Indoor hardtop racing
in San Francisco

Part one

 

The Cow Palace shown during the nineteen fifties 

on a postcard from the author's collection

 

 

In early January 1955, multiple newspapers in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area began to publish articles about an upcoming series of indoor full-size stock automobile races to be held in the Cow Palace in San Francisco.  

The Cow Palace (known officially as the California State Livestock Pavilion), located seven miles south of downtown San Francisco in the Bayshore District, was first proposed based on success of the livestock pavilion at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition (World’s Fair).




After many years of planning, the final site near the San Francisco and San Mateo county boundary was selected and purchased in 1935. Construction began in the summer 1936 with funding from San Francisco and San Mateo counties supplemented with federal Public Works Administration (New Deal) funding.   

 

Photo of the interior of the Cow Palace shortly after completion from the book Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration by C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown. Photo appears courtesy of the Living New Deal program in the Department of Geography at the University of California.

 

The main structure, the Livestock Exhibition Building, was a reinforced concrete arena with a 6-acre steel arched truss roof designed by San Francisco architect Wilbur Peugh. With permanent seating for 12,000 visitors, construction of the arena was completed in February 1938 at a cost of $700,000. However, the complex, with a final project cost to $2.5 million, was not completed for several years and the first event in the Cow Palace, the Western Classic Holstein Show was held in the new arena on April 20th and 21st 1941.  

The Cow Palace complex was formally dedicated by Governor Culbert Olson during the opening ceremonies for the first Grand National Livestock Exposition on November 15 1941. The initial Grand National exposition was a huge success, with over 142,000 attendees, but three weeks later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States government requisitioned the Cow Palace.

Beginning in January 1942, for a rental cost of $1.00 a year, the Army used the Cow Palace as a processing center for troops prior to their deployment to the Pacific Theatre. Later in the war the Ordnance Corps used the facility as a vehicle repair center through 1946, with the second Grand National Livestock Exposition held in November 1946.

 

The Cow Palace arena shortly after completion in 1938 from the book Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration by C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown.

 

Photo appears courtesy of the Living New Deal  Program in the Department of Geography at the University of California.

 

The Cow Palace, owned and managed by the 1-A District Agricultural Association, a California State agency regularly held rodeos, horse and livestock shows, concerts, consumer shows and sporting events such as roller derbies, basketball games and boxing and wrestling matches.


The idea of indoor hardtop, or stock car, races was novel, and public interest was piqued on January 13 1955 when several Bay Area newspapers carried the announcement of the North California Indoor Hardtop Championships.

The races were scheduled be held every Saturday night for two months beginning February 12 1955 -  each night would feature qualifying and the 11-race program, scheduled for 50 cars each night, was sponsored by the Crown American Racing Club of San Francisco.


On February 2 1955 an article in the Oakland Tribune newspaper reported that an all-steel guardrail was being erected inside the Cow Palace “to afford greater safety for spectators” during the upcoming races, and noted that “more than 200 drivers have applied for entry for the national debut of indoor stock car racing.”

As the college basketball regular season wound down (the University of San Francisco used the Cow Palace as a home court for its biggest opponents), on Sunday February 6, the Oakland Tribune published an interview with Jack Smith managing director of the Oakland Racing Association (ORA), the group that would sanction the races. ORA appeared to have started during the 1954 season to sanction "stock hard top" racing. 

Smith revealed the roster of officials for the Cow Palace races, which was headed by Hillary Govia of Hayward as the referee, with Frank Vogel as the starter and the legendary BCRA Jack Carmedy the public address announcer while Mack (Mac) McGrete of Concord worked the timing clocks.


In the pit area, George Sweeney was the technical inspector with Bob Moss the pit marshal assisted by Steward Manuel Picanco and course clerks Harry Schilling, Tim Ahern and Bill Evans.  McGrete and Schilling had served of co-promoters of Oakland Speedway located near San Leandro during the 1954 season.

The article in the February 6th edition of the Oakland Tribune claimed that the 1/5-mile Cow Palace oval would be “the world’s fastest indoor paved speedway” and that “tests are being run to ascertain the best type of asphalt that will be applied in special areas on the paved speedway.”  The field of over 200 entries received would be winnowed “down to the fastest 50 cars" after a rigid screening and qualifying process by the Oakland Racing Association (ORA) board.”
 

During the week before the February 12 1955 inaugural race, the ORA released a partial list of entrants for the first night of the Cow Palace hardtop races. The list was topped by Ben Gregory of Crockett California whose given name was Gordon Campbell, raced under a nom de guerre to hide his racing activities from his employer, the California Highway Patrol.

 

In 1952, Gregory won $2,500 (equivalent to $23,000 today) for his victory in the 250-mile stock car race held on the Bay Meadows one-mile thoroughbred race track.  Gregory the day’s fastest qualifier took the lead with three laps to go in his 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 coupe.

Other entries for the first Cow Palace race included noted sports car racer Jack Flaherty of San Francisco, Joe Roletto, the 1954 American Racing Association (ARA) ‘big car’ champion, veteran San Jose Speedway hardtop racer Carmel Fernandez, and hot rod roadster racer George “Blonde” Pacheco, as well as drivers Dan Regan of Palo Alto, Joe Cairate from San Bruno, Glen Jensen of Menlo Park and Ted Hanning, Orval Rose, and Dave Davies, all of San Francisco.  

 

In our next installment we will reveal the results of the 1955 wintertime races in the Cow Palace.

 

 

The Tunison Speed Roadster - "an airplane on wheels"

 

 

 

At the Spring AutoLitFest 2017 held on the grounds of the NHRA museum, the author spied a period brochure for the virtually unknown Tunison automobile for sale on one of the vendor tables, but when he returned to try to buy it, the small (3 inches by 5 inches) multi-page ultra-rare folded Tunison brochure was gone. The Tunison was a car built in Oakland California in 1921 which apparently never got beyond the prototype phase.

The car’s namesake, Murray Cuthbert (M C) Tunison, was born March 2 1877 in Jacksonville Illinois but he spent much of his life in California.  Tunison began in engine design around the age of 20 and around the turn of the twentieth century he offered a line of gasoline and kerosene powered engines under the “Success” nameplate for use on the farm and for marine applications via catalogue sales from his Los Angeles California factory. Tunison’s small stationary engine used two large cast iron disks enclosed inside a heavy steel channel frame driven by a heavy I-beam connecting rod that rode in phosphor bronze bearings driven by a hit-and-miss single cylinder engine.

Tunison made his first foray into the automobile trade as he formed the Pacific Motor and Automobile Company with partners H. L. Boyer and W. B. Harrington in June 1906 to build an air-cooled 8-cylinder 86-horsepower car known as the Coyote. The engine designed by Tunison was reportedly made up of two rows of four cylinders set at an angle of 90 degrees to each other.  

In December 1908 it was announced that the lightweight “Coyote Special” roadster demonstrator prototype was completed and being tested while Pacific Motor was building a new garage in Redondo California. At that time of the factory announcement the Los Angeles Herald reported that “the company is well financed and will not be handicapped in getting out its product for lack of capital” but by April 1909 the company was in financial trouble and the company soon folded.   

Tunison like many others became fascinated with the rapidly emerging aviation field and in 1910 he leased Dominguez Field an early airport located near modern day Carson California.  In May 1911 Murray and George B Harrison the President of the Aero Club of California proposed that the US Congress set aside a fund of $150,000 devoted to the development of aviation. Tunison and Harrison’s plan called for the fund to pay aviators a dollar per mile flown with the provision that he “placed his services at the command of the government whenever there was a call for them.”   

Tunison was involved in the organization and promotion of the second International Air Meet held at Dominguez Field in December 1910 that featured Wright brothers’ exhibition team with pilots Archibald Hoxsey, Walter Brookins and Philip Parmelee. During 1911, Tunison moved to Northern California and the November 1911 issue of Aircraft magazine reported that Tunison was “constructing a large monoplane of his own design which he intends to try out shortly.” The plane’s overall design was described as “to carry two persons and has a spread of 59 feet and length of 54 feet” powered by an engine of 125 horsepower. What came of this Tunison monoplane is unknown.

The following year, Tunison was named the manager of the new Aeronautical Corporation in San Rafael a firm that employed fourteen workmen. One of the first projects was a biplane built for noted aviation French pioneer Didier Masson with the goal of Masson flying the new aircraft over the Sierra mountain range. Masson, who had earlier flown from San Francisco to Oakland and became the first man to fly an airplane across San Francisco Bay, and Tunison hoped to sell copies of the biplane to the United States military.

The new biplane’s first flight at the San Rafael airfield in March 1912 was mostly successful, that is until a skid broke off while landing and the plane rolled over into the soft mud but Masson emerged uninjured. In April 1912 Masson in the repaired Tunison creation carried fifty copies of the San Francisco Call newspaper from San Rafael to Vallejo and he became known as the “newsboy of the clouds.”  

In August 1912 Tunison started construction of a new larger aircraft which a writer in the San Francisco Call identified as “the largest biplane in the west.” The writer revealed that he had surreptitiously measured the craft with a yardstick and listed the dimensions as a wingspan of 60 feet a length of 42 ½ feet and body with a 3-1/2 foot depth designed to hold two persons. The biplane was powered by a 120-horsepower engine which drove triple propellers one in the nose of the plane and one of each side of the cockpit between the wings. One fascinating futuristic feature of this design was the placement of the gasoline tanks inside the wings.

The power of the massive Tunison-designed engine was needed as the plane was designed for commercial use to carry freight to far-off locales such as Sacramento, Bakersfield, and San Diego, although Tunison admitted that one of the drawbacks with the plan was “the lack of suitable landing places”.  The author could find no further information on Tunison’s large commercial biplane.

Murray Tunison had a fertile inventive mind which was demonstrated in May 1918 as he and a partner Samuel Nunn filed a patent application for an invention which was entitled “tractor attachment for automobiles.” A car’s front axle and front and rear wheels would be removed and replaced with mounted “traction belts” with the driven axle of the automobile geared to drive the traction belts. The pair’s creation received patent US 1356945A in October 1920, but by that the time, Tunison was totally immersed in the design and construction of his next venture, an eponymous automobile with the prototype revealed in late March 1921.

The prototype Tunison automobile was powered by a V-type 8-cylinder engine with overhead valves and a pressurized oiling system  which it was claimed would propel the car to a startling 70 miles per hour while it average 30 miles per gallon of gasoline as a result of a 1600-pound curb weight.

 

 

 

The most important engineering detail of the Tunison’s design was that its frame and body were made of laminated spruce, which led to the description of the car as “an airplane on wheels.” Plans were to initially build 250 per month cars built completely on site except for the bearings and the electrical components. Production was projected to grow to 1000 cars a month from the new factory to be built on the east side of Oakland. Publicity claimed that Murray Tunison “designed and built 380 engines of all sizes, ranging from 2 to 600-horsepower” and that he held US patent #57800 for the design of the speedster body.   

 

 

 

An article in the Oakland Tribune stated that “laminated spruce is 65 per cent stronger than steel of the same weight and 60 per cent lighter than steel of the same strength. Its use in automobile construction as fabricated by the “Tunison process” provides lightness and strength, freedom from vibration, absence of squeaks and rattles and furthermore admits designs not possible with metal bodies.” The Oakland Tribune article stated that “it is a well-known fact that steel transmits shocks, while wood absorbs them” which makes Tunison’s use of steel wheels surprising. 

 

 

The car’s frame was built of five layers of spruce cemented with waterproof glue under high pressure while the laminated wood body was built in a mold and covered with Fabrikoid imitation leather manufactured by DuPont which was cotton cloth coated with nitrocellulose. The Tunison catalog at AutoLitFest 2017 showed a Tunison Speed Roadster and a Tunison Touring car with a cost of $1250 for the roadster & $1350 for the touring car.

The Tunison Motor Company was incorporated in Oakland in April 1921 with a reported $2,500,000 in capital stock to be offered to the public. In August 1921 Tunison General Manager Clifford Williams announced that the East Side Board of Trade had secured an option on $1,250,000 worth of the company's stock. Williams claimed the company is “determined to make Oakland the home of the Tunison. Bringing the Tunison factory to Oakland will encourage other industries to seek manufacturing sites in the City.”

A little more than a month later Williams filed suit against the Tunison Motor Company as he claimed breach of contract. Williams hired on June 28 1921 for $100 a week and a promise of a 20 5 commission on all stock sold. On September 28 Williams claimed that Mr. Tunison and LP Hughes entered his office, “rifled his desk and changed the combination of his safe.” Williams claimed that Tunison’s misleading statements to banks had caused the California State Commission of Corporations to issue a warning to investors concerning the company’s stock offers. 

Despite the warnings in November 1921 it was announced that all the $2,500,000 in stock had been sold and that Tunison would build its modern automobile factory in Oakland which would provide employment to 3000 men. A one-story concrete reinforced building that measured 150 feet by 450 feet with a value of $250,000 was scheduled to begin construction immediately. The Tunison corporate office had moved from its original location in room 317 in the three-story Thayer Building located at the southeast corner of 14th and Jefferson Streets in downtown Oakland to the Pacific Building a 5-story brick building at the corner of 16th and Jefferson.

The November 15 1921 issue of Motor West magazine revealed the results of the election of Tunison Motor Company officers and Board of Directors.  A W Beam, the President of the Hayward Chamber of Commerce was named the company president with George Reuben, Phoenix automobile distributor and vice president of National Automobile Dealers Association as Tunison’s general and sales manager.

The prominent name on the board of directors was  John Paul Rettenmayer, the President of the California Brewing Association and the owner of Acme Brewing Company,  the Cereal Products Refining Company, manufacturers of malt syrups, as well as Peerless Yeast, Peerless Vinegar and the Remar Company  of Oakland, makers of Remar Bread and Remar Candy.

 

Other board members included JD Howell an engineer with the Union Ice Company of San Francisco and a pair of attorneys - EW Davis and James M Oliver who was the legal advisor for the California state banking commission. The Board membership also included three contractors - JJ Stahl of San Francisco and C U Cunningham and BT James of Oakland.

 

The Tunison automobile failed for unknown reasons without any cars built beyond the prototype, and Murray Tunison dropped from the public eye for several years but he did receive a patent in 1925 for his design for a car storage garage Tunison’s invention showed that automobiles would be stored on a group of independent floor panels riding on horizontally movable trucks operating on each floor.  The insertion and removal of the automobiles would be achieved through the use of an elevator mounted in a fixed shaft.

In 1929 the Santa Ana Register reported that members of a US Naval investigating board led by Admiral Moffatt stopped at Eddie Martin’s Airport to meet the local aviator and to look over a new type airplane housed at the field. The plane which attracted their attention was a low-wing, streamlined, enclosed cabin, monoplane built of plywood named the Tunison Scout.

 

The blue and red trimmed 4-passanger Tunison Scout was built during 1928 by Murray and his son both of Fullerton featured a 36 foot wing span and was built of molded plywood excluding the 150-horsepower water-cooled Hispano-Suiza H-3 engine mountings and fittings. There were no internal spars for bracing of the wings as the entire wing section consisted of layers of laminated plywood. The plywood wing was nearly 2 feet thick at the intersection with the fuselage and the seats for the occupants of the cockpit were attached to the wing.

The Scout won a design award, was test flown during in December 1928 by famed aviator Jimmie Angel and was featured in an article in the July 1929 issue of Aviation magazine but it never received the required certificate from the Department of Commerce. Tunison’s company later was purchased by Pacific Air Industries and the company installed a new engine and intended to offer two additional models - a two-place Scout Junior and a seven-passenger Scout Cruiser, but those plans never materialized.

A few years later Murray Tunison was the featured speaker in a three-part lecture series on aerodynamics presented to the Fullerton Hawks a group of young aircraft model builders. In his later years Murray lived in Chico California and researched and wrote a book about the mining of uranium before he passed away in 1953 in Utah.

If any readers have a copy of the Tunison ephemera that you would be willing to sell, please contact the author at kevracerhistory@aol.com
    
 

Roadster racer Don Kolb’s 1949 season

Don Kolb's 1948 photograph from the Oakland Tribune

 

When we last visited the story of Oakland roadster racer Don Kolb, he was a newlywed and finished third in the 1948 season points for Racing Roadsters Incorporated (RRI). In this installment we look at Kolb’s 1949 season.

To begin the 1949 season apparently there was a cease fire between RRI and the rival Northern California Racing Roadster Association (NCRRA).  The NCRRA sanctioned races in the San Joaquin Valley, east of the Bay Area, with Stockton’99’ Speedway as the group’s home track while RRI, with whom Kolb raced, sanctioned most of its 1949 races at Oakland Stadium. As an added attraction, several RRI races were paired with the new automotive ‘fad,’ demolition derbies, which began on the West Coast during 1947 at Carrell Speedway.

The Racing Roadsters Inc. 1949 season opened on Sunday night April 24 1949 at Contra Costa Speedway, a banked 1/4-mile dirt oval located near Buchanan Airfield on Pacheco Road four miles north of Walnut Creek California. The roadsters scheduled a full program that featured time trials, a trophy dash, four heat races, two semi-main races and a 25-lap feature race.  

The defending RRI champion Johnny Key won his heat race, one of the semi-main races and the feature, while Don Kolb won his heat race but his car dropped out during the feature. Other drivers at Contra Costa that night were Elmer George, Ed Andres, Al Slinker, Bill Grossi, former NCRRA regular Bob Schellenger (alternately spelled Schellinger) and a new driver to the Bay Area, young Bill Pettit originally from Salt Lake City Utah in his #222 roadster.

On Friday night May 6, the Racing Roadsters made their first appearance of the season at the freshly paved ¼-mile oval at Oakland Stadium, actually located at the intersection of 155th Avenue and East 14th Street in San Leandro. 4200 fans in the stands for the ‘Golden Gate Fields Sweepstakes’ meant that the RRI stars were racing for a purse of $2100. The 25-lap feature was captured by Sacramento’s Butler Rugaard who had started the race dead last. Second place went to Santa Cruz driver Lloyd Ragon followed by Don Kolb in third position with Pettit in fourth place in the race completed in just seven minutes and 36 seconds.

One week later, Kolb began the night’s races at Oakland Stadium in second place in RRI points behind Lloyd Ragon. Kolb beat Johnny Key to the stripe to win their heat race, but in the 25-lap feature later that evening, the finish was reversed as Key won a caution-filled race over Kolb and Slinker before what Oakland Tribune writer Rod Lee described as a small crowd.

Back at the Oakland Stadium on May 20 time trials, the trophy dash, and running of the heat races went smoothly, but the start of the evening’s 25-lap feature race was delayed for half an hour as drivers “squabbled over starting positions” according to a report in the next day’s Oakland Tribune. Once the feature began, Don Kolb took the lead on lap four and held on until lap nineteen when he gave way to Lloyd Ragon, the trophy dash winner. Ragon from Santa Cruz scored the victory over Kolb with Bob Schellenger third.

Based on his strong performances over the last two weeks Don Kolb entered the May 27 race at Oakland as the RRI point leader by eleven markers over Ragon. Kolb scored a clean sweep of the night’s racing as he won the trophy dash, his heat race, and the feature. Don took over the race lead from Schellenger on the nineteenth lap and won with a time of seven minutes and 32 seconds.

After the Oakland 5/8-mile track hosted the Western Racing Association (WRA) big cars on May 29, on Memorial Day the roadsters were back in action with twin 25-lap daytime features. Don Kolb won the trophy dash, but his name does not appear in the results of either feature. The first feature which honored flagman (and local new car salesman) Hank Mederios was won by Joe Perry, while the second race the ‘Memorial Day Sweepstakes’ was captured by Elmer George over his friend  and fellow Salinas resident Johnny Key.

At the next RRI race held on the ½-mile track in Watsonville on June 5, Don Kolb qualified third but had mechanical troubles during the evening and lost the RRI points lead to Ragon and Don would never again be in contention for the 1949 RRI drivers’ championship.  When the roadsters returned to Oakland on June 10, Kolb’s troubles continued as he and Schellenger tangled on lap 5 of the feature. Neither car finished while Ragon won again to pad his lead.

The following night, Kolb scored his second feature win of the 1949 season on the ¼-mile dirt track at Belmont City Stadium adjacent to the Bay Meadows thoroughbred track, Back at Oakland on Friday night June 17 for the ‘Captain Bolger Sweepstakes’ Kolb finished in third place behind Johnny  Key and  Stan Dean  in his trademark #33 roadster. Two days later in another Oakland Sunday daytime program, Key repeated as he won the 25-lap ‘Spike Jones Racing Roadster Handicap’ over Schellenger and tied the track record as he completed the 25 laps in seven minutes and six seconds at an average speed of over 52 miles per hour (MPH).

The following Friday night at Oakland after Ragon, Perry and Pettit crashed out on lap nine Johnny Key had victory in sight when his car blew a tire on the 22nd lap. With Key out of the running, Al Slinker inherited the win while Kolb finished in the fourth position.  Key returned to his winning ways at Oakland Stadium on July 1, but on Sunday July 10 for the “Radio Sweepstakes.” run on the 5/8-mile oval which featured a steeply banked third and fourth turn, the cars of Key, Kolb, Ragon and Slinker all broke down and did not start the 35-lap feature which was won by Stan Dean.

On Friday night July 15 the racing roadsters returned to the ¼-mile Oakland infield oval paired with the destruction derby. Al Slinker won the 5-car derby while Ragon won the 25-lap roadster main. The following night at Belmont, three spectators were injured after a wheel flew off Niles resident Chet Richards’ car and into the grandstand on the 33rd lap of the scheduled 35 lap feature. The rest of the race was cancelled with race leader Lloyd Ragon declared the winner.

Prior the start of the ‘hot rod’ race the next night July 16 at Contra Costa Speedway Ragon was listed as the RRI point leader, but after Johnny Key won the night’s feature race, Lloyd found himself trailing Johnny by seven points. Even though he won the trophy dash and finished second in the feature Don Kolb remained in fourth place in the RRI season standings behind Schellenger. Back at Oakland Stadium on Friday night July 22 1949 Don Kolb finished the 25-lap feature in third place behind winner Lloyd Ragon and runner-up Johnny Key.

During the following week, word reached the West Coast of the tragic death of 21- year old Bill Pettit in a July 23 crash in Iowa. The Salt Lake City native had moved to Oakland and raced with RRI from the start of the 1949 season through the July 1 race, after which young Pettit had married and traveled “back east” to race with the Hurricane Hot Rod Association a group run by Chicago speed shop owner Anthony Granatelli.

Before the fateful race, Pettit who turned 21 only eight days earlier, reportedly sold his roadster and told his bride of two weeks that he would quit racing. On the last lap of the Saturday night feature race at the Playland Park Speedway in Council Bluffs Iowa, Pettit tried to slice between two cars in their battle for second place. Pettit’s #222 hooked wheels, barrel rolled three times, and came to rest upright, but he suffered fatal head injuries.

The Council Bluffs track was part of an amusement park complex across the Missouri River from Omaha Nebraska owned by Abe and Lou Slusky. The ¼-mile dirt track was originally the site of the shuttered Dodge Park dog track allegedly owned by mobster Meyer Lansky. The race on July 23 was the third ‘hot rod’ race ever held there as the track usually hosted midget car racing.

To honor their fallen comrade before the ‘July Sweepstakes’ feature on the 29th at Oakland, Lloyd Ragon carried a checkered flag on a memorial lap. Kolb’s car the evening’s fastest qualifier at 16.69 seconds, broke on the first lap of the feature and Don finished 12th in the 12-car field as Lloyd Ragon won and re-captured the RRI point lead by six points over Key.

In a sad postscript to the Pettit story, pioneering black roadster racer Curtis “Cyclone” Ross was killed at Playland Park on July 30 during the running of the ‘Bill Pettit Benefit Race.’ Ross, who had been one of the drivers involved in the Pettit fatal crash, died after his car ran over the back of another car and flipped end-over end several times.

Ross at 32 years old was much traveled as he had raced with the Midwestern-based Mutual and the California Roadster Associations. The ‘Pettit Benefit Race’ that brought in over $1300 for Bill’s young widow was the final ‘hot rod’ race at the Playland Park track which continued to race stock cars until 1977.

The roadster racing season moved into August 1949, and on the fifth newcomer Bob Gonzales won the 25-lap feature and set a new ¼-mile Oakland track record of seven minutes and six seconds for the distance. After the race card on the 11th was rained out on the 18th Don Kolb his won his third roadster feature of the 1949 season after an interesting series of events.  

During qualifying Johnny Key’s usual #5 entry broke a connecting rod and Key jumped into the seat of the #11 car. After the engine in the #5 car was repaired, Kolb took it over and won the 15-lap semi-main race to advance into the feature starting field.  During the 25-lap feature, Key in #11 moved up from his tenth starting position to take the lead on the fourth lap and maintained his lead until the engine failed in his #11 mount on the race’s 22nd lap. Kolb led the final three laps in the #5 “John Milton Special” to claim the win. Despite his three wins, by the end of the 1949 RRI season, Kolb finished the season in fifth place behind Johnny Key, Lloyd Ragon, Bob Schellenger and Stan Dean as reported at the March 2 1950 awards banquet.

 

 

A newspaper ad for A BCRA "hardtop" race 

 

During the fall of 1949 Don Kolb participated in several Bay Cities Racing Association (BCRA) “hardtop” and midget races. “Hardtops” were a relatively new phenomenon which the BCRA had debuted in August at Contra Costa Speedway followed by a slate of weekly races, often held in conjunction with BCRA midget races, as the “hardtops” quickly supplanted midget and roadster racing in popularity.

Later in August BCRA officials suspended midget point leader Jerry Piper for “conduct detrimental to the organization” after he and former BCRA business manager Bob Barkheimer founded their own “hardtop” sanctioning body, the California Stock Car Racing Association (CSCRA).  With Piper on the sidelines, Marvin Burke won the 1949 BCRA championship. In the coming years the CSCRA with Piper as its President grew to sanction races at more than 20 tracks in the state. 

Kolb described as one of the “new BCRA pilots” together with future BCRA Hall of Famers Bob Rushing and Cliff Roberts debuted at the BCRA “hardtop” race at Oakland Stadium on October 4. Kolb finished third behind BCRA “regulars” Johnny Soares and Bert Moreland in the 25-lap ‘Hayward Moose Sweepstakes.’ Kolb also was documented as an entry in the final BCRA “hardtop” race of the 1949 season held November 27 won by Ed Normi ahead of Bert Moreland and George Bignotti.   

Kolb was one of eighteen drivers entered in the annual BCRA midget “Invitational Classic’ scheduled for November 6 1949 on the Oakland Stadium 5/8-mile track. Other entries included Ed Elisian, Bob Veith, Walt Faulkner, Bill Vukovich, and Earl Motter. Bob Sweikert who had sold his own Kurtis-Kraft midget in February  after he captured the six-race 1949 inaugural BCRA indoor championship, returned to drive George Bignotti’ s #1, while three-time BCRA champion Fred Agabashian entered his Ford V-8 60 powered machine for rising BCRA star Larry Terra of Hayward.

The November 6 1949 event was rained out after time trials were completed and the entire program was rescheduled for November 13. Earl Motter was the fast qualifier on the 13th as he posted a best lap of 20.11 seconds which was nearly a tenth faster than the quick time he posted a week earlier. Kolb did not start the 25-lap feature, which was won by Bob Sweikert over Motter and Marvin Burke in a caution-filled race completed in 12 minutes and 39 seconds.   

In our next installment we will continue to follow Don Kolb’s career in the rapidly changing Bay Area racing environment in the early nineteen fifties.    

Roadster racer Don Kolb's 1948 season

Today we take a look at a year in the life of a track roadster racer in Northern California against the background of the rapidly changing race sanctioning environment of the era.

After World War II the popularity of auto racing in the United States exploded in particular midget car racing. Many race-hungry veterans like Oakland California racer Donald “Don” Kolb looked for a more economical form of racing and found it with “hot rods” or track roadsters.

These race cars were built up from stripped-down pre-war cars and powered by “hopped up” powerplants such as six cylinder GMC or Ford V-8 engines. As we shall see, 1948 proved to be a very significant year for Don Kolb both professionally and personally.

The 1948 Don Kolb story begins even before the racing season started, in February as the 24-year old Kolb helped create a new roadster racing sanctioning association. Through the period of 1946 to 1947, a majority of the roadster races in the California Bay Area were sanctioned by Northern California Roadster Racing Association (NCRRA), a non-profit group run by business manager Nils Lilejedahl. According to writer and promoter Al Slonaker’s ‘Speedway Sparks’ column in the Oakland Tribune during 1947 some members of the NCRRA became disenchanted with “the lack of profits” with NCRRA organization and formed their own for-profit sanctioning group known as Racing Roadsters Incorporated (RRI).

The new group’s president was announced as John Milton owner of the #5 “Milton Hudson” track roadster driven by Stan Dean. The Milton Motor Company located on 14th Street in Oakland California had been a Hudson dealership since 1938. RRI’s Vice-president was Al Dickman from Manteca California the owner of the #9 Ford V-8 powered roadster, while Arthur Garden, the group’s attorney acted as the non-voting secretary/treasurer.

Don Kolb was one of the RRI board members along with Hank Keith, Don Milton, Don Kolb, Dave Zimola, L. D. Plumley, and Henry K. Richardson. The corporation issued voting and non-voting members and Wilton and most of the board members took only non-voting stock for obvious political reasons.

RRI officials told Slonaker that they had more than 35 cars signed up for the 1948 season and contracts in place with the Oakland Stadium, Belmont Speedway, and Salinas Valley Speedway. For its part, the NCRRA organization claimed to have signed contracts to present races at Stockton 99 Speedway and Contra Costa Speedway with their stars “Lightning” Lemoine Frey (who drove for Dickman in 1947), “Jumpin” Joe Valente, “Sad” Sam Hawks, and young Ed Elisian. 

Despite its name, the 5/8-mile paved Oakland Stadium was located near the intersection of  East 14th Street and 155th Avenue in suburban San Leandro and featured a hugely banked 62-degree third and fourth turn complex, but it also had a ¼-mile track inside which was sometimes used by the roadsters. The ¼-mile dirt Belmont Speedway (also known as San Carlos Speedway) was located adjacent to the Bay Meadows thoroughbred race track which itself occasionally hosted auto racing. Both race tracks are long gone and are now the site of shopping centers.   

The 1/3-mile paved Salinas Valley Speedway was located in the Alisal (sycamore in Spanish) area east of Salinas. The Salinas area was a hot-bed of Northern California roadster racing and also featured Devils Bowl Speedway. Salinas was the home of Elmer George, Norman Garland, Arnold Chapman and the “King of Northern California roadsters," Johnny Key, the 1947 and 1948 NCRRA season champion. Although he was from Santa Cruz racer and service station owner Lloyd Ragon was also considered by most Bay Area roadster fans to be a member of the “Salinas Boys.”  

Contra Costa Speedway was a lightning fast ¼-mile dirt oval that was advertised as being in Walnut Creek but actually was in Pacheco adjacent to Buchanan Field. Contra Costa Speedway appears in scene of the 1960 motion picture “Wild Ride” that starred a young Jack Nicholson. Stockton 99 Speedway like Contra Costa a high-banked 1/4-mile except it was paved opened as a dirt 1/5-mile track 1947.

Built and operated by one-time boxing promoter William G. 'Billy' Hunefeld, the Stockton track initially had a youth football field in the infield. Of all the tracks mentioned in this article that the “roaring roadsters” raced, it is the only facility that is still open for racing.   

RRI officials also promised that their new group would require the use of safety hubs. Slonaker somewhat humorously noted that “this little precaution should make faithful fans a little more at ease in the stands. It's no fun trying to duck a flying wheel, too often the case when safety axles are omitted.”

Slonaker did not mention that RRI’s new rule would save driver’s lives as well. Many track roadster drivers died in accidents when their car flipped over after the rear axle broke and the car lost a wheel. A safety hub was a two-piece assembly with one part bolted to the rear end housing and the other welded onto the wheel hub. Combined with a bearing the assembly prevented the wheel from breaking loose in case the car’s axle broke.

Cyclone Safety Hubs were manufacturered by Mendel “Cookie” Ledington's "Cooks Machine Works in 1946 and 60 years later is still in business in same location

On Sunday April 25 Bob Sweikert a racer from Hayward came from eleventh starting position to claim victory at Salinas Valley Speedway over Tommy Cheek from Oakland with Johnny Key in third place. Sweikert posted a “clean sweep” that day – in addition to his win in the 25-lap main, run in 8 minutes and 5-1/2 seconds,  Sweikert set quick time in time trials with a lap of 18.70 seconds, won six- and eight-lap heat races, and beat Kolb to win the four-lap trophy dash.

Sweikert was one of many California drivers along with the Rathmann brothers and Troy Ruttman who used track roadster racing as a springboard to greater success. Born in Los Angeles but raised in Hayward Sweikert served domestically in the US Army Air Force in World War II. After his discharge Sweikert met UCLA coed Marion Edwards in 1947 and married her in 1948.

The Sweikert newlyweds returned to Bob’s hometown where he ran an auto repair shop in his parent’s garage and built his roadster.  Later, Sweikert would graduate to racing midgets, then big cars, before he “went east” to race with the American Automobile Association (AAA). Divorced and re-married Sweikert started his first Indianapolis ‘500’ in 1952 and won the 1955 Indianapolis 500-mile race before he perished in an AAA ‘big car’ accident in June 1956.

The same day as the Racing Roadsters’ Salinas Valley race, April 25, the Northern California Roadster Racing Association (NCRRA) staged a 25-lap race won the George “Blonde” Pacheco of Oakland at Bayshore Stadium a ¼-mile dirt former dog track next to the Cow Palace arena in Daly City. Head-to-head scheduling by the two Bay Area track roadster sanctioning bodies until car counts for both groups dropped and they merged to become United Roadsters Inc. in mid-1950.

During the RRI race held May 1 at Salinas, hometown driver Norm Garland was black flagged out of a comfortable lead on the 34th lap of the 35-lap feature for a leaking radiator that created a “track hazard” as fans roared their disapproval. After the race, enraged fans swarmed the speedway and in the ensuing riot, flagman Bill Jagger was punched in the face. Chaos reigned until the local sheriff was called upon to restore order.

For the roadster race two weeks later at Oakland Stadium the group’s season opener at the track on May14, promoter Charlie Curryer advertised it as a grudge match between the “heroes of the lettuce belt” and Oakland drivers that included Mel Senna, Al Slinker, Budge Canty, ‘Red’ Corbin and Kolb. The throttle on Jim Heath’s car hung open and Heath's car hit a large electrical pole adjacent to the ¼-mile track and burst into flame. Rescuers pulled Heath from the car and he suffered a compound fracture of his left leg but no burns. In the 25-lap feature, Tommy Cheek passed Bob Sweikert on the last lap to steal the win.

On Friday of the 1948 Memorial Day weekend 3,100 fans paid $1.00 admission at Oakland Stadium to watch Johnny Key win the 25-lap feature as Kolb finished in second place with Sweikert in third place.

On Saturday night July 10 1948 Kolb drove Walnut Creek car owner George Dietrich's Mercury-powered car to a 25-lap victory at Belmont Stadium. Kolb took the lead on the third lap after Stan Dean, in the “Milton Hudson” roadster went wide through the first turn on the flat quarter mile speedway, and Kolb was never seriously challenged again on the way to victory.  

Salinas’ Elmer George brought the crowd their feet on the twenty-fourth lap after he crashed head-on into the crash wall in front of the grandstand when his car broke a steering arm in turn four. George was miraculously uninjured and later “went east” in 1954 with his friend Johnny Key to race with the AAA. George eventually married his AAA ‘big car’ owner Mari Hulman, the daughter of Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony Hulman. George was the 1957 United States Auto Club (USAC) Midwest ‘big car’ champion and started the Indy ‘500’ on three occasions before he retired from driving following his failure to qualify for the 1964 Indy 500.

On Sunday August 22 1948 Kolb married his fiancé Dorothy Quintel in a unique ceremony held on the front stretch of the 5/8-mile Oakland Stadium track in front of 7,500 witnesses as part of the second annual “Invitational Roadster Classic.” This race brought together drivers from Northern California roadster clubs as well as the cars and drivers from the California Roadster Association (CRA) from the Los Angeles area. The CRA cars carried the letter “X” to help fans differentiate between their local heroes and the southern invaders.

 

After the trophy dash, Kolb and Ms. Quintel who was RRI President John Milton’s secretary were married. As Kolb sat in his car, Quintel was brought “down the aisle” (the front stretch) as she rode in another roadster. As Dorothy stood in the cockpit of the roadster, Kolb stood beside her as Oakland Municipal Court Judge James S Blaine presided while he stood in the cockpit of a third roadster parked in front of the couple. Later, Johnny Key won the feature as Walt James in sixth was the highest finisher of the CRA cars.

The couple had an abbreviated honeymoon as the following Saturday, August 27 Kolb won the 25-lap feature at Oakland Stadium in front of 3,300 fans. Kolb started on the pole, led briefly, and then came back to defeat Jimmy Davies of Los Angeles and Bill Pettit of Oakland with US Navy veteran and future sports car racer Jack Flaherty in fourth place.

In October 1948 the Bay Area’s season racing champions were announced. Fred Agabashian reigned as Bay Cities Racing Association midget champion for the third year in a row, while Johnny Keys won his third consecutive Northern California track roadster championship with the Racing Roadsters Incorporated (RRI). Don Kolb placed third overall in RRI points behind Bob Schellinger of Danville. The 1948 champion of the rival Northern California Roadster Racing Association NCRRA was “Jumpin” Joe Valente a racing showman who became a track flag man after he retired from race driving.