The history of Phoenix International Raceway continues………..

1969

In their January 1969 meeting the United States Auto Club (USAC) Board of Directors voted to require race promoters increase the guaranteed minimum purse for races on one-mile tracks from $10,000 to $30,000. In response, Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) promoter JC Agajanian and track owner Nancy Hogue claimed that the proposed increase “would drive Indy racing out of Arizona” and canceled the scheduled ‘Jimmy Bryan 150’ race dates. Agajanian’s promotions in previous years PIR had paid out 40% of the spectator gate receipts, which meant the typical purses had totaled out closer to $20,000. 

After weeks of negotiations, it was announced at the end of February that the Jimmy Bryan 150 race date was re-set for March 30 with a guaranteed purse of $25,000. “When the USAC board agreed to come down from their original demand,” ‘Aggie’ told the Tucson Daily Citizen “Mrs. Hogue graciously agreed to underwrite the new schedule.”  It appears that part of Mrs. Hogue’s “underwriting” meant that Agajanian had to cancel his “Open Competition Supermodified and Caged Sprint Car Race” originally scheduled at PIR for March 2 and direct all his promotional efforts on the Jimmy Bryan race.   

A month before the Bobby Ball Memorial Race in November, Agajanian told the Arizona Republic that Nancy Hogue spent $100,000 (nearly $700,000 today) on renovations over the past two years on the Phoenix International Raceway oval track. Changes included moving the guardrail and crash wall in front of the main grandstand back ten feet and crews had widened the pit area. According to ‘Aggie,’ the track had spent $30,000 on new paint alone, built new bleachers and crash walls, resurfaced parts of the track, and built larger concession stands and restrooms. 

Charlie Alexander

Courtesy PIR

 

The history timeline in the 2014 Phoenix International Raceway 50th anniversary media guide states that in 1969 “Track owners Dick & Nancy Hogue sell PIR to Phoenix hotel magnate C.A. Alexander.” The author’s research found that Nancy Hogue did NOT sell PIR to Charles Max “Charlie” Alexander. Charles Max Alexander started his career in furniture and television sales then became a custom home builder developer before he and partner Wayne L. Romney built the landmark Kon Tiki Hotel in Phoenix in 1961. 

 

 

A vintage postcard from the author's collection

 

Built on Phoenix’s “Hotel Strip” on East Van Buren Street, the exotic Kon Tiki, designed by noted Phoenix architect James Salter, featured a torch-lit Polynesian bar, giant tiki masks, ‘goggie’ architecture and guest rooms with waterbeds. With the advertising slogan “a Little Bit of Waikiki in the Heart of Phoenix,” the Kon Tiki became isolated when the freeway system was built, closed in 1993 and was demolished in 1997.

Alexander signed a three-year lease for PIR which ran through 1973, and articles in the Arizona Republic from 1970 through the end of the 1972 racing season refer to Charlie Alexander as the racing director or promoter. Under Alexander’s leadership, PIR moved the “Copper State 200” USAC stock car race from the road course the one-mile oval for April 1970, but the USAC stock cars never returned to PIR, despite a crowd of over 10,000 fans and 34 cars that vied for a 24-car starting field.  Alexander’s single greatest promotion appears to have been the 1971 Bobby Ball Memorial when television star Peter Graves of “Mission Impossible” was the special guest and race fans mobbed Graves for an autograph.

The PIR racing surface was reportedly deteriorating during 1971 which exacerbated the track’s long-standing traction problems created by blowing sand. For 1972 Alexander had “a treated tire surface” applied that created problems for team during winter tire testing. Bobby Unser told the Arizona Republic that “we tested too soon after the track had been treated and the car’s side-mounted radiators started gumming up.” That problem was rectified through the use of a different tire compound, and in March Unser described the track as “solidified” though lap speeds were slower. 

On September 16 1972 PIR hosted an odd event organized by 30 year old Phoenix area home builder and developer Frank Braggiotti in support of former Beatle John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The singer and his wife were then involved with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in deportation fight over Lennon’s marijuana conviction in 1968. Braggiotti claimed he “became a born again Democrat the day the Republican administration decided to deport John Lennon and Yoko Ono."

Braggiotti spent over $15,000 to rent the track and he expected 2000 to 5000 people but less than 300 people showed up.  The crowd listened to marijuana decriminalization speakers John Sinclair and Lee Otis Johnson before John and Yoko called from New York City but the small crowd could not hear the pair because the organizers could not get the telephone call to play on the track’s public address system.

Nancy Hogue actually did sell PIR

The Phoenix International Raceway (PIR) 50th anniversary press guide identifies 1975 as the year that “Bricklin Cars purchases PIR changes name to FasTrack international but the parent company goes bankrupt within the year Nancy Hogue regains control.” Once gain the PIR press guide is wrong, as Bricklin’s purchase of PIR occurred three years earlier, in 1972.

On Wednesday morning December 6 1972, readers of the Arizona Republic newspaper read that Nancy Hogue, “described as the sole owner of PIR” had sold the track to Paul O’Shea of Newport Beach California for an undisclosed price. O’ Shea was identified as the owner of California Automotive Research in San Bernardino, a company which “deals in car and accessory testing.” The article stated that Charlie Alexander would “continue to present the two Indianapolis-type races in 1973 as in the past” in addition to O’Shea’s plans to use the track for automotive testing.  

Paul O'Shea was a former Sports Car Club of American (SCCA) race car driver who had started his racing career in 1949 driving an 331 cubic inch V8 Cadillac powered Allard J2X. O’Shea had a tremendous run of success from 1955 in 1956 behind the wheel of a Mercedes Benz 300SL “Gullwing,’ as he won twelve national races and the SCCA D/Production national title both years. In 1957 O’Shea won four national races and repeated as the SCCA D/Production champion behind the wheel of a Mercedes Benz 300SLS roadster. In 1972, O’Shea was described as an “automotive research consultant and professional auto safety witness.”

 

 

O'Shea's patent drawing

click to enlarge

 

In 1971 O’Shea received United States patent number 3608210A for his invention, the “O’Shea Traffic Hazard Simulator,” described as a system for testing the driving ability of an automobile driver.  At a given distance, the tested driver approached in the car and after the car passed over a cable, red, yellow and green lights displayed which if any of three lanes was open. The driver of the car would then make a decision as to which lane is open, within the time period determined by his speed and the given distance. The author could find no record that O’Shea’s device ever found any commercial uses.

Just over a week after the PIR sale was announced it was revealed that O’Shea was NOT the new owner of Phoenix International Raceway that O’Shea had “helped finalize the purchase” and the actual purchaser was revealed to be General Vehicle Inc.  The December 14 1972 article also revealed that 1950 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner Johnnie Parsons, and employee of O’Shea’s California Automotive Research would be the track’s new racing director. 

General Vehicle Inc. was an umbrella holding company for several companies controlled by entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin, who during 1971 had decided to build and sell his own “Safety Car” to the public. General Vehicle Inc. would eventually grow to include four divisions: Bricklin Vehicles Inc. to market the cars, Bricklin Canada to build the cars, Bricklin Northeast to operate dealerships, and FasTrack, the murkiest of all the Bricklin businesses.

Who was Malcolm Bricklin?

It is difficult to separate facts from the legend regarding the famous (or infamous) Malcolm Bricklin. Born in Philadelphia in 1939 he was working in his father’s building supply business in 1958 when he started selling a system of franchise hardware stores known as “Handyman America”. For $15,000 a franchisee bought the rights to use the name in single store or for $250,000 could obtain “territorial rights.” 

Legend has that Bricklin sold the nationwide Handyman America Company in 1960 and became a millionaire before the age of 25, but the book The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History by Jason Vuic claimed that actually Bricklin’s Handyman America Company went bankrupt in 1965 after several lawsuits.  Bricklin then became a “business consultant” and sold Italian “Cine Box” jukeboxes and Lambretta scooters until 1967 when he negotiated a deal with Fuji Industries to import and sell their scooters in the United States. His ‘Rabbit’ scooter success led to talks with Fuji for the US importation of their small light car known as the Subaru 360.

The Subaru 360 was so lightweight (under 1000 pounds) that it was exempt from US federal automotive safety standards.  Subaru awarded Bricklin and his partner Harvey Lamm a four-year exclusive contract to import the 360 at $650 apiece with a guarantee that the pair would take 2000 cars the first year, a number which was to increase by 1000 cars more each additional year of the contract. The pair formed Subaru of America in February 1968 with a total investment of $75,000 and set out to sell not cars themselves but dealerships for the car that Car & Driver magazine called one of the ugliest cars in history.

According to Jason Vuic’s book a Subaru dealership cost $1000 with each car delivered to the dealers’ lot for $950 each that sold for $1357 retail.  After they sold 80 dealerships, Bricklin and Lamm sold shares in Subaru of America on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange which raised one million dollars.  The combination of money pouring in from franchise fees, stock sales, and bank loans enabled the pair to live the good life – huge new corporate headquarters in New Jersey, private jet, yachts and luxury apartments.

 

In April 1969, Consumer Reports tested the Subaru 360 and found among that it took 37 seconds for the 360 to reach 50 MPH and that the car could not reach 60 MPH.  Bricklin claimed that it could travel over 60 miles on a gallon of gasoline but the Consumer Reports observed fuel economy was 25 to 35 miles per gallon of gasoline which had to be mixed with two-cycle oil like an outboard boat motor.

With rear-hinged “suicide doors” with weak latches, “scarier” emergency handling, “disorienting” brakes, a “board-like” front seat that slid forward under heavy braking, and an inside mirror that vibrated so much at 50 MPH that it was useless, Consumer Reports rated the Subaru 360 “not acceptable.” The article sounded the death knell for the 360; by early 1970, Bricklin’s company had 2000 Subaru 360’s rusting away in stock and was millions of dollars in debt. Malcolm Bricklin came up with a new franchise idea – ‘FasTrack’ to save the day.    

The concept of ‘FasTrack’ was a pay-by-the-lap go-kart type racing experience which killed two birds with one stone; new franchise would get Bricklin out of debt and also get rid of the leftover Subaru 360’s. To replace the rusted sheet metal Bricklin enlisted Bruce Meyers, creator of the first Volkswagen dune buggy the Meyer Manx, to build “race car type” fiberglass bodies for the leftover 360 chassis. 

For $25,000 a ‘FasTrack’ franchisee got 10 cars, 20 uniforms and helmets, lighting, fencing, and signs. The first ‘FasTrack’ was built outside the Subaru of America headquarters, and the franchise sales literature told investors that by charging $1 per lap, they could make $135,000 annually operating their ‘FasTrack’ just 27 hours each week.

The corporate entity of “FasTrack International Inc.” was formed in Pennsylvania on December 6 1971 and the following day Bricklin formed “FasTrack LeisureLand Inc.” The goal of  ‘FasTrack LeisureLand’ was to create a series of franchised resort vacation destinations where visitors could stay and race ‘FasTrack’ cars.  According to author Jason Vuic, a Florida man named Leon Stern traded a large Pocono mountains resort property to Bricklin in exchange for $1.25 million in ‘FasTrack’ stock and $1000 a week salary as Stern would line up new resorts and investors. Bricklin then borrowed heavily against the Pocono property to invest in new ventures and around the same time sold Subaru of America in a deal which included a three-year $120,000 a year consulting contract for Bricklin. 

Malcolm Bricklin then started on his next venture; General Vehicle Inc. to build his “safety car.” The Bricklin concept car built by Bruce Meyers had a colored acrylic over fiberglass body powered by a Valiant “slant six” engine and was completed in the later months of 1972.  Bricklin had no money to manufacture the car, so he set out to find the financing from various Canadian governments to build the car, while at the same time General Vehicle Inc. bought Phoenix International Raceway in a heavily leverage deal. Nancy Hogue held the first mortgage of $250,000 on the track property and First Pennsylvania Bank held the $500,000 second mortgage.

The turbulent early days of Bricklin’s track ownership 

Early in January 1973 the Arizona Republic published the rumor that Malcolm Bricklin was one of the three persons interested in buying the mansion and grounds of the estate of the late Pittsburgh oil man Samuel Walker McCune Junior. McCune built the home for his new wife, Carol, who left him during construction then he died in April 1971 never having lived in the uncompleted 52,000 square foot mansion located on hilltop six acres in Paradise Valley. The three-story home, one of the ten largest homes in the United States, which featured 14 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms, a movie theatre, an indoor ice rink, and a 14-car garage  eventually was sold at an auction to satisfy IRS liens to Arizona fitness magnate Gordon Hall.

 

At a January 23 1973 press conference, Anthony “Tony” Kopp the track president announced Phoenix International Raceway had been renamed “FasTrack international Raceway,” and that the USAC championship race scheduled for March 17 would become a two-day program, with time trials held on Saturday March 16 and the 150-mile race which no longer carried the Jimmy Bryan name would be held Sunday March 17 1973.

Kopp also announced new construction of an extension of the pit entrance and exit, a new pit wall, the addition of 2000 more seats to bring the total to 12,000, and the renovation of restroom and concession areas.  After previously published reports to the contrary, the track cancelled JC Agajanian’s scheduled $50,000 purse 50-lap “Open Competition Supermodified and Caged Sprint Car Race” scheduled for the weekend of February 16 and 17 1973, so the track could be prepared for the scheduled March USAC date.  

On March 12, 1973 during a private practice session, Robert Dale “Bob” Criss a USAC sprint car driver from Newport Beach California died after he crashed. The 1970/71 Eagle chassis he drove was the same car with which David ‘Swede’ Savage won the Phoenix 1970 Bobby Ball 150. After All American Racers Inc. sold the car to Mary and Tom Page’s Page Racing Enterprises, Mike Hiss drove the car with a turbocharged Offenhauser engine in eight 1972 USAC races, including his seventh place finish in the 1972 Indianapolis 500-mile race which earned him the Stark Wetzel Rookie of the year honors. 

Criss, 34, who had driven a Brabham BT23 in three rounds of the 1972 SCCA Formula B championship, completed less than 10 laps when he spun and the car crashed into the inside wall at the exit of turn four with tremendous impact. The Eagle split in half and caught fire, but there were no fire trucks or an ambulance on site as the Pages rented the facility. Driver Billy Shuman and his crew were also at the track to test and helped put out the flames as the Phoenix Fire Department and an ambulance was called. Criss was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital from his internal injuries. USAC spokesman Donald Davidson was quoted in the Anderson Herald newspaper that “Criss was not a registered USAC driver and I don’t think he had made an application for a license yet.” Criss was laid to rest in his hometown of Terre Haute Indiana.

The March 17 1973 ‘Phoenix 150’ was never held. Shortly after Criss’ death the Phoenix area received heavy rains which caused the Salt River to flood and cut access to the track. The date was rescheduled twice but the flooding continued and then on March 31 Tony Kopp canceled the event, as the USAC championship schedule with two April races left no open dates. Kopp told the Arizona Republic that the $50,000 in advance sales, the largest in the track’s history would be refunded or could be applied to other tickets. Kopp added that he was working for two November USAC race dates.

In our final installment on the early history of Phoenix International Raceway we will see Malcolm Bricklin lose it all- including FasTrack International Raceway. 

Early racing at Phoenix International Raceway

PIR opens for racing

At the September 1963 groundbreaking ceremony, developer Richard Hogue pledged to the Arizona Republic newspaper that “we'll be racing by late November or early December." Hogue planned to have “everything complete” when the track opened which besides the oval, the 10-turn 2.75-mile long road course and the dragstrip included the main grandstand with seating for 8,000, a hillside grandstand seating for another 2,000 above “one closed track curve,” a hilltop restaurant, a grandstand observation area over the drag strip and road course, an asphalt parking area for 5000 cars, and a four-lane access road from 115th Avenue.

The "old" PIR original layout with the road course and dragstrip

The first sports car races were initially scheduled for December 14 and 15, 1963 but unspecified construction delays during November forced the first races to be rescheduled to early January.  Despite the construction delays on December 21, PIR announced that the first “100-mile race for Indianapolis type cars” was scheduled for March 22 1964.

The PIR road course opened on January 5 1964 for a Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) regional sports car race won by Wichita oil man and former American Automobile Association (AAA) championship division car owner Jack Hinkle in his Cooper Monaco. This was followed by five SCCA divisional races on February 16, and then PIR hosted back-to-back SCCA regional and national races over the weekend of April 18 and 19.

The 1964 SCCA national PIR race program cover

note the billing as "The Indianapolis of the West" 

The SCCA national event featured a number of well-known road racers on the entry list: Chuck Parsons, Ronald ‘Skip’ Hudson, Dave MacDonald, Jerry Titus, George Follmer, Dick Guldstrand, Rick Muther, and Bobby Unser who drove Dick Hogue’s Lotus 23B Ford. The featured 60-lap 250 kilometer race on Sunday was won by Dave MacDonald in the Shelby-American “King Cobra” over Skip Hudson in the Nickey Chevrolet Cooper Monaco.   

After a New Year’s Day open test, the first drag race at the PIR complex was held on Sunday afternoon, January 12, 1964. Drag races on the unlighted 70-foot wide strip were held infrequently as the PIR strip fought with the better known and established Bee Line Dragway which opened in Mesa in early 1963. The PIR drag strip suffered a severe blow less than three months after it opened when on March 1 1964, Robert Snyders III, driver and co-owner with Larry Reimer of the “Snyders-Reimer Special” dragster died in a crash.

At the end of his final 187 mile-per-hour (MPH) pass, the parachute failed to deploy and Snyders’ car struck the retaining wall where the shutdown area blended into the oval at an estimated speed of 130 MPH.  After it hit the wall, the “Snyders-Reimer Special” flipped over several times and came to a stop upside down.  Snyders, a 27 year old father of two daughters from Chicago was taken from the wreckage and transported to St. Joseph's Hospital nearly 45 minutes away where he was pronounced dead on arrival. 

Harry Redkey takes over PIR

With the PIR drag strip and road course open in January 1964, the oval became active soon after and hosted its first USAC championship car race, the “Phoenix 100” held on Sunday March 22 1964, which was won by AJ Foyt who led every lap in Bill Anstead and Shirley Thompson’s Watson roadster. Tony Briggs, the first Phoenix International Raceway General Manager, had a short reign in July 1964, Dick and Nancy Hogue announced they had hired the track promotion and management team of Tucson’s Bob Huff and the legendary Harry Redkey. 

Redkey, the son of a municipal court judge in Muncie Indiana had been involved in the racing business for nearly thirty years, as a mechanic, driver, owner, and promoter primarily with stock cars. Redkey’s first race promotion dated back to 1950 at the high-banked Cincinnati Race Bowl and then in 1951, Harry and his partner Charles E. Schaff had established the touring Championship Stock Car Racing Club (CSCRC), which became the Society for Autosport, Fellowship and Education (SAFE) “All-Star Circuit of Champions.” In addition to running SAFE, Redkey also leased the 16th Street Speedway across from the gates of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1954 and promoted stock car racing on the ¼ -mile paved oval.

During 1955, SAFE ran a 32-race all-convertible schedule of races across the United States, under director of racing Bill Holland the 1949 Indianapolis 500-mile race who had retired from race driving the year before.  In late December 1955, Redkey and Schaff formally merged the SAFE organization with the National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR), and SAFE became the NASCAR Convertible Division. Redkey served as a NASCAR Vice-President for some time, but moved on to Las Vegas and tried unsuccessfully to promote a series of USAC races at the Las Vegas Park thoroughbred track.

In August 1959 Redkey with partners Chuck Hud and RD Mole announced a pair of 250-mile races to be held on successive Saturdays, November 21 and 28, with the first race for stock cars and the next weekend a 250-miler for championship cars.  AAA had staged a promotional disaster championship car race the ‘Silver State Century’ at the same Las Vegas Park thoroughbred track in 1954.  On October 20 Competition Director Henry Banks announced USAC had granted a sanction for a 250-mile championship race on Saturday November 28. Somewhere all the way, plans changed and USAC and the ARCA co-sanctioned a 250-mile stock car race at Las Vegas Park on November 29 which was called due to darkness with 147 laps completed with Hoosier Fred Lorenzen in the lead.

In 1961, Harry Redkey and partner Nick Roberts signed a five-year lease for Manzanita Park Speedway located at the corner of Broadway and 35th Avenue in Southwest Phoenix. Originally started as a dog track, disgruntled racers from South Mountain Speedway started auto racing there and eventually added a ½-mile track to augment the original ¼-mile track. The track sat idle through the early part of the 1961 season, but Redkey reopened it and promised a guaranteed $1000 purse or 40% of the spectator gate receipts versus the original $400 purse. Redkey’s promotional skills saved Manzanita Speedway and eventually South Mountain Speedway closed.     

Redkey attempted to schedule a pair of weekend USAC midget races at Tucson Speedway and Manzanita in early April 1963, but both races were canceled just a few days prior when Redkey was unable to obtain satisfactory insurance to meet USAC standards. It appears from news reports that at least one of the races were rescheduled for October 1963 as Billy Cantrell won the 40-lapper on the half-mile at Manzanita Speedway over Mel Kenyon.

In turning over the operation of Phoenix International Raceway to Redkey, Dick Hogue was quoted in the July 9 1964 issue of the Arizona Republic that “he wanted to be free to concentrate on other business interests.” Redkey and Huff, the promoter of Tucson Dragway promised “major improvements” for the PIR facility which included building a roof over the grandstand, and the addition of 2000 box seats which would bring the main grandstand to a total capacity of 10,000 fans. This grandstand remained unchanged until lightning sparked a fire in 1987 and burned the structure to the ground.

Redkey and Huff’s first PIR promotion, the USAC championship 200-mile Bobby Ball Memorial in November 1964 drew an estimated 16,000 to 17,000 fans, a huge success that created an hours-long traffic post-race nightmare for fans, a problem that PIR suffered with for many years. 

Redkey and PIR drag racing

After lights were added in May 1965, the Phoenix International Raceway drag strip began to host a regular program of weekly Sunday night drag races. When he announced the purchase of the lights in April, Harry Redkey claimed that he was negotiating with both the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and the American Hot Rod Association (AHRA) but he had made no choice of a sanctioning body. When the weekly races began they were unsanctioned.

On the night of August 22 1965, a seventeen-year-old Tucson High School junior, Phil Miner, was killed when the “Valley Auto Parts” AA/fuel dragster he was driving left the pavement, touched the soft dirt shoulder, dug in, and cartwheeled to a stop.  Rescuers found young Miner still alive, strapped into the cockpit of the destroyed dragster and removed him, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Joseph's Hospital.

The Arizona Republic sports columnist Gerry Pierson asked the following day “what rules allowed a 17 year old to race a car capable of over 200 MPH?  The two top-ranked national sanctioning drag racing organizations, the NHRA and the AHRA have definite rules where the qualifications of competitors are concerned. PIR is unsanctioned by either group.” Pierson’s editorial also questioned whether the PIR drag strip was unsafe. “People will bring up the fact that Bee Line Dragway has successfully staged over 105 meets and has yet to have a fatality while PIR has had two drag strip deaths in seven meets.”

Sports columnist Bob Crawford writing in the Tucson Daily Citizen a few days later responded to Pierson’s editorial that “witnesses agree that anyone who places the blame on Phoenix International Raceway for Phil Miner’s death is wrong.” Crawford’s column quoted Miner’s mentor, Gary ‘Red’ Graeth “if a similar accident occurred in the Midwest, Miner could have taken a couple of dozen spectators with him. We’re lucky to have a strip as safe as PIR.”  Likely due to the publicity associated with the two tragedies, it appears that drag racing at PIR did not continue for long after the Miner tragedy, if at all.

Changes on the horizon as “Aggie” returns

Redkey continued to promote both PIR and Manzanita Speedway through 1965, and in late November 1965 that Redkey was elected to a three-year term to replace Bill Lipkey as the promoter’s representative on the USAC Board of Directors. In January 1966, former driver and wholesale auto dealer Keith Hall bought out the final year of Redkey’s lease on Manzanita Speedway and bought the track grounds from owners Rudy Everett and Larry Meskimen. While Redkey had saved Manzanita Speedway, Hall would take the track to greater heights. 

Beginning in 1965 Redkey landed a second annual PIR date on the USAC championship trail, the season opener and the season finale for the next three seasons. Redkey also managed to obtain FIA/ACCUS “full international” sanctioning status for the March 1966 Jimmy Bryan 150-mile race which he hoped would attract foreign drivers and thus more fans, but no international stars joined the USAC regulars.  

Harry Redkey had his first hiccup after five successful races when a lack of entries forced cancellation of a 250-mile USAC late-model stock car race at Phoenix International Raceway just days before the January 15 1967 race date. The $23,600 purse race, which would have been the first stock car event ever held at PIR, was to have opened the 1967 United States Auto Club USAC late model stock car racing season. "We simply had no other way to go," Redkey told the Tucson Daily Citizen. "We waited as long as we could and went as far as we could go before calling it off." Redkey said he had only seven signed entries and nine verbal commitments and that “we could hardly put on a decent race with seven cars.” 

USAC stock car supervisor Emil Andres pointed out “there’s a football game on television that day isn’t there” (referring to the first ‘Super Bowl’) but claimed that he had “nineteen bonafide entries and four vebals.”  Andres told the Arizona Republic newspaper he thought “the promoter was a tittle hasty in calling this thing off. I don’t think he ever wanted this race,” a claim Redkey vehemently denied. “If Mr. Andres would have spent as much time trying to get entries as he did talking to the press we would have a race.” 

At some point during the period from 1965 to 1967, track owners Richard and Nancy Hogue divorced and by 1967, Nancy Hogue moved in her new home at 7347 Red Ledge Drive in Paradise Valley and was in total control of the Phoenix International Raceway. On February 3 1967 an article in the Arizona Republic announced that JC Agajanian had been named to the PIR Board of Directors and would be an ‘advisor’ to Nancy Hogue, the sole owner of the speedway. The press release stated that Harry Redkey would remain as the director of racing at PIR, but that quickly changed.

On February 16 1967 readers of the Arizona Republic read reporter Dennis Woods’ article that revealed that 47-year old Harry Redkey was out at PIR, replaced by JC Agajanian as promotions director a rumor which “Aggie” had denied less than two weeks earlier. Jerry Raskin, identified as Nancy’ Hogue’s “business manager” told Wood “we have no reason for the dismissal to give to the press.”

Redkey read Wood a prepared statement “Myself and Robert Huff have been informed by the President and majority stockholder of PIR that we are removed from the board of directors. I have also been informed that I am no longer a corporate officer or the general manager. We will no longer participate in the active management of PIR; however Mr. Huff and I still remain as minority stockholders.”  

Charges and countercharges

Two days later, Nancy Hogue filed for an injunction against Redkey and Huff to obtain PIR property, papers and business records in their possession. Nancy’s suit also revealed her reason for the firing of the pair as she said there were “extended extravagant amounts of money for travel, hotels, entertainment, telephone calls, salaries etc.”  In apparent response to Redkey’s claim of minority ownership Agajanian told reporter Dennis Wood that “no one owns stock in PIR besides Nancy Hogue.” Agajanian stressed in his interview that “Mrs. Hogue dismissed Redkey, not me,” but added “it was obvious that there was dissension; otherwise there wouldn’t have been a dismissal.”  

In early March 1967 Redkey and Huff filed a $200,000 suit against Nancy Hogue which made several claims; first that “false representations were made with the intent to deceive and defraud” the pair. Redkey claimed that he had loaned PIR $10,000 for operating expenditures and his suit claimed that that loan came after “Nancy Hogue removed money for the PRI operating fund checking account without notice for no apparent reason. Finally, their suit claimed that Nancy Hogue “refused to have stock issued to Redkey and Huff as agreed,” and that their firing was a breach of their three-year contract with Hogue signed in October 1966. The pair asked the court to award them both compensatory and punitive damages.  

On January 28 1968, JC Agajanian as the new track promoter presented the first stock car race at Phoenix International Raceway, a 250-mile race held not on the oval but on the 2.73-mile long road course. The race, sanctioned by the United States Auto Club (USAC) featured several of USAC’s top Indianapolis star drivers- Foyt, McCluskey, Pollard and Jones and was won by USAC stock car stalwart Don White before more than 7,500 fans. In February, Jerry Raskin described as a former advertising executive and real estate developer was first quoted as the “track spokesman” when the raceway offices were opened at Dick Hogue’s former office at 511 East Culver Street in Phoenix.     

Redkey in Tucson

By June 1968, when Redkey and Huff announced their purchase of Tucson Raceway and a surrounding 300-acre parcel on Houghton Road as the site of the multi-purpose facility, their $200,000 lawsuit against Hogue was still active. The pair announced their plans for the initial construction of 2.7-mile paved road course which would eventually be joined by a 1-1/2 -mile high-banked oval, a half-mile oval, and a quarter-mile oval that would include a figure-eight. "That's all in the plans,” said Huff, "but it's also somewhere in the future. For right now, we are going to complete the road course and be ready for a November 3 USAC race with seating for about 16,000 with initial outlay for the road course and stands of "about a quarter of a million dollars."

"We'll have to start construction at least within the next couple of weeks," Huff told Pete Erickson of the Tucson Daily Citizen "and go fast." Huff claimed that with the road course is completed it would require “only a little work” to complete the big oval and the half-mile track. A large part of the existing Tucson drag strip was be used, and that the road course would be unique. “Every fan with a seat should be able to see a wheel turn anywhere on the track," according to Huff “I don't think there's a road course in the country at which you can see everything from your seat. Because of the contour of the land and the fact that it slopes slightly away from the grandstands -- which will be raised, by the way -- you'll be able to see the entire track."

The audacious plan for the road course was never completed, and on Redkey and Huff’s  planned race date November 3 1968, USAC held its second 250-mile championship car race promoted by Ken Clapp at the 1-1/2 mile Hanford Motor Speedway (originally known as Marchbanks Speedway) in Hanford California.

 A bizarre incident

Jerry Raskin Mrs. Hogue’s “business manager” became the PIR general manager and in September 1968 told the Arizona Republic that the dogleg on the oval had been “removed.”  "What happens now," Raskin said, "the cars will be able to drift coming out of the second turn and won't have to adjust again entering the straightaway." Raskin said renovation of the facility, cost $5,000. "We had to move in several tons of earth to bank the turn about 16 degrees but it’s well worth it.” The author could not find any information to confirm Raskin’s claim.

Later during 1968, Mrs. Hogue fired Raskin and he filed a lawsuit that asked for $17,100 in back wages and commissions.  The next turn of events on December 4 1968 came when Raskin was reportedly physically assaulted in his lawyer’s office prior to his scheduled deposition. Raskin’s attorney Rod Wood  told the Arizona Republic that Mrs. Hogue’s lawyer, Marvin “Mike” Johnson reportedly greeted Raskin and repeatedly referred to him as “big man” After Raskin refused to shake hands, Johnson allegedly struck Raskin four or five times in the face.

Raskin was treated for bruises on the left side of his face and shoulder at St Joseph’s Hospital and Phoenix Police patrolman Ernie White took a report on alleged attack by but no charges were apparently filed in the incident, and the Arizona Republic reported in a front page story that attorney Johnson could not be reached for comment.  

The incident was treated in a light-hearted way as in his January 5 1969 Arizona Republic “On the Town” column Vic Wilmot listed a number of items that he wished “the New Year may bring” that included “a suit of armor for Jerry Raskin.” The source of the friction between the two men became evident when in September 1971 Nancy Hogue married her lawyer in the Raskin case, Marvin Johnson in Santa Monica California.

In the next installment of the Phoenix International Raceway story, we will review the operation of the speed facility up to its purchase by entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin

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.