race with very few practice laps.   

His record of 134 USAC National Series wins - 95 Midget, 35 Sprint, and four Silver Crown wins is second only to AJ Foyt’s total of 169 wins. Vogler was inducted in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1992 and into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1986.

Rich Vogler lost his life the day before his 40^th birthday, July 20, 1991 in a crash during live-televised USAC sprint car race at Salem Indiana.   Rich was leading the race at the time of the accident and the race was considered complete after the accident with Rich declared the victor for his 134^th and final USAC national win.   

All photographs by the author 

Hogan HR-001 Can-Am car 

The second Can-Am series was created to use the unloved SCCA Formula 5000 open-wheel single-seat stock-block cars, a series that had been created in 1968 but had never caught the public’s attention even though it featured star drivers and American powerplants. From the beginning the Formula 5000 series was a source of controversy between the United States’ top open-wheel racing sanctioning body, the United States Auto Club (USAC) and the SCCA.  

In 1974 USAC threatened to withdraw from ACCUS over the “Full International” status of SCCA races but instead a series of meetings between USAC and SCCA officials commenced in January 1974 with an agreement was reached in May 1974 for the Formula 5000 series to be jointly sanctioned by the SCCA and USAC. The eighth season of the open wheel formula car road racing series, known as the 1974 “SCCA/USAC Formula 5000 Championship” began June 2 at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course with "Buckeye Cup." 

Beginning immediately, the Formula 5000 championship was open to not only SCCA legal cars but also to USAC cars powered by either 161 cubic-inch turbocharged, 255 cubic-inch double overhead camshaft or 305 cubic inch "stock block" engines. The USAC cars would run on methanol, with a required pit stop for turbocharged cars. Over the next few years, there were several USAC stars that competed in the Formula 5000 series; the roster included Mario Andretti, Mike Mosely and Johnny Rutherford, as well as Bobby and Al Unser, but there were only three turbocharged Offenhauser powered entries that ever tried to run the Formula 5000 series.

In a press release that announced the agreement worked out with USAC President Reynold McDonald, SCCA President Cameron Argetsinger was quoted that “joint sanction is an important step, but more importantly, USAC and the SCCA have agreed to direct their best efforts of a long-range plan for a common open-wheel car and engine formula and a single championship to be run on both road courses and ovals.” The timetable called for the two groups to formulate a detailed plan for approval by each governing board by January 1975 with the common formula put into effect in January 1976.

Alas, this plan of a common formula never came to pass as the SCCA and USAC were unable to agree on a common formula. Nearly a year after the planned target, on October 11, 1976, the USAC announced its withdrawal from the joint sanction of the Formula 5000 series. Frankie DelRoy, USAC’s Technical Director told Milwaukee Journal writer Roger Jaynes “for a while it looked like we could work out a common formula. But every time we tried to work out a compromise the SCCA wanted everything their way. Fuel, tire sizes, type of engine- everything.”

In the end, said DelRoy, “it was a case of us helping out the SCCA and them not helping us (USAC).  They got our name drivers - Mario Andretti, Al Unser and the rest to strengthen their series, but they didn’t want to help us one bit.”

The Formula 5000 series came to an end at the close of the 1976 season, and most of the teams enclosed their Formula 5000 chassis in full bodywork to compete in the “new” SCCA Can-Am series for 1977. This second version of the Sports Car Club of America’s Can-Am series, was created as the stepchild of the original Canadian-America Challenge Series for Group 7 (unlimited) sport cars which had collapsed in 1974.

For the 1977 racing season, the Sports Car Club of America’s (SCCA) “new” Can-Am series used the same single seat chassis used in Formula 5000 cloaked in enclosed bodywork. 

The same team that dominated the final years of Formula 5000, Carl Haas Racing, won the 1977 Can-Am title although the team’s lead driver Brian Redman was seriously injured in the first race of the season and replaced by Patrick Tambay who won six of nine races as Redman’s replacement.

With driver Alan Jones, the Haas team again claimed the 1978 Can-Am title as they won five of the series’ ten races. Veteran American second-generation road racer Al Holbert finished third in the Can-Am points for the Carl Hogan Racing Team and he scored a win at the series’ penultimate round at Laguna Seca Raceway and six top-five finishes. 

For the 1979 Can-Am series, Holbert and the Hogan team had a new weapon- the Hogan HR-001 designed by veteran race car engineer Lee Dykstra with a new revolutionary body that used the new concept of “ground effects’ with enclosed rear wheels, an undertray designed to generate suction and side skirts. Under the body the Hogan HR-001 used the Formula 5000 Lola T333 chassis and suspension components and a 305-cubic inch fuel-injected Chevrolet V-8 racing engine.   

Lee Dykstra was a graduate of the General Motors Institute and worked for the Cadillac division until he left GM to join the Ford racing program with the Ford GT40 and led the design team for Carroll Shelby’s Trans Am Mustangs. In the early nineteen seventies Dykstra formed his own firm DeKon Engineering with driver Horst Kwech.

Carl Hogan was a second-generation St. Louis trucking magnate who had been involved in Formula 5000 racing since the early nineteen seventies, and his 1979 Can-Am effort carried sponsorship from St. Louis based Anheuser-Busch Breweries Busch beer brand.  

In 1979, in addition to the Can-Am Series, Al Holbert was in his third season of racing with the NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Racing) Grand National series in his own self-sponsored Chevrolet Monte Carlo painted in Porsche racing colors of blue, red and yellow.

The new Hogan car’s debut at Road Atlanta in May was a success, as Holbert qualified fifth fastest and finished fourth, albeit a lap behind the first three finishers, as the HR-001 was slowed during the alter stages of the race with fuel pressure problems. At the next race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Holbert qualified tenth but dropped out on lap 40 of the 69-lap race with a burnt piston.

On June 3, 1979 at Mosport Park, Holbert qualified third but finished the race fifth, three laps behind winner Jacky Ickx in the Carl Haas entry.  A week later at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, Holbert qualified fourth with the HR-001, but again was victimized by fuel system problems and dropped out on lap 11.

Next up was the Watkins Glen Can-Am race which was held the same weekend of the Watkins Glen Six-hour race for sports cars. Holbert qualified sixth for the Can-Am race but dropped after contact with another car broke the front suspension. Later in July, Holder finished third at the long Road America road course on the same lap as winner Jacky Ickx and won $8,600.  

Before the next Can-Am race, Holbert was involved in a dramatic NASCAR crash at Pocono and his Monte Carlo burned and was destroyed. On August 19 Holbert qualified fifth at Brainerd International Raceway Can-Am race, but the clutch failed on lap 29.  

Before the next race, the original Hogan HR-001 body was replaced, and the team debuted the new car sans the enclosed rear wheels over Labor Day weekend at the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières in Canada, the Hogan HR-001 broke on lap 37 of the 42-lap race after Holbert qualified seventh. That was the final race for Holbert with the Hogan HR-001, and after he left the team he was replaced by Australian racer Geoff Brabham for the final two West Coast rounds in October.

At Laguna Seca Raceway Brabham qualified fourth, 1.2 seconds behind pole-sitter Keke Rosberg, but once again the engine failed during the race on lap 16 At the season finale at Riverside International Raceway, Brabham qualified eighth, the car’s worst time trial result of the season, but in the race Geoff and the Busch-sponsored Hogan finished in fourth place on the same lap as the winner Jacky Ickx who posted his fifth win of the 1979 season and claimed the championship for Carl Haas Racing. 

In interviews regarding his racing career, Brabham has credited the Hogan ride as his big break in racing which lead to subsequent contract with the VDS Racing team  which led Geoff to an IndyCar ride.   

Holbert was disappointed in the performance of the Hogan HR-001 the first true “ground effects” Can-Am car which developed high levels of downforce that helped in the corners but hampered the car’s overall straight-line speed. Certainly some of the disappointment stemmed from the reliability problems with the fuel system which dogged the team 

Holbert started his own team for the 1980 Can-Am season, with the CAC-1 designed by Hogan designer Lee Dykstra and scored two wins and finished second in the 1980 season points.

The restored Hogan HR-001 shown in its second body configuration is today owned by Steve Ruiz, was shown over the winter of 2018 at the Automotive Driving Museum as a fund raiser for the Racing History Project. Check out the project’s website at  http://www.racinghistoryproject.com/index.html

All photos by the author 

   

The Marmon Wasp

The 1910 Marmon Wasp, the car that won the very first International 500-mile Sweepstakes is typically displayed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) Hall of Fame and Museum on a raised platform.  However, during the author's May 2019 visit to the Museum, visitors had a treat as they were allowed up close access to the historic machine.

For the 1911 ‘500,’ there were no time trial runs to set the order of the starting field, rather the starting order and the car numbers were set in the order in which the entries were received.  For example, the pole-position starter, Lewis Strang, drove in the #1 Case, while the Wasp the 32^nd entry received race number 32.   

To qualify for the 40-car field, a car had to run a minimum required speed of 75 miles per hour (MPH) from a rolling start on a 1/4-mile section of the main straightaway. Those qualifying runs were conducted on May 27 and 28, and three cars entered before the Marmon, which included a pair of F-A-L-cars (Fauntleroy, Averill and Lowe from Chicago) and a McFarlan (from Connersville) driven by Fred “Skinny” Clemons were too slow, and the 29^th entry, a Lozier was destroyed in a practice crash, so the Wasp, the 32^nd entry started the race in 28^th position.   

The Wasp was entered by the Indianapolis-based Marmon Motor Car Company factory (a division of Nordyke & Marmon), with Ray Harroun, a Marmon engineer at the wheel. Harroun, "the King of the Speedways," the defending AAA (American Automobile Association) national champion behind the wheel of the Wasp, who had won seven previous races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, had retired from race driving after the 1910 season, but came out of retirement to drive the Wasp in the first 500-mile race.

Compared to its contemporaries, the Marmon Wasp was lightweight, estimated to weigh 2,800 pounds, compared to the minimum weight of 2,200 pounds, and was narrow and streamlined compared to other entries, as it carried only the driver, the only car in the race to not utilize a riding mechanic.

1911 '500' starting field was arrayed in rows of five, with the Stoddard-Dayton Pace Car on the inside of the first row, which left the last starter, the Benz (with the smallest engine in the field at 444 cubic inches) driven by "Billy" Knipper alone in the ninth and final row.

Harroun received relief driving help from lap 71 to lap 102, and his relief driver Cyrus Patschke drove the Wasp up through the field, as Harroun took the race lead for the first time on lap 103 one lap after he resumed the driving duties.

From that point forward, the race lead traded back and forth between Harroun and Ralph Mulford in the Lozier who had started 33rd. Harroun took the lead for good on lap 182 and won by one minute and 43 seconds over Mulford. 

Harroun led three times for a total of 88 laps in a race that took over 6-1/2 hours to complete. By comparison, 2019 '500' winner Simon Pagenaud completed the same distance in less than three hours.  Harroun who promptly retired again in victory lane, won $10,000 from IMS and earned an additional $4,250 in accessory prizes in addition to the race purse.

The Wasp rode on Firestone tires on Dorain de-mountable rims, while the spark for the inline engine was provided by a Remy magneto from Anderson Indiana that fired Bosch spark plugs that ignited the fuel/air mixture fed through a single Schebler carburetor, with lubrication by Monogram oil produced by the New York Lubricating Oil Company. 

Contemporary legend, primarily fueled by Charles Leerhsen's book Blood and Smoke, is that the finish of the first '500' was mired in controversy, but IMS historian Donald Davidson states unequivocally that IMS records indicate that there were no protests filed.

Second place finisher Mulford stated in a June 4 wire story datelined Detroit that he was "more than satisfied with the outcome of the race and gives full credit to Ray Harroun and Cyrus Patschke for their great victory."

Mulford, who drove the race without relief, stated that his actual running time for the 500 miles in the Lozier was fourteen minutes less than the Marmon's, but that due to the weight of his Lozier (reported as 3,240 pounds) he suffered repeated tire failures and stopped eleven times to Harroun's four stops.

Mulford went on the state that he did not believe that any one of the 40 cars entered could have beaten this combination, as the Marmon "was built for this kind of work." Mulford admitted that if a similar race were run again, the result would be the same.

Ray Harroun spent the rest of his life working in the automotive industry. He later started his own eponymous albeit short-lived car company, patented many inventions and even attempted to develop a midget auto racing engine. He died at age 89 on his farm near Anderson Indiana in 1968. 

Cyrus Patschke is sadly a forgotten man, seldom mentioned as the co-winner of the first Indianapolis 500-mile. He also drove relief in the 1911 '500' for the second Marmon entry driven by Joe Dawson.

Cyrus drove in three more races for Marmon in 1911, retired from racing, and briefly returned for a single race in Sioux City Iowa in 1914, after which his wife prevailed upon him to retire from racing permanently. Patschke returned to his hometown of Lebanon Pennsylvania and ran a service station until he died in his hometown in 1951 of heart attack at age 63.

As for the Marmon Wasp, it remained in the hands of the Marmon family and made occasional public appearances until it was sold to Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Anton “Tony” Hulman during the nineteen fifties and has been a centerpiece in the IMS Museum since the original museum opened in 1956.

1963 Indianapolis '500' winner Parnelli Jones had the honor of driving the Wasp in parade laps prior to the 100th anniversary running of the '500' in 2011. A connecting rod broke and severely damaged the six-cylinder 447-cubic inch engine block which was later repaired.