The Carpinteria Thunderbowl Part five - the first half of the 1949 season

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl

Part five - the first half  of the 1949 season

Author’s note – This 12-part article highlights the brief 12-year history of one of Southern California’s least-documented auto racing venues – the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl began its third season of operation on Friday evening May 6th, 1949 as it hosted the ‘Ken Baker Circus of Thrills’ auto thrill show. The show starred the ‘Streamline Death-Defying Hell Drivers’ with precision driving by Dave Arnold and Earl McComb, the “ice crash” in which Bob “Jumpin’ Jack” Niles crashed a sedan into  20-ton wall of ice, rollover crashes by “Reckless” Dick Getty, a head-on crash by Getty and McComb, and closed with a fireworks finale.

Carpinteria was the inaugural show for Ken and Dottie Baker’s troupe, based in North Hollywood that used the advertising phrase “Smoke and Flame - we earn the name.” Later Baker tour stops included Lakeland Park Ranch & Stadium (also known as El Monte Speedway) in El Monte, Balboa Stadium in San Diego, San Fernando’s Valley Fiesta and Contra Costa Stadium in Walnut Creek.  

The Saturday May 14^th edition of the Ventura County Star Free Press featured an article that revealed that the Carpinteria Thunderbowl 1949 midget auto racing season would start on Monday evening May 16th.  The article revealed that “the track will be under the management of Bradley and Wanda McLure,” a couple that lived at 155 East Vince Street in Ventura. 

The article stated that Mr. McClure, who had 20 years’ experience as a superintendent at the Saticoy Rock Company in Ventura County, would “handle the track arrangements, while Mrs. McClure will attend to the concession stand.”

On Monday May 16 the Ventura County Star Free Press featured a Carpinteria Thunderbowl advertisement on page eight but on page nine, an article headlined “Rain Threat cancels Carpinteria Races,” noted that the Thunderbowl had scheduled a program “which featured an All-star card of top-notch drivers was lined up” until “Mrs. Bradley McLure cancelled due a threat of rain this morning and deferred until a week from tonight.”  

On May 20 the Ventura County newspaper carried a follow-up article in which Bradley McLure announced the cancellation of the races scheduled for May 23 and May 30 due to unfavorable weather conditions with the 1949 grand opening of the Thunderbowl postponed to June 6.

 The United Racing Association (URA) “Blue Circuit” drivers scheduled to headline the opening Carpinteria racing program included Danny Oakes, Johnny Garrett, Walt Faulkner, Dominic “Pee Wee” Distarce, “King Karl” Young and Rodger Ward. For the 1949 season, two drivers who jumped from the URA to the American Automobile Association (AAA) during the late summer of 1948, Norm Holtkamp and Cal Niday, returned to the URA fold along with their respective car owners, Roscoe Hogan and Arnold Krause.

On June 6^th, Faulkner defeated Ward in the Trophy Dash, with heat races wins to Garrett, Eddie Anderson, Jimmy Bryan and Bob Kelsey. Bryan beat Distarce to the checkered flag in the 15-lap semi-main which featured a crash that involved Bob Shimp and Al Sherman that required a red flag stoppage. Heath won the feature over Billy Cantrell in a comparatively slow time of 8 minutes and 18 seconds for the thirty laps.

The following week, June 13^th, Doug Groves set quick time in time trials at 11.95 seconds, but was edged out in the Trophy Dash by Billy Cantrell. ‘Skee’ Redican, Rodger Ward, Cliff Epp, and Bill Homeier recorded victories in their 6-lap heat races. Ward won the 15-lap semi-main event, then Bob Barker won the feature after both Jimmy Bryan and Cantrell spun themselves out of contention.   

Allen Heath won the June 20 URA “Blue Circuit” feature in the Lyle Greenman owned Offenhauser and Frank “Satan” Brewer won on June 27 in his own Ford V8-60 powered midget. In the meantime, the McLure family was negotiating to get out of their lease.

On July 1, a new promoter, Charlie Cake, signed the Carpinteria track lease with owner Jim Slaybaugh. In an appearance days later at the Ventura Police Boys’ Club, Cake announced his intention to also promote weekly motorcycle races at Carpinteria, which would begin with an exhibition during the scheduled July 4 URA “Blue Circuit” event.

The July 5^th race report in the Ventura County Star-Free Press noted that the 1/5-mile clay oval “appeared in better shape last night than since midget auto racing began two years ago.” The program started off with a bang when Walt Faulkner set a new track record in qualifying with a lap of 14.66 seconds. Faulkner whipped URA point leader Billy Cantrell in the trophy dash, then easily won his heat race. 

Howard Gardner, who flipped during the semi-main race on June 27^th, reversed his fortunes and snagged the semi-main win.  Faulkner, with chance for a “clean sweep” started the feature from seventh place, passed his teammate Len Faas for the lead on lap five, and romped to victory ahead of Faas, Chet Fink, Danny Oakes and Doug Groves.

A preview written before the first Thunderbowl weekly motorcycle race promised “at least 30 top-notch drivers from Ventura and Santa Barbara counties” that included Cal Cline, the operator of a local motorcycle shop, who took part in the July 4 exhibition. The scheduled motorcycle program included a four-lap trophy dash, eight lap heat races, a 15-lap semi and a 30-lap feature race. 

On July 7th brothers Glenn and Bob Mullaney of Santa Barbara “threaded their two-wheeled broncos through the pack to win first and second place” according to the July 8^th Ventura County Star-Free Press report, which noted that many in the average-sized crowd went away disappointed.

 

The article explained that “most of the blame…can be passed off to the track which was little more than a soft lumpy dirt road by the time three heat races were turned, and even worse when it came time for the consolation race and the main event.” Cal Cline, the local hero, flipped in the mushy dirt midway through the feature, but reportedly received "only friction burns on his hands and arms."

  

In the next URA midget program on Monday night July 11, Doug Groves of Van Nuys set quick time at 14.99 seconds then beat Bill Zaring in the Trophy Dash.  The evening’s heat race victories went to Bill LeRoy, Jim Bryan, Hal Minyard and Rodger Ward. The semi-main race win went to Bryan who set a new 15-lap record of 4 minutes and 64/100 seconds ahead of Kenny Morrison.

Just after Bill Cantrell took the checkered flag for the feature win, chaos erupted behind him. Hal Minyard hit the front stretch wall and his midget spun to stop, facing the approaching field. Doug Groves in third place, with nowhere to go, hit the Minyard car and his car flipped. Groves’ car came to rest upside down, with Doug who was unconscious, pinned inside for many minutes until he could be freed.  

Minyard miraculously escaped unhurt, but once Doug was removed from his midget, an ambulance rushed him to the Lying-In Osteopathic Hospital in Oxnard where the 33-year old driver was admitted with broken left leg and severe bruises on his chest.

The following week’s URA program on July 18^th was a benefit for Groves, with Doug brought to the track from the Oxnard hospital by Jay Ryan’s Ventura County ambulance service. Faulkner edged Garrett in the trophy dash, while Ward, Minyard, Cantrell and Bob Shimp scored heat races wins. Shimp led the semi-main until the Lea-Francis engine in his midget failed. which handed the win to Frank Brewer in his own Ford V8-60 powered car.

The 91-cubic inch Lea-Francis engine, purpose built in England for midget auto racing, featured dry-sump oiling, gear-driven double camshafts, four SU carburetors, with  a high compression ratio to run on alcohol.  Record-setting British driver Dudley Froy, Lea-Francis designer Ken Rose and chief engineer Albert Ludgate made trips to the United States in 1948 and 1949 to show and sell examples of the engine.

Besides Shimp, several US midget racers (including Woody Brown in Northern California) used the four-cylinder “LeaF” engine but it never became popular (less than a dozen were built), given that its 120 horsepower could not match the power of the Offenhauser four-cylinder engine and it sometimes put connecting rods through the side of the aluminum block.

  

The Ventura County Star-Free Press newspaper report called the July 18^th midget feature race “one of the most spectacular races ever at the Thunderbowl” as Cantrell, in the Casale Offenhauser, finished in seven minutes and 45.02 seconds, ahead of Bob Barker, who hounded Cantrell for all thirty laps, with Johnny Garrett the third place finisher.

The author is looking for any private vintage photographs of the Carpinteria Thunderbowl that readers may have. Please reach out to kevracerhistory@aol.com .  We can’t pay for use, we’re just looking to share images for those who never saw the track.     

The construction of Phoenix International Raceway

 

courtesy of PIR Inc.

 

Recently, the author browed the history section of the Phoenix International Raceway 50th anniversary media guide which was published in 2014. Some of the events and dates listed are approximately correct, such as the completion of the construction of the track in 1964, but the guide contains several incorrect statements.

Historic inaccuracies are not unusual with corporate owned entities and the purpose of this article and those to follow in the coming days is to accurately re-trace the early history of Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) including and through period during which car manufacturer Malcolm Bricklin owned the Phoenix track and renamed it “FasTrack International Raceway.” 

The creation of PIR

On the last day of July 1963, the local planning commission approved the plans submitted by Scottsdale developer Richard P “Dick” Hogue to build a road racing course and dragstrip. The 314-acre parcel southwest of Phoenix near the city of Avondale was laid out in a natural amphitheater adjacent to Estrella Mountain Park on the east and bounded on the north by the dry creek bed of the Salt River.  The planning commission then passed Hogue’s July 1 proposal onto the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors for final approval.

Hogue and his wife Nancy as well as his partner Templeton (Tony) Briggs Jr. all resided in the affluent Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale. Hogue, a housing and real estate developer, tackled the created of the new raceway following the completion of his 62-unit Holiday Apartments project at 511 East Culver Street in December 1962.  Both Hogue and his partner Briggs were accomplished amateur sports car racers who wanted to build a permanent road course in Phoenix as until then the area sports car races were held on abandoned airstrips or parking lots. 

Briggs had won the 1957 SCCA G production national championship behind the wheel of his own Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce. Hogue raced in Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) events beginning in 1957, as he progressed from a Volkswagen Karmen Ghia to an AC ‘Ace,’ and then in 1959 he drove several races in Cincinnatian John Quackenbush’s 4-cylinder Ferrari 500 Testa Rossa Spyder. After Quackenbush sold his Ferrari, Hogue bought and raced his own Porsche 718 RSK and Cooper Monaco, and in 1964 he owned a Ford-powered Lotus 23B formerly driven by Jimmy Clark. 

The reader might ask how these two men, Hogue and Briggs, managed to fund the nearly one million dollars needed for the land purchase and facility construction of Phoenix International Raceway. The answer was family money - Tony Briggs’ father was a Scottsdale real estate investor and owner of a Phoenix advertising agency while Nancy Hogue’s family owned of one of the nation’s premier corrugated box manufacturers, the Kieckhefer Container Company. Nancy had grown up in a huge home in Milwaukee which overlooked Bradford Beach on the west shore of Lake Michigan and her uncle William Kieckhefer was one of the wealthiest men in America, with an estimated net of worth between 75 and 100 million dollars.

The Maricopa County Board of Supervisors issued a Special Use Permit for PIR on August 26 1963 and by the date of the official groundbreaking on September 19 1963, construction was already well underway as described by the Arizona Republic’s sports editor Frank Gianelli. “It’s gratifying to walk in on a groundbreaking and find construction already underway. Generally at such occasions, there's the mockery of somebody leaning on a shovel, a flash of architect's renderings, and a great volume of promises,” wrote Gianelli, “No such conditions prevailed yesterday, though - when Phoenix International Raceway had starting ceremonies on the $500,000 speed site south of Avondale, great chugging earth movers have already have humped up the landscape and gouged out the route for the mile closed oval.” James V. Peterson, of Scottsdale with “paving experience that includes the Milwaukee championship mile oval,” was introduced as the man in charge of all track construction.   

The last years of racing at the Fairgrounds

 

 

The one-mile “dogleg” oval for which PIR became renowned was not included in Hogue’s original plans, but added at the suggestion of famed Southern California racing promoter and USAC Board member Joshua Clay “JC” Agajanian as USAC about to lose its Arizona venue.  The American Automobile Association (AAA) and it successor organization, the United States Auto Club (USAC) had staged championship car races on the one-mile dirt oval at the Arizona State Fairgrounds with various promoters for fourteen years, but the seven-member Arizona State Fair Commission had voted to end automobile racing on the one-mile dirt oval at the Fairgrounds after November 1963. 

 

 

 

The future of auto racing on the Fairgrounds one-mile dirt oval had been trouble for several years prior to 1963. Track conditions were bad during the 1961 Bobby Ball Memorial promoted by Mel Larson. The track began to break up early, as Ray Crawford’s car flipped in turn two during time trials and Ray was admitted to the hospital with back and chest injuries. On lap 41 of the 100-lap race Alvah ‘Al’ Keller’s in Bruce Homeyer’s yellow ‘Konstant Hot Special” which had set quick time in time trials hit a rut then flipped and rolled six times in the fourth turn.

After a single lap under the yellow flag, the race continued until lap 49 when the red flag was displayed; rescuers untangled the fourth turn chain link fence from the crushed car and removed Keller’s lifeless body for transport and he was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Joseph’s Hospital. The track was then re-worked with a scraper and water truck before the race restarted after an hour and half delay. On lap 88, Chuck Hulse flipped in turn four and the race ended with 89 laps completed due to darkness.

After the race, Rodger Ward told the Associated Press “this is the worst track I’ve ever run on and I’ve run on a lot of them. I hate to see poor officiating, it makes me angry. I think the race could be a good one if enough thought and preparation went into it.” USAC competition director Henry Banks was later quoted "I was on my way to the starting line to halt the show when the accident (Keller’s) occurred.”  For the next race, USAC attempted to ensure acceptable track conditions by dictating the promoter to the Fair Commission, and listed Agajanian as the only certified promoter for the Arizona mile, but that plan conflicted with the annual public bidding process for the track rental.

 

 

 

USAC racing on the Arizona Fairgrounds mile edged closer to oblivion after Elmer George’s “HOW Special’ went through a chain link fence and injured twenty-three spectators, two critically, standing in the “overflow section” in front of the grandstand during the 1962 Bobby Ball Memorial race. Fair Commission Executive Director Charles Garland was quoted at the time that “the fair commission makes very little money off auto racing; we kept providing one of two race strictly out of a sense of obligation to the 25,000 fans. But the future of the Bobby Ball race will be a topic of discussion in our December meeting.”  

Race promoter Mel Martin made the curious statement after the race to the United Press International (UPI) reporter that “had the crash wall been stronger it would have flipped the car over and over into the people,” which would have made for a higher injury toll. 

Two days after the 1962 race the Arizona Republic newspaper published an editorial entitled “Enough is enough” that called for the abandonment of the auto racing on the Fairgrounds mile. The Fair Commission later faced $1.2 million in damage suits filed by spectators who alleged that they were injured due to negligence.

 

Since the race took place before the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that the fair commission was not immune from liability, the commission had only required liability insurance coverage of $300,000 from race promoter Mel Martin. The situation became worse for the Commission after Martin’s insurance carrier stated that it had notified promoter Martin in advance of the race that its coverage would not extend to standing spectators outside the grandstand, a claim Martin disputed.

The fight over racing at the Fairgrounds

The approval of the PIR use permit was not without some controversy as while the PIR plans were being considered during July, the South Phoenix Racing Incorporated a company operated by promoter Mel Martin and a partner Tom Breen, offered a proposal to the Arizona State Fair Commission to pave the one-mile Fairgrounds track in exchange for the right to promote four automobile races at the track annually for a seven year period.

However, Phoenix Planning and Zoning Commission Chairman Allyn Watkins recommended that the commission reject the South Phoenix Racing proposal, and cited neighborhood objections to racing at the track. Martin then charged that the planning commission had acted "politically on behalf of private interests. I can't think of any reason for their action," Martin said, "other than it was promoted by backers of the Phoenix Raceway."

Watkins, also a neighbor of the fairgrounds, said Martin's plan seemed "economically unfeasible" to the zoning commission.  The same day that the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors granted their approval for the construction of PIR to proceed, Martin’s unsolicited offer to pave the fairgrounds track was unanimously rejected by the seven Fair Commission members.  

However, despite the ongoing construction of PIR, the future of auto racing on the one-mile Arizona State Fairgrounds was not dead as in January 1964 fair commissioners reconsidered Mel Martin’s revised proposal. Martin’s new proposal called for a 10-year exclusive lease on the fairground track in return for Martin's investment of $56,000 in track paving new guard railings and fencing the dirt oval. Martin's investment was to be written off the company's books at a rate of $8,000 a year over seven years.  If the commission broke Martin's lease before the end of the seven years, Martin’s proposal called for the fair commission to reimburse him for any portion of his investment not yet written off.  

Under his revised proposal Martin would stage at least four USAC-sanctioned races a year and he offered to pay the Fair Commission either a flat annual track rental of $16,500 or series of guarantees against receipts: $4,000 guaranteed against 12.5 per cent of ticket receipts, 12 per cent of parking fees and 15 per cent of program sales. 

Martin’s proposal was curious as USAC had stated in 1963 that JC Agajanian was the only promoter to whom USAC would issue sanctions for racing on the Arizona State Fairgrounds oval.  The Commission expressed doubts over Martin’s financial ability of Martin's firm to meet the rentals and guarantees and required $2 million of “advance” insurance coverage. Later, the Arizona State Attorney General held that the Fair Commission could not enter long-term contracts binding on future commission members.

In its early April 1964 meeting, the Fair Commission voted to raze the 59-year old race track and replace it with a new game and fish building, a new Indian exhibit hall, a stage for the annual state fair and a $5.5 million 15,000 seat coliseum which had been planned since 1962.  Executive Director Garland and other Fair officials said that the construction of Phoenix International Raceway had rendered the fairground facility obsolete.

 

 

The only remnant of the old mile track is the grandstand. Author photo

Even with the loss of the old track, Mel Martin and Tom Breen were not done with auto racing at the Arizona State Fairgrounds as in 1966 the pair promoted the closed circuit telecast of the Indianapolis 500-mile race at the new Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum. The race broadcast was shown on two 20-by-26 feet screens with carbon-arc projectors placed on the arena floor.

Clarence Cagle’s role in PIR

When Agajanian approached Hogue about adding an oval track to his new racing venue, Hogue agreed, as long as “Aggie” provided someone to design and oversee the oval construction. Agajanian enlisted the help of Clarence Cagle who had served as the track superintendent at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since 1948.

 

Clarence Cagle's 1957 Passport photograph

courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

 in the IUPUI University Library Enter for Digital Studies

 

A native of Terre Haute Indiana, Cagle worked on the Hulman family farm, Lingen Lodge, as a teenager in the nineteen thirties, and then went to work in various roles in Hulman family businesses after he graduated from high school. After he spent 33 months as a driver in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War 2, Cagle returned to work as a “trouble shooter” for the Clabber Girl Baking Powder Company. After Anton “Tony” Hulman Junior bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s from Eddie Rickenbacker, Hulman summoned Cagle to assist Jack Fortner, the pre-war superintendent of the track grounds to get the facility ready in time for the 1946 Indianapolis 500-mile race.

An ailing Fortner retired in 1948 and Cagle became the Speedway’s track superintendent and then in 1952 a vice-president with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Corporation, jobs he held until he retired in August 1977.   Cagle and his wife Gladys his former secretary whom he married in 1963 lived on the Speedway grounds in a small frame house, originally Carl Fisher's summer cabin with one room and a fireplace.  Cagle’s crowning achievement in his thirty-year career at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was the two-year construction of the “new” IMS Museum building completed in 1974.

A 1959 article in the Terre Haute Tribune related that since Hulman bought the IMS facility Cagle “has never seen a 500-Mile race, since he remains in his office behind the Grandstand ‘D’ throughout the running of the race in order to be available at all times to care for any emergencies or problems arising which may require his assistance.”

Cagle considered America’s  “go to” expert on race track construction and paving, initially could not fit the layout of a one-mile oval inside the Phoenix road course, but the addition of the characteristic “dog leg” off the oval’s second turn made it fit. Cagle remained involved with Phoenix International Raceway for many years, as he supervised the oval’s resurfacing in 1985 after the track’s deteriorated condition due to flooding forced the cancellation of the March “Dana Jimmy Bryan 150” race. Cagle again supervised the resurfacing of the PIR oval in August 1993. 

In our next installment, we’ll examine the history Phoenix International Raceway after it opened for racing.

The Dean Van Lines Kuzma roadster

During a visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum and Hall of Fame this past weekend,  the author was fortunate enough to photograph the 1955 Dean Van Lines Kuzma roadster. 

This car was built new for car owner Al Dean crew chief Clint Brawner and driver Jimmy Bryan for the 1955 Indianapolis 500-mile race. Bryan led the race twice for 31 laps before the fuel pump on the Offenhauser engine’s failed on lap 90.

During the 1956, ‘500,’ a tire blew around lap 100 and Jimmy spun into the south infield. Jimmy returned to the pits and he and crew returned to the car, put on a new tire and restarted the car to rejoin the race. Bryan and the Kuzam were still running at the finished 15 laps behind the winner pat Flaherty and finished 19th.

During the winter of 1956-7 Eddie Kuzma narrowed the chassis and built and new body for the car.  Bryan qualified the ‘Dean Van Lines Special’ for 15^th starting spot on the third day of time trials. During the 1957 ‘500.’ Bryan ran in the top 5 last half of the race and finished third but never challenged winner Sam Hanks. This is the livery and configuration the car has been restored to represent. 

For the 1958 ‘500’ a young rookie from Houston Texas named Foyt drove the Dean van Lines Kuzma but finished 16^th when he spun out in turn one on lap 148 after a radiator hose broke and dumped water under his tires.

During practice on May 23 1959, Earl Motter spun and backed the car into the south short chute wall and severely damaged the tail which ended its racing career.