The Wally Stokes story

Part one

Wallace “Wally” Stokes was a journeyman race car driver who raced ‘big cars’ and midget race cars on the dirt tracks of America during the rough and tumble nineteen thirties and the active post-war period. Just as Wally was on the cusp of a breakthrough into the upper echelon of the sport of auto racing, he was struck down in a traffic accident in 1949.    

Stokes, who for publicity purposes sometimes claimed Honolulu as his birthplace, hailed from the village of Willoughby Ohio on the shores of Lake Erie east of Cleveland.


Born on May 21, 1913 Wally was the first child and only son of Edward a carpenter and Bertha Stokes who latter was joined by two younger sisters, Elizabeth and Alma. We do not know what drew young Stokes in automobile racing, but by age 22 he raced in in events with the Jones Speedway Association circuit.  

This association led by David W.A. Jones claimed to operate 21 tracks in the Eastern United States scheduled a July 4, 1935 racing program at the Dawson Driving Park in southwestern Pennsylvania.  The Dawson Driving Park was a slightly banked half-mile dirt track built around the turn of the twentieth century for harness racing.


Overlooking the track located about ½-mile north of the small town of Dawson which is situated on the bank of the Youghiogheny River the facility featured a covered wooden grandstand,

The Dawson Driving Park thrived and expanded and became the hub of Tyrone township activities - in addition to hosting harness races, the grounds which included an auditorium became the site of mushball tournaments, dances, socials, family reunions and for a time the County Fair.


The Park hosted its first automobile race on September 19, 1925, the last day of the Fayette County Fair, a 25-mile affair won by future three-time Indianapolis ‘500’ competitor William ‘Speed’ Gardner of New Kensington Pennsylvania in a time of 28 minutes and 21 seconds.

Promoter Bud Lewis continued to present automobile races annually at the Dawson Driving Park until tragedy struck during the 100-mile race on September 20, 1930. One of the racers, Lawrence ‘Mike’ Hickson was killed after his Frontenac car catapulted high off the embankment and overturned.


Hickson was trapped beneath the wreckage and died four hours after the accident from a fractured skull and crushed chest in the nearby Connellsville State Hospital. Mike who had started racing in 1923, was one half of a pair of racing brothers from Pittsburgh - his brother Bill had died in a crash during a race in Butler Pennsylvania six years earlier.

It appears that after the 1930 accident, the Dawson Driving Park did not host an automobile race again until 1935 with the arrival of a new promoter. Advance publicity from the Jones Speedway Association before the July 4^th event promised two preliminary five-mile races followed by 100 laps of racing in the 50-mile feature.  

The Daily Reporter of Connellsville provided a partial list of the 22 entered drivers, which included Larry King of Clarksburg West Virginia, the 1934 champion of the Jones circuit with a Dreyer Hal. King who reportedly had won the pole position in nine of his eleven starts in 1934 and 1935 was joined by Johnny Ritter of Detroit as well as Buckeye drivers Bill Chittum and Shorty Wolfe of Columbus along with Spud Green and Wally Stokes from Akron.

The race starter, a man named Eddie Young would be assisted by Roy Young “the state auto racing champion of 1932 and 1933.”  A late entrant was local driver Dick Furtney from Connellsville, billed as “the former Tri-State champion attempting a comeback.” The Daily Reporter of Connellsville also reported that “unusual is the fact that the races will start Pacific Coast style, an innovation of the Jones Speedway. All drivers will be introduced to the audience.”

On July 3 the Morning Herald newspaper of Uniontown reported that “the track has been specially prepared by a corps of workers busy for the previous ten days making necessary repairs.”  All that work went for naught when rain on the 4^th forced the race to be delayed until July Sunday 7^th making this one of the earliest Sunday auto races in the Commonwealth which had banned the presentation of sporting events on Sundays until 1933.

The rescheduled race was a disaster – only 600 fans showed (termed in the press as “a surprisingly poor turnout”) and when the gate receipts failed to reach $800, Jones Speedway Association officials eliminated the two preliminary five-mile races and cut the length of the feature down to 25 miles.

Many of the advertised drivers including King, Ritter, Wolfe and Chittum did not appear and there only twelve cars and drivers on the grounds. The time trials were delayed for two hours as the drivers refused to run until the guaranteed purse of $400 was brought to the track in cash. Once activities started, Garnet “Bud” Henderson of Akron in his Hal was the day’s fastest qualifier with a lap of 32 seconds flat against the track record of 29.2 seconds.

The following day’s article in the Daily Courier of Connellsville reported that “Jones Speedways has a fine reputation in other sections of the county for similar programs, but failed to make an impression here. There was a feeling of dissatisfaction and indignation among the spectators who had to ante over big fees to gain admittance.” Worse yet the article stated the “failure to properly treat the course resulted in clouds of dust blanketing the track” which contributed to the day’s worst accident.

On the second lap of the 25-mile race, Henderson led trailed by Larry Evans, Adelbert ‘Deb’ Snyder in his Hal, and 25-year-old Johnstown driver Ivan ‘Butch’ Baumgardner, who sometimes raced under the assumed name of Gardner. As the 10-car starting field entered the third turn, Baumgardner “got lost in the dust,” and his car partially spun and blew a tire. With the steering on the car damaged, the out of control car careened through the fence and over the embankment. Baumgardner was thrown against the steering wheel during the crash and suffered a fractured clavicle and fractured ribs.   

On the third lap, Evans whose car was slower on the straights, but faster through the corners, took the lead from Henderson. Evans built his lead, and nearly lapped the second-place machine on the 40^th lap but Larry eased off the throttle and won by 7/8 of a lap over Henderson with Snyder third in what the next day’s Daily Courier headline called a “thrilling auto derby.”


Nine of the ten starters finished the race with the former Tri-State champion Dick Furtney in seventh place and Wally Stokes the eighth-place finisher in a Riley powered machine finished far ahead of the slowest car driven by Pittsburgh’s Harry Unger.   

The Daily Courier article about the Dawson race closed with a statement from the Fayette County Fair Association, the group the owned the track. The statement read that “the Association had no part in the promotion,” and that “it had previously sponsored similar shows which always were commended by the thousands that turned out because of the large field of drivers available and the promptness with which all the advertised events were conducted.”   

The following year, the Uniontown Motoring Club sponsored a midget car race at Dawson on Labor Day 1936 as part of the club’s annual picnic. Newspaper advertisements placed by the promoter, Speed Events Enterprise, promised “three solid hours of racing thrills” with 12-15 cars in time trials and five races for a 50-cent admission charge.

Al Bonnell of Erie was the fast qualifier and won the trophy dash but Floyd Fogel who claimed Havre France as his hometown won the day’s 8-lap feature race in the ‘Peugeot Special’ midget. The little cars were not a hit, a crowd of 2000 witnessed what appears to have been the last automobile race held at the Dawson Driving Park.  The facility slowly faded into history although the outline of the half-mile track is still visible along Banning Road north of Dawson.  

Saturday August 18, 1935 found Wally Stokes and his ‘Riley Special’ at 4-H Speedway near Dunbar West Virginia, a ½-mile Fairgrounds dirt track built for horse racing that was also known as Dunbar Speedway. In addition to Stokes, many of the Jones Speedway Association regulars were entered - Larry Evans, Bill Chittum, Bud Henderson, Deb Snyder, Speed Haynes with his Frontenac and the “wild driving” Clyde Schwartz in a Cragar Special.


The five-event afternoon program was topped off by a 20-mile race for the “West Virginia State Championship.”  We don’t have the details of that race, but the two subsequent 1935 ‘big car’ races held at Dunbar were promoted by the Dixie Racing Association.

Wally Stokes was an entrant for the July 4, 1936 races held at the half-mile Jenners Speedway with the 100-lap feature sanctioned by the National Auto Racing Association. Along with Stokes, the entry list included Bud Henderson, the 1935 Central States Racing Association (CSRA) who now listed his hometown as Los Angeles, in a new Miller and the ‘southern champion” Larry Beckett of Tampa Florida. While the Miller was a purpose-built racing car, all the other cars – the Hal, the Cragar, and the Frontenac were all powered by modified versions of the four-cylinder Ford Model B engine.

The touring stars were joined by three local Jennerstown drivers - Butch Gardner, Mike Serokman and George Polychak in a “knee action” Chevrolet. The Bedford Gazette noted that a two-man Indianapolis car that placed eighth in the 1934 race would appear along with unnamed California drivers “that have become very popular on the West Coast.” 

Pre-race reports stated that the track had been “reconditioned to the peak of perfection” and would be “dustless,” but such was not the case. The schedule called for time trials at 1 PM followed by a pair of five-mile preliminary races with the 100-lap feature race set to take the green flag at 2 PM, but rain delayed the start of the day’s racing program.

“Whitey” Flickinger won the first preliminary race, then in during the second five-mile race, the left front wheel came of the machine of ‘Butch’ Gardner (whose real name was Baumgardner- he was the driver who crashed at Dawson in 1935). The wheel “sliced into the air and sailed over the heads of onlookers,” but did not strike anyone, and the second race was won by Ted Wright.   

Reports the next day carried in the Somerset Daily Herald stated that as the Jenners race approached lap 30, “the track had dried and clouds of yellow dust went skyward behind each car.”   Soon, the paper reported, “the clouds of dust were so thick you could have sliced them with a shovel.”  To compound the dust problem, the track was rough as the paper reported “there were depressions and humps low enough to shoot the car high off the ground.”

On lap 30, as Joseph Ventre tried to pass under Paul Snyder’s machine in one of the turns, the right rear wheel of Ventre’s car touched the left front wheel of Snyder’s car.  Both cars flipped, with Snyder thrown onto the track while Ventre hung onto his car which landed on all four wheels then tore through a nearby barbed wire fencing before it finally overturned.


Ventre was horribly lacerated by his car’s trip through the fencing, and an eyewitness reported that he saw Snyder rise to his knees before he was hit by two passing cars as he was all but invisible through the dust.  

The race was immediately stopped and both the injured drivers loaded into ambulances and taken to the Somerset General Hospital. Snyder had suffered a broken neck and was pronounced dead on arrival, while Ventre who suffered a fractured skull and multiple deep cuts passed away at 11 PM that evening.  

After an hour-long delay, the race resumed, and Mike Serokman passed the early leader Flickinger, but later while in the lead, a connecting rod broke in Serokman’s engine.  With Serokman’s retirement, Flickinger from Sebring Ohio regained the lead and went on to the victory as the race was shortened to 40 laps. Flickinger claimed the $250 purse as Ted Wright of Greensburg finished second and Butch Gardner was the third-place finisher.

Records of the next few years of Stokes’ career are spotty, but we know that Wally won the 1939 & 1940 CSRA Memorial Day 25-lap feature race at Sharon Speedway in Pennsylvania driving Andy Dunlop’s Miller Marine powered big car. Despite their success, according to Dunlop, in his book Damn Few Died in Bed written with Thomas Saal, “Wally wasn’t interested in driving for me regularly as he was driving midgets for other owners at the time.” Stokes’ racing as this time was not well documented in newspaper reporting but he was a star participant in the October 6, 1940 100-lap “Ohio State Midget Championship Classic” at the ½-mile Canfield Fairgrounds oval.  

The fall and winter of 1940 found Stokes racing in San Antonio, Texas as he scored a second-place finish in the ‘B’ feature on Sunday November 17 at the 1/5-mile Alamo Downs Raceway behind Roy Houston. Stokes won the ‘B’ feature at Alamo Downs on December 1 and set a new but short-lived 10-lap record of 2 minutes 49.55 seconds.

On December 22, 1940, Stokes won the evening’s third heat race and the Australian Pursuit race at Alamo Downs as he edged the eventual feature winner, the one-armed Wes Saegesser.


The following week, Wally finished third in his heat race and again won the Australian Pursuit race but was involved in a three-car crash during the feature with Ralph Purnell, whose car had caught fire the week before, and Howard Brand. None of the three drivers were injured, but they were unable to resume racing after the crash. 

We’ll continue with the story of Wally Stokes’ racing career in our next installment.

Midget racer Bob Harner in 1947

To place this article in the proper context, the author suggests that if you have not already, read the two previous articles regarding Bob Harner’s racing career entitled  ‘before World War 2’ and ‘in 1945 & 1946’ before reading this installment.

Bob Harner (alternately spelled Harnar) from Akron Ohio started the 1947 racing season as a member of the two-car Pollock Racing Team based in the northern Ohio resort community of Port Huron, owned by Dallas “Dale” Pollock. At the time, Pollock owned both the Huron City Bakery and the Travelers’ Inn Bar & Grill in Port Huron. Both of these businesses profited substantially during the post war period due to the nearby United States Army installations - the Erie Proving Grounds and Camp Perry.

Photograph of Bob Harner in the Pollock Offy provided by JD Cormack

Pollock brought two four cylinder 110 cubic inch Offenhauser-powered Kurtis-Kraft midgets painted brown and numbered #40 and #30 back from Los Angeles in early 1947. The Kurtis-Kraft Midget Genealogy of Speed book by Bill Montgomery does not list chassis numbers or details for the Pollock midgets but does contain a photo of the #30 Pollock midget.  There are no records that reflect Pollock driving in a race, but the local newspaper reported that Pollock suffered multiple facial cuts when he crashed into the guardrail at Vactionland Speedway near Port Huron that while testing an unidentified midget on November 1 1946.   

Vacationland was a ¼-mile dirt midget track located in Erie Township built by Clifford Swigart and on a 6-acre site on his farm on Route 163 near Camp Perry and featured a 4,000 seat grandstand.   The track opened for midget racing on May 6 1946 and during the winter of 1946-7 the track was flooded and transformed into a public ice skating rink.

The Vacationland facility reopened for the season on May 15 1947 but not for midget racing – the flooded track was the site of outboard motor boat races held each Wednesday night under the lights. Apparently the outboard motor boat races were not financially successful either as the local newspaper reported in November 1947 that the bleachers at the Vacationland Speedway were  dismantled and moved to a new midget automobile track in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  

A postcard of Jimmie Florian in other Pollock Offy

In addition to Harner, drivers on the Pollock Racing Team included at various times Jack Kabat from Toledo Ohio known as the “the King of Canfield Speedway,” “Big” Bill Spear from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, Richard Orr of Akron and Eddie Johnson and Jimmie Florian from Cleveland. Dale Pollock clearly had an eye for driving talent since Spear later became the 1955 and 1958 Tri-State Auto Racing Association midget series champion and Eddie Johnson would start the Indianapolis ‘500’ fifteen times and notch multiple American Automobile Association (AAA)  and United States Auto Club (USAC) midget series wins during his career.

Likewise, a few years after he drove for Pollock, Florian recorded Ford Motor Company’s first National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) win on June 25 1950 in a 200-lap race on the high-banked Dayton Speedway as he drove the #27 ‘Euclid Ford Co.’ red and white flathead-powered 1950 Ford coupe to victory. After an on-and-off three-year flirtation with stock cars, Jim Florian returned to midget racing and captured the Central States Racing Association (CSRA) midget championship for the 1956 and 1957 seasons.

Bob Harner’s 1947 midget season opened on Wednesday April 30 at the Akron Rubber Bowl in a Zeiter Speedways promotion under AAA sanction. The Massillon Evening Independent newspaper reported that local driver Bob Harnar, nicknamed the “Hubba Hubba Boy,” and Bob Orr were both scheduled to debut their new $7,500 Offenhauser-powered Kurtis-Kraft midget cars as part of 40-car field of entries that also included Roy Sherman, Carl Forberg, and Art Hartsfield. 

The source of Harnar's curious nickname is revealed in Keith S. Herbst's excellent book on racing in the Niagara regions entitled Daredevils of the Frontier. While admitting that Harnar raced with minimal success, he was a crowd favorite because of  as Herbst relates through racer Eddie Roberts, Harnar's "pre-race shenanigans, a fake Groucho Marx nose, glasses, and mustache.    

Harnar was at the controls of the new Pollock midget #40 while Orr drove his own Motor Cargo sponsored red #17.  The public address announcers at the Rubber Bowl referred to Robert “Bobby” Orr, a Bronze Star winner during World War Two as “the Racing Millionaire” since his family owned three thriving businesses - the Akron Motor Cargo Company, Triple O Oil Sales, and Orr’s Coal Service.

Three days later, on May 3 Harner appeared with many of the same drivers from the Rubber Bowl in another AAA sanctioned event at the Canfield Fairgrounds Speedway south of Youngstown Ohio. Midget cars raced beginning in 1939 on a ¼-mile dirt track that shared the front stretch with the original ½- mile track built constructed 1929. The las recorded midget race at Canfield was held there in May of 1950, but auto racing continued at the Fairgrounds facility through 1973.

Harner was back in action on Wednesday June 11 1947 at the Rubber Bowl in an open competition show as the Zeiter Speedways organization withdrew from the AAA organization earlier that day. Bob finished third behind George Witzman and Eddie Johnson in the 25-lap feature race that was run in 6 minutes and 25 seconds. Four days later, on Sunday afternoon June 15, the highlight of Bob Harner’s season and perhaps his racing career came as he drove Pollock Offenhauser the Pollock midget to victory in the Zeiter Speedways 100-lap national championship race at the Bainbridge Speedway.

Early in the month of July 1947, Bob Harner was on the road in the East, racing on the ¼-mile dirt track at the Cambria County Fairgrounds in Ebensburg Pennsylvania on the 14th. Less than a month later, fellow Akron midget racer George “Joe” Selzer was killed in Ebensburg after his midget hooked wheels with Eddie Johnson’s machine on the 18th lap of the 25-lap main event. Selzer’s car flipped high in the air, and Selzer the 1946 “Ohio midget champion” was thrown onto the track surface and killed instantly

A week after his appearance in the July 14th Ebensburg race, Harner was in the village of Goshen New York racing on the historic three-cornered Good Time Park one-mile dirt track in an American Racing Drivers Club (ARDC) 100-lap race with one-armed Texas driver Wes Saegessor, and Clarence LaRue, along with ARDC regulars Ted Tappet (Phil Walters), Len Duncan, and Ed ”Dutch” Schaefer.

The triangular harness racing track, owned by William H. Cane, also hosted three AAA championship car races during its existence – the first in 1936 was won by Rex Mays for his first championship win, and the two ‘George Robson Memorial’ races promoted by Langhorne Speedway’s Vincent “Jimmy” Frattone. The first Robson race was held October 6 1946 (a little over a month after Robson’s death) and the second August 17 1947, both won by Tony Bettenhausen.

Good Time Park fell on hard times after Mr. Cane’s death in 1956 and it lost its major annual draw the Hambletonian Stakes to the Illinois State Fairgrounds at DuQuoin State Fairgrounds; the dilapidated 2200-seat covered grandstand was torn down in the late 1970’s, but the outline of the track remains visible. 

The latter part of the month of July 1947 found Bob Harner back home racing in the Akron Rubber Bowl. On July 16, Harner finished in third place behind his Pollock teammate Jack Kabat and Elmer Williams of Toledo before 6,926 fans. Two weeks later on July 30 1947 things did go as well for the Pollock teammates. A crowd of 8,762 fans watched as during the 25-lap main event Kabat and Harner were caught up in the same melee and both Pollock Kurtis Kraft midgets crashed into the wooden outer retaining wall and were eliminated. Akron native Clarence LaRue claimed the win that night over Pennsylvania’s Mike Little and Bob Orr.

Harnar looked to future when on July 21 1947, along with Carl Scarborough, the 1946 CSRA midget and big car champion, and “Cowboy” Gays Biro the trio formed Ohio Midget Auto racing Incorporated, which promoted races as Tri-State Auto Racing Association.  This mostly forgotten group promoted races and crowned champions from 1947 through 1965 and owned and operated Tri-State Speedway in New Castle Pennsylvania in 1970 and 1971.

Bob Harner raced at Princess Anne Speedway in Norfolk Virginia located on the grounds of the “Agricade” fairgrounds several times during the 1947 season. The original ½- mile harness racing track hosted ‘big car’ races during the nineteen thirties, but in 1946 a ¼-mile paved track was built in the infield, leased to and promoted by Sherman “Red” Crise who presented Tuesday night motorcycle and midget car racing programs through 1949.  

During a qualifying heat race at Princess Anne on August 12 1947 Marvin “Shorty” Miller, a rookie midget driver from Lansdale Pennsylvania, crashed after his Ford V8-60 powered midget hit the backstretch guardrail. The car flipped and landed upside down with the 23-year old US Army veteran pinned beneath the car. Miller died at the DePaul Hospital in nearby Norfolk the following day, never having regained consciousness.  

After the 1949 season, the pavement at the Princess Anne ¼-mile track was removed and from then on it mainly hosted modified stock car races on the dirt track with occasional ARDC midget appearances. In the mid nineteen fifties, NASCAR as a sanctioning group came to Princess Anne Speedway and there were several races held there by the short-lived NASCAR midget group. In August 1953, the track hosted a 100-mile NASCAR Grand National stock car race which was won by Herb Thomas in his ‘Fabulous’ Hudson Hornet.  The property was sold for development in following the 1954 racing season.      

On October 5, Powell Speedway located 14 miles north of downtown Columbus near the west end of Ohio State Route 750, hosted the 100-lap AAA sanctioned 1947 Midwestern Midget Championship race. The entry list showed at least eighteen Offenhauser powered midgets piloted by “hard-bitten speed merchants” that included Harnar, Ralph Pratt, Bobby Orr, and Bill Covello. The racers competed for “the richest purse ever paid at Powell” in addition to the “huge George Byers and Sons Inc. Trophy “emblematic of Midwestern midget supremacy.” Byers and Sons was a large area car dealership that had grown from its original roots as a livery stable. Unfortunately, despite all the pre-race publicity, the author was unable to find the results of this race.  

Powell Speedway, known as times as Powell Motor Speedway or Powell Raceway was a ½ -mile steeply banked dirt track that encircled a ¼-mile dirt track built by returning World War 2 soldier Chuck Murphy and his father on the old site of the Delaware County Fairgrounds which had been vacant for nine years. Powell Speedway and the adjacent Murphy’s Party Barn opened for business in June 1946. During its existence the track hosted AAA big cars and midgets, Tom Cherry’s All American Racing Club (AARC) track roadsters, motorcycles, NASCAR, Midwest Association for Race Cars, Inc. (MARC) stock cars, drag races, and daredevil auto thrill shows. Both the dimensions and surface of the two tracks at Powell changed several times during its history under a succession of track operators.

The death of 41-year old Detroit Michigan car owner George Sparks who was struck by the passing race car of Nelson Stacy in the pit area during the race on July 4 1960 and the resulting lawsuit led to Powell Raceway’s closure in 1962. Spark’s widow filed suit claiming that the track and MARC failed to provide a protective barrier for the pit area. Local sports car and motorcycle clubs continued to maintain the grounds and held gymkhana events there through the nineteen seventies. With the growth of the Columbus area following the construction of the 270 beltway, the 100-acre property was finally sold for a housing development around 2000.    

During the winter of 1947-8, Bob Harner traveled south to San Antonio Texas with Toledo racer Elmer Wilson to race in the Pan American Speedway’s winter series, which paid a $1000 purse for each Sunday’s races. The track on Austin Highway in San Antonio was owned and promoted by Jimmy Johnson, and was laid out by an engineer to ensure “the exact dimension for a fifth mile” and used “a combination of sand and clay for a dustless race track.” 

The 1947-8 winter Pan American midget races were dominated by hometown one-armed driver Wes Saegesser in the new $12,000 Stanfield Offenhauser midget. Buzz Barton won the feature race on November 30, after Saegesser crashed in his heat race, but of particular interest to historians was 25-year old Texas racer Eugene “Jud” Larson’s third place finish in the Class B feature.

In 1948, Larson won the AAA Oklahoma/Texas midget driving championship, and within a couple of years, Jud would become a star in the IMCA (International Motor Contest Association) sprint cars. Eventually Jud reached the pinnacle of the sport, the AAA and USAC championship cars, in a career marked with accomplishments that led to Jud’s induction into both the National Sprint Car and Midget Auto Racing Halls of Fame.  

The “original” Pan American Speedway operated as a dirt facility until it was paved in 1956 and racing continued at Pan American Speedway until 1964, and then it became known as Mercury Speedway during it final season of existence during 1965. A “new” Pan American Speedway a paved ¼-mile oval track was built on Toepperwein Road and operated until 1978. 

This article does not purport to be a complete record of Bob Harner’s (or Harnar) midget racing career during 1947, as the author mainly used period newspaper articles to trace Harner’s travels, which obviously leaves the picture of Harner's career incomplete.

Unfortunately, Harner's results in many of the races he entered are lost to time.  Stories in the local newspaper in advance of a local race were used by the race promoter as an inexpensive way to increase fan interest and attendance.

The results of races are often lacking, unless something extraordinary occurred, as local small town sportswriters seldom covered racing events. Promoters frequently did not issue post-race results, as their thinking was that publicity after the fact did nothing to improve the paid attendance.

Midget racer Bob Harner in 1945 & 1946

 

By 1945, midget racer Bob Harner (or Harnar) and his wife Martha were the parents of three daughters – Marcia, born in 1938, Nancy, born in 1941, and Linda, born in 1944.  A son, Robert Junior, was born later in September 1946 which completed their family.

The author’s research did not locate any records of Bob Harner's (or Harnar) service in any branch of the United States military during World War 2.  The author suspects this might have been on religious reasons, since at various times during his pre-war racing career, Harner was described in newspaper articles as the “the Flying Amishman” or “the Mormon star from Akron.”

On August 17 1945, Colonel John Monroe Johnson, the Director of the Office of Defense Transportation lifted the wartime ban on automobile racing, just two days after Japan surrendered.  Harner obviously wasted little time in the resumption of his racing career, as in a nationwide Associated Press article dated September 6, 1945 from Buffalo New York, Bob Harner was described as “a member of a religious sect which does not believe in shaving.” 

Harner, who was in town for a race that evening revealed that he had removed his beard and he was quoted: "My beard interfered with driving. Trouble was the wind would roar through it and half the time I couldn't see where I was headed."

As we trace Bob Harner’s travels during the abbreviated 1945 and the 1946 racing schedule, consider that these were the days before the creation of the interstate highway system and race teams riding in a semi-tractor ‘toterhome’ towing an enclosed 40-foot long stacker trailer filled with spare race cars and parts.  In 1946, racers towed their midget race car loaded on a single-axle open trailer behind their passenger cars over unlit two-lane backroads, often speeding in order to reach their next racing destination in hopes of catching a few hours of sleep before they had to work on their car in the track parking lot.      

On October 21 1945 Harner raced the #97 Ford V8-60 powered midget at Fort Miami Speedway located on the grounds of the Lucas County Fairgrounds in Maumee Ohio, ten miles southwest of Toledo.  The former horse racing facility had hosted automobile racing as far back as 1905, as it did on July 30 of that year when hometown star Berna Eli “Barney” Oldfield and the Peerless Green Dragon met Dayton, Ohio’s Earl Kiser and the Winton Bullet for a series of match races held on the mile dirt track. The first 3-lap match race was called a draw, but unfortunately the “Bullet” suffered a cracked front axle during the race and had to retire for the afternoon.  

A ¼-mile infield dirt track located in the infield of the Lucas County Fairgrounds mile track had been built and hosted midget racing dating back to 1939, but on this day, the long race was held on the big one-mile track.  33 midget cars posted qualifying times for the 100-mile ‘National Championship’ midget race promoted by Gerald Good, and Perry Grim posted the day’s quick time at 41.87 seconds.  Fourteen of the cars entered were Offenhauser powered, and in a scenario familiar to modern midget racing fans, one engine was dominant, as seven of the top ten qualifiers drove Offenhauser-powered mounts.  

In addition to Harner and Grimm, the entry list included Bill Boyd, Gays Biro, Myron Fohr, Al Bonnell, Henry Banks, Tony Bettenhausen and one-armed driver Wes Saegesser. The feature was won by Bettenhausen, followed by Boyd and Grimm with the first eight finishers all in Offenhauser-powered machines. Bob Harner’s results are unknown as he was not among the top ten finishers. 

The first reported race of Bob Harnar’s busy 1946 racing season came at the Rubber Bowl in Akron on May 7 against a field that included Hawaii’s Wally Stokes, Michigan’s Johnny Wohlfeil, and Ralph Pratt from Nebraska.

We next found Harner racing in the northwestern New York city of Lockport, home of the Niagara County Fairgrounds.  This facility had hosted big car racing on the half mile dirt oval since 1927, but the midgets raced on June 6 1946 on the ¼ mile track built inside the ½-mile track.  In his book Sunday Driver, writer and broadcaster Brock Yates recalls his grandfather taking him to his first race at this, his hometown track, at age 12 in 1946- could Yates have attended the June 6th race?

Midget, big car and stock car races at the ‘Lockport Fairgrounds’ were later promoted by veteran racing promoter Walter C. Stebbins’ ‘Stebbins Speedways’ organization Allan Brown’s excellent reference book The History of America's Speedways: Past and Present states that racing ended at Lockport on the ½ -mile track in 1949 and on the ¼-mile oval in 1950, but not before Lockport became the site of the first URC (United Racing Club) sanctioned sprint car race in 1948. The race track at Lockport is long gone, with only the line of trees that once lined the outside of the east end of the ½-mile track to bear testament to its existence.

 

 

Three days later, on Sunday June 9 1946,  Harner was near his home in northeastern Ohio racing in another Don Zeiter promotion at the “new” Bainbridge Speedway, a one-mile dirt track about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland.  13,161 fans watched as the midget of Carl “Bud” Hamilton from Columbus Ohio hooked the second turn inner guardrail on the second lap of the 100-lap feature. Hamilton’s car hooked a guardrail post, then flipped and “Bud” was ejected onto the track surface, and two following midget cars ran over him.

Hamilton survived the accident, but suffered a fractured skull, two broken legs, and a punctured lung. During the crash, a wheel off Hamilton’s car broke off and hit Harner’s passing car which caused Harner to hit the outer guardrail and spin to a stop. Bob was able to restart but his car later retired with unspecified mechanical failure.  Duane Carter won the 100 lapper in one hour eighteen minutes in a race marred by high attrition as only four cars finished.

 

The Bainbridge Fairgrounds, near the Geauga Lake Amusement Park, hosted automobile racing from 1946 to 1951 on the one-mile dirt track originally built in 1927 for horse racing. The Bainbridge track hosted a July 13 1947 15-car AAA (American Automobile Association) championship race, won by Ted Horn by a lap over Bill Holland when the race was flagged at 90 laps due to rain.  In 1951, Bainbridge Speedway hosted a NASCAR 100-lap stock car race won by Truman “Fonty” Flock and open-wheel veteran Dick Rathmann finished in second place.  During the 1950's, a smaller 1000-meter track, known as the Grandview Race Track, was built in the infield for harness horse racing. The Bainbridge Fairgrounds closed in 1969 and the site was developed for commercial use, and is now the site of a Home Depot store.

Two weeks later, on Sunday June 23 1946, Harner was entered to race at the New Kensington Fairgrounds in western Pennsylvania. Promoted by racer Don Meyer, the nine race program, topped by a 25 lap feature race on the ¼-mile dirt oval, also featured entries from Howard Ripple of Pittsburgh, local driver Art Holbrook, Earl Hopkins, and Jimmy Florian.

‘Big Car’ racing began on the original New Kensington half-mile track located on Tarentum Bridge Road, not far from the south bank of the Allegheny River, as early as 1927 and continued until 1931, according to the late historian Don Radbruch. In September 1938, a semi-banked ¼-mile track opened in the infield and midgets ran there until Memorial Day 1941. After the war, the ¼-mile track reopened and midget racing resumed until 1949, and then the track was closed until 1952 when it reopened for two seasons of jalopy racing. The Fairgrounds property later became the site of a drive-in movie theatre but now is the site of several fast food restaurants and commercial buildings.

Bob Harner spent the 1946 Fourth of July holiday racing close to home, first in the “gala preholiday program and midseason championship” held at the Rubber Bowl in Akron on July 3 1946.  In addition to the nine-race program that included a maiden race, a 50-lap ‘Class A’ feature and 40-lap ‘Class B’ feature, radio and movie stars George Burns and Gracie Allen appeared live.

Harner raced at the Fort Miami Speedway on July 5 1946 and finished in 10th place in a controversial program. Twenty-two cars started the 100-lap feature but the dust on the track was so bad that racing was immediately halted and the track was wet down, which resulted in a two-hour delay. When racing resumed, the field was short five drivers who elected not to race due the track conditions.

Roy Duby dominated the race but was forced to pit for a new rear tire on lap 96, but Duby believed he had a comfortable three-lap lead over Tony Bettenhausen in second place. However when the checkered flag dropped moments later, the race win went to Bettenhausen who had apparently unlapped himself during Duby’s stop and crossed the line 35 seconds ahead of Duby. Duby and his crew vehemently protested, but after a scoring check, officials confirmed that Duby’s lead was only two laps when he pitted, and Bettenhausen’s win was upheld.

 

Midget racer Roy Duby

Roy Duby from Fenton Michigan was an Upper Midwest post-war midget racing star, but Duby’s greatest fame came later in hydroplane boat racing. Around 1950, Duby gave up on midget racing and began working as a crew chief (and occasionally driver) for a succession of hydroplane boat racing teams based out of the Detroit Yacht Club, including teams owned by Detroit bakery magnate Jack Schafer, the Schoenith family of electrical contractors, machinery re-seller George Simon, and big band leader Guy Lombardo.

Roy Duby’s career with the unlimited inboard boats spanned the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. In a Detroit River test run in 1952, Schafer’s giant twin-engine Allison-powered hydroplane ‘Such Crust III’ flipped and Duby suffered a broken back. Three years later, as the crew chief for Lombardo’s blue and gold ‘Tempo VII’ the boat won five races over the latter half of the season and was crowned the National High Point Champion. 

On April 17, 1962, Duby became the fastest man in a piston-engine propeller-driven hydroplane as he averaged 200.419 MPH in a pair of straight-line runs in the ‘US 1’ hydroplane on Guntersville Lake in Alabama. Duby retired from competitive boat racing in 1968, but later served as a coach for rookie hydroplane (and future Indianapolis 500) driver David ‘Salt’ Walther in 1970.  Duby's record still stands today.

The Fort Miami Speedway facility later hosted two NASCAR hardtop races in 1951 and 1952 both of which were won by Julius “Tim” Flock. Auto racing ceased when the track facility was remodeled in 1958 and known as “Maumee Downs,” featured horse racing until 1961. The grandstand and track were torn down in 1965 to make way for Lucas County Stadium, which served as the home of the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball club until 2002.

With the departure of the Mud Hens, the stadium is part of the Lucas County Recreation Center Complex and is used for amateur games. There still is automobile racing held on the 128-acre grounds as the Northwestern Ohio Quarter Midget Racing Association (NWOQMA) has hosted races on 1/20th mile track since 1962. Current United States Auto Club (USAC) Silver Crown and midget racer Austin Nemire started his racing career at the Lucas County track.  

Steubenville Speedway, a ¼ mile dirt track located in an area known as Butte’s Field in the eastern Ohio town that borders the Ohio River hosted Bob Harner’s next recorded race. Originally an air field built in 1922 on property owned by Frank Butte, “the Field” also hosted circuses and horse shows. An illegal dog racing track was built on the grounds during the early 1930’s and operated for a couple of years before it was shut down by the authorities.

Proponents tried to reopen the Butte's Field dog racing track in 1939, but a bill to legalize pari-mutuel betting on greyhound racing failed to pass the Ohio House. The unused dog track hosted the occasional traveling auto thrill show, such as the ‘Jimmy Lynch Death Dodgers’ before promoter Don Zeitler brought weekly midget car racing in 1941.

The initial date for the first post-war midget race at the Butte’s Field track, promoted by Zeiter Speedways, Thursday night July 11 1946, was rained out during time trials and was rescheduled for a week later.  Besides Harner, other drivers entered for the eight-race program included Roy Sherman from Los Angeles, Jack Kabat from Cleveland, 1940 Ohio Midget champion Wild Bill Boyd, and Bill Spears. The little track, later called Butte Speedway, hosted weekly motorcycle races in 1948 then stock cars in 1951.

The Butte’s Field area north of the corner Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards, was re-developed in the late 1950’s and is now the Hollywood housing subdivision and shopping center. Steubenville’s St. John’s Community Arena hosted indoor three-quarter midget and motorcycle racing on a 1/8-mile track laid out on the concrete floor during the mid-nineteen sixties.   

Unfortunately the author was not able to find any other records for Bob Harner during the 1946 season. In later racing promotions, Bob was billed as the 1946 Virginia Circuit champion but the author cannot verify that claim, or even find the existence of such a circuit. Can any of our readers help solve the mystery? 

A note to our readers:

This article does not purport to be a complete record of Bob Harner’s (or Harnar) midget racing career during 1946, as the author used newspaper articles to trace Harner’s travels, which obviously left the picture of Harner's career incomplete. 

Unfortunately, Harner's results in many of the races we know about are lost to time.  Stories in the local newspaper a few days in advance of a local race were used as an inexpensive way for the promoter to increase fan interest and attendance.

The results of races are often lacking, unless something extraordinary occurred, as local small town sportswriters seldom covered races. Promoters frequently did not issue post-race results, as their thinking was that publicity after the fact did nothing to improve the paid attendance. 

 

 

 

 

Midget racer Bob Harner before World War 2.

Photograph of Bob Harner provided by JD Cormack

JD Cormack recently shared two vintage photographs with the author of nineteen forties and fifties midget racer Bob Harner .  While Harner (his actual family surname was spelled Harnar)  did not have a Hall of Fame midget racing career, research into his racing career demonstrated how popular midget racing was during the post-World War 2 period, as Harner raced at a number of long-lost and little-known tracks all across our country. In a series of short articles, we will trace Harner’s travels to these various tracks and trace the history of the individual tracks.

Bob Harner was born in Akron Ohio in 1916, raced locally in the Northeastern Ohio area during 1942 and newspaper articles credited Harner with winning the 1941 West Virginia 'Class B' midget championship.

Harner appeared on the half-mile dirt at the Mansfield Fairgrounds located on Springmill Street in a pair of shows promoted by famed thrill show promoter B. Ward Beam. Beam had originally run a flight school near his hometown of Celina Ohio in 1917 but later went bust with a failed airplane manufacturing company.

By 1923, Beam had formed ‘Ward Beam's International Congress of Daredevils,’ a barnstorming thrill show that featured the ‘T-Bone crash’ and the lengthwise transcontinental bus jump. In addition to his thrill show bookings, at various times Beam also promoted races at Roby Speedway in Hammond Indiana near Chicago and the deadly half-mile board track at Bridgeville Pennsylvania.

On Sunday afternoon May 3rd 1942,  26-year old Bob Harner’s name was among those on the entry list for an open competition midget racing program which was paired with “Lucky” Lee Lott’s Hell Drivers thrill show at Mansfield. 

While we have no results for Harner in the May 3^rd race, the day’s 15-lap feature race was captured by Toledo’s Al Menominee on what was described as a “dust-bound” track, despite a week’s worth of track preparation and the sprinkling of the track surface the night before the race. The racing program was interrupted several times during the afternoon as young boys swarmed the track, but the reported crowd of 10,000 went home awestruck after they witnessed Lucky Lott’s transcontinental bus jump with a stock automobile.

Fortunately, we found more information about Harner’s next reported race a month later at Akron’s Rubber Bowl stadium, a venue which had hosted midget car racing since in June 1941. Built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) crews during 1939, the 30,000 seat horseshoe-shaped stadium’s primary tenant was the University of Akron ‘Zips’ football team.

Veteran Cleveland racing promoter Don Zeiter leased the Rubber Bowl Stadium, located adjacent to the Akron Fulton Airport, Goodyear Airdock, and Derby Downs (the home of the All-American Soap Box Derby) from the City of Akron fore weekly midget races in exchange for a minimum rental fee or a percentage of the nightly profits, whichever was greater.  Zeiter’s crews built and maintained a one-fifth-mile cinder oval track with elevated turns with an inside wooden rail to keep the racers off the football field.

On Thursday night June 4, 1942, with 3,500 paying fans in the stands, Bob Harner who lived on the south side of Akron with his wife and two daughters, finished third in the 25-lap preliminary “Class B” feature before Dennis ‘Duke’ Nalon outdueled local Steubenville driver ‘Wild’ Bill Boyd and Duane Carter for the victory in 25-lap “Class A” feature.

After going silent for World War 2, midget car racing resumed at the Rubber Bowl on April 26 1946.  The number generated during the 1946 racing season at the Rubber Bowl demonstrates how popular midget racing was immediately following the War. The 1946 Rubber Bowl season featured 24 races and paid attendance totaled 260,607. The City of Akron received $31,409.00 as the city's portion of the profits per the agreement with promoter Zeiter, which is equivalent to over $370,000 in 2015.    

Midget racing at the Rubber Bowl continued through 1959 despite two tragedies. On the night of May 24 1947 during the fourth race of the evening, the midget racer of Jack Walkup of nearby Stow, Ohio brushed the outer wooden wall.  The right rear wheel of Walkup’s machine broke off, and as 10,000 horrified fans watched, the wheel bounced into the stands and struck 26-year old George V. Chupek on the left side of the head.

Chupek an unmarried tire factory employee and former paratrooper who had survived five campaigns in the European theater during World War II was killed instantly, but miraculously his date for the evening, Mary Ellison, seated in the box seat next to Chupek escaped miraculously unharmed.  

Chupek’s surviving family members later filed suit against the City of Akron, but the suit was eventually dismissed by the Summit County Court of Appeals in February 1951, which stated in part that the city, acting as a landlord was not liable for failure to make the premises safe.

Just over a year after the Chupek tragedy, on Thursday night May 27 1948, veteran Detroit driver George Witzman was warming up Jim White’s Offenhauser powered midget before the evening’s racing program when the car’s steering assembly apparently froze. The car crashed through the wooden outer fence and overturned with the worst result, as Witzman was transported to the Akron City Hospital where he died six hours later. His car owner who ran the Fort Miami Speedway and Witzman’s fellow competitors staged a memorial race at the Fort Miami Speedway on June 4 to benefit Witzman’s widow and five children.

In early 1949, promoter Don Zeiter sold his 'Zeiter Midget Speedways' operation to Earl Clay and retired to his farm in Northern Michigan.  Harold Zeiter bid on the operation of the Rubber Bowl midget races in 1949, but lost out to a syndicate led by Rubber Bowl manager Charles Burns. Burns' team which included Ed Palmer and sports promoter Bill Griffith bid promised the City a minimum of $450 per event or 15% of the gross profits after taxes whichever was greater. 

Harold Zeiter's bid promised 18 1/2% of the gross profits after taxes but a lower minimum, which the City shied away from, as attendance at the Rubber Bowl midget races was dropping due to the general decline in the popularity of midget racing and the opening of new larger local tracks built exclusively for racing; both took a heavy toll on spectator turn-out for races held at the Rubber Bowl. From a high in 1946  of 260,607, in 1947 paid attendance for the season dropped to 202,753, and in 1948 season attendance fell further to 112,155.  

Rubber Bowl racing promoters later added hot rod roadsters and stock cars to the ARDC (American Racing Drivers Club) midget racing programs with little success before racing at the Rubber Bowl ceased at the end of the 1959 season.

The Rubber Bowl remained the home to football and the occasional concert (including the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane in 1972) until the final Akron Zips football game at the Rubber Bowl was held on November 13, 2008. After the Zips moved their home games to a new on-campus stadium, the Rubber Bowl has fallen into disrepair as it passed through the hands of various owners, each with plans to renovate the stadium, none of which ever came to fruition. The latest scheduled event at the Rubber Bowl, a hip-hop concert in May 2015, was relocated due to the dilapidated condition of the Rubber Bowl.  

On the afternoon of June 7, 1942, Bob Harnar, billed as the "Flying Amishman from Akron," raced on the Ashland Fairgrounds 3/8-mile dirt track which was located inside the harness racing track in Ashland, Ohio. This special program was rescheduled after a rain out on Memorial Day. Harnar, advertised as the "1941 West Virginia Class B dirt track champion," signed up during the extra week to race against  drivers nicknamed the "Indianapolis Big Three" - Dennis 'Duke' Nalon, Paul Russo, and Mel Hanson, who was billed as the "Firecracker Kid from Los Angeles."   Since the Indianapolis Motor Speedway had suspended racing for the duration on December 29 1941, these three drivers were not busy at their typical venue on Memorial Day 1942.  The seven-race program was scheduled to be topped by a 15-lap feature, but the results from that day are lost to history.
    

Bob Harner’s next race, and his last race until after World War 2, was on Sunday July 26 1942 again at the Mansfield Fairgrounds half-mile track, in a race that Ward Beam billed as “Positively your Last Chance to see races until after the War.” Although the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 and the United States Congress declared war on Japan the following day, life on the domestic front did not change overnight. For example, gasoline rationing did not go into effect in 17 Eastern states until May 15 1942, and rationing only went nationwide on December 1 1942.    

In order to conserve rubber, the Office of Defense Transportation General Order 14 part 501 had initially commanded that all auto racing must cease at midnight on July 10, 1942, but the date was later moved to midnight on July 31, 1942.  Harner and the Central States Racing Association drivers participated in the “One Half Mile Midget Championship” show with 22 cars entered for eight races in a program supplemented by the ‘International Congress of Daredevils’ thrill show which climaxed with a rocket car bus jump by Captain Dick Rogers.

In addition to being the last local race until after the war, this also marked the final auto race held at the Mansfield Fairgrounds on Springmill Street. The Richland County Fair was relocated to its present site, 3-1/2 miles northwest in 1956, and the Fair Board sold the site to its current occupant, Taylor Metal Products Company.  

In future chapters, we will follow intrepid midget racer Bob Harner as he resumed touring and racing across the country after World War Two.