The Johnny Shackleford story


part two

Johnny Shackleford's 1948 official driver photograph

courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection in

the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Unlike our modern era of racing where drivers travel between racing dates either in a motorhome, transporter or private airplane, post-war race car drivers often traveled together in groups. Before the creation of the modern system of highways, travel to the race tracks on unlighted two-lane roads could prove just as dangerous and adventurous as the races themselves. During their travels, race car drivers formed strong friendships and John H. "Johnny" Shackleford grew particularly close to fellow dirt track drivers Joie Chitwood, Duke Dinsmore and Travis “Spider” Webb.

Drivers struggled for their shot at glory at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, because simply qualifying for the Indianapolis starting field provided a sizeable payday, but unless they had a ride set up in advance, most drivers eschewed the Speedway.


Those drivers believed they could earn more money by racing on the dirt tracks against depleted fields of competitors during the month of May instead of spending their days trying to convince car owner to give them a shot in a competitive car on the big 2-1/2 mile brick-paved oval.

Rather than head to Indianapolis for the 1947 ‘500,’ Johnny Shackleford from Dayton Ohio took part in the 30-lap big car race at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania on May 4 1947, and finished fourth behind Horn, Dinsmore, and Tommy Hinnershitz.


A week later, Shackleford stopped off in his hometown and handily won the 20-lap AAA Midwestern big car season opener at Dayton Speedway. Driving the ‘Iddings Special’ he finished in a time of eight minutes and 17.2 seconds ahead of a pair of Detroit drivers, Eddie Zalucki and Carl Scarborough.

The ‘Iddings Special,’ sponsored by a pair of brothers, John and Howard who ran an eponymous auto parts store in Greenville Ohio, had been built by Henry Meyer, his father and brother Bob in the basement of Henry’s house on Shakespeare Avenue in Dayton over the winter of 1937-8. Originally equipped with a double overhead camshaft ‘Hal’ four-cylinder racing engine, in the post-war period it was equipped with an Offenhauser engine. 

The next race on the 1947 AAA Midwestern big car schedule was held on May 25 at Funk’s Speedway in Winchester Indiana, a track very similar to Dayton Speedway, as it was high-banked and wickedly fast.  The race was won by Detroit’s Carl Scarborough trailed by Shackleford.

The next round for the 1947 AAA Midwest series came on Sunday June 15 at Dayton Speedway.  Duke Dinsmore took the win on a tragic day as 45-year old racer Elbert “Pappy” Booker perished when his car drifted into the wall and overturned. As his wife and daughter watched from the grandstand, Booker was thrown from his car suffered a skull fracture and was pronounced dead upon arrival at the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Dayton. 

The following Saturday the AAA Midwest big cars raced at Salem Speedway, in Southern Indiana the third of four similar high-banked oval tracks on the circuit and Pennsylvania Dutch farmer Tommy Hinnershitz picked up the win.


During the afternoon’s first preliminary heat race, the wheels of the cars of Clay Corbitt and Jack Schultz interlocked and both cars flipped wildly up the embankment and out of the track.  Corbitt died on the scene and Schultz was critically injured and died in 1952 never having recovered from his spinal cord injuries. 

On Saturday June 29 the 15-race AAA Midwestern series paid a visit to the Ohio State Fairgrounds track in a race which was won by AAA Eastern “big car “division points leader Bill Holland, who just a month earlier had finished second in his rookie appearance in the 1947 Indianapolis 500-mile race. 


The AAA series returned to Salem Speedway for the race on July 4  and Hinnershitz broke the old record track by six seconds during qualifying, then went on to win the 20-lap feature in record time of eight minutes and four seconds ahead of Harold “Hal” Robson, Jackie Holmes, and Johnny Shackleford. 

29 days later at Salem Speedway, Hinnershitz won again, and then the series moved to the Milwaukee Mile on the grounds of the State Fairgrounds for a rare back to back Thursday-Friday program during the Wisconsin State Fair on August 21 and 22nd. Rex Mays the two-time pre-war AAA National Champion in a rare appearance in a “big car” set fast time on the wide dirt oval both days and won both programs in clean sweeps.


On Wednesday night August 27, Johnny, while still in the lead for the AAA Midwest "big car" championship took advantage of an open date in the Midwestern schedule and raced with the AAA Eastern big cars where he was in the top five in points.

Shackleford’s Midwestern points lead was endangered as on three consecutive Sundays - September, the 7th, 14th and 21st, ‘Spider’ Webb in the Leach Cracraft Offenhauser won the feature races at Dayton, Salem and Winchester respectively.  Ted Horn won the October 12 1947 feature at Dayton Speedway and Webb won for the fourth time during the 1947 season as he won the Midwestern season finale at Salem Speedway. Despite Webb’s late season heroics, Johnny Shackleford was crowned the 1947 AAA Midwest division big car champion with just one victory to his credit. 

Late in the 1947 season, Duke Dinsmore arranged a ride in an Indianapolis car for his friend Shackleford, an Offenhauser-powered car built in 1934 by Clyde Adams. The car was Duke’s “500’ entry from the previous year which was without a driver owned by Fred W Johnston a service station owner in Hamilton Ohio.


Period newspapers identified the car as the 1936 Indianapolis ‘500’ winning car, but in actuality the Adams chassis was the one that Louis Meyer had driven in the 1934 ‘500.’ Mutual friend Spider Webb occasionally drove Johnston’s “big car” and had driven the Johnston-owned Adams chassis in two races during the 1946 season.




Shackleford qualified the Johnston entry for the 1947 Springfield 100 held on September 28 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds mile oval to start from the 15th positon in the 18-car starting field, but the car retired at the halfway point which earned Johnny $258 and 10 AAA championship points.  

On November 2, the newly crowned AAA Midwest champion appeared in the AAA championship race at the Arlington Downs in Texas, but the ‘Johnston Special’ broke a connecting rod inside the four-cylinder engine and Shackleford was unable to complete his qualifying run.  With the points he earned at Springfield, Johnny wound up tied with Hal Robson for 45th place in the 1947 AAA Championship chase.



Prior to heading to Indianapolis, Shackleford appeared in the 1948 AAA Eastern "big car" series opening race at Trenton New Jersey on April 18 and he finished fifth in a race won by Ted Horn.   

While his 1947 championship car results had disappointed, at least Johnny had set his ride for the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race with the Johnston #48 machine.  As a rookie driver at the big track, Shackleford was in good company as many of the drivers he had raced with on the dirt tracks - Spider Webb, Lee Wallard, Walt Ader, George Metzler and Jackie Holmes - were Speedway rookies as well.


Early on the final day of 1948 '500' qualifications on Saturday May 29th, Johnny Shackelford was the day's first qualifier in the Johnston Offenhauser posted an average speed of 121.745 miles per hour for his four-lap ten-mile qualifying run.

After Louis Durant qualified the #29 Auto Shippers Special, the field was filled with 33 starters, and the “bumping” process began. One of the drivers ready to try to bump his way into field was Lee Wallard in the “Iddings Special.” Wallard, from upstate New York had passed his Indianapolis Motor Speedway rookie test early in the month in the ancient G&M Duesenberg-powered entry, then on the final day of qualifying May 28, he was behind the wheel of the ‘Iddings Special.’ 





The Iddings entry was the same Henry Meyer-built car Shackleford had driven to the 1947 Midwestern “big car” title, with its wheelbase stretched to be eligible to race at Indianapolis as a “championship car.” Wallard startlingly posted the fifth fastest run of the month with an average speed of 128.420 MPH. 

Spider Webb who had qualified the Anderson Offenhauser the previous weekend at 121.421 MPH had been bumped from the starting field, but came back late in the day behind the wheel of the Louis Bromme-wrenched “Fowler Offenhauser.”


Webb started his run just before the 6 PM deadline, but he pulled into the pit area at the end of his third lap after the yellow caution light had inadvertently flashed on. Officials claimed that they had seen debris on the track, although none was found, and an uproar ensued as Chief Steward Jack Mehan ruled that qualifying was closed for the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race.

After lengthy discussions Mehan finally relented and allowed Webb and the #51 car to return to the track and complete his qualifying run. Rather than a complete re-run, Speedway officials counted Webb’s first two laps, and combined that time with the time from his final two laps to record a composite four-lap average speed of 125.454 MPH that displaced his friend Johnny Shackleford from the starting field.

Lee Wallard shown in 1951 wearing his

Champion Spark Plug 100-MPH club jacket earned in 1948

courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection in

the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital studies

 

Wallard at 35 years old was the fastest rookie in the 33-car starting field behind the wheel of Henry Meyers’ stretched wheelbase sprint car fitted with a 232 cubic inch Offenhauser engine. Wallard started the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race from the 28th position and finished in seventh place. As Wallard completed the full race distance at 109.77 MPH, he earned admittance into the revered Champion Spark Plug 100-mile per hour club.

Although his “Johnston Special” did not make the starting field, Johnny did compete in the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race albeit as a relief driver. Joie Chitwood started the Ted Nyquist-owned car originally built by Wilbur Shaw as his “Pay Car” in the 1948 '500,' but Joie needed replacement behind the wheel by lap 54.

Veteran racer Paul Russo climbed in and drove until lap 74, when Chitwood returned, but Joie once again needed relief after he completed his 105th lap.  Johnny Shackleford took over driving duties of the Nyquist Special until lap 137 when he pitted with a leaking fuel tank - the car was retired from the race and placed in 17th position.  

The week after Indianapolis on June 6 1948 Johnny Shackleford took the wheel the #91 ‘Iddings Special’ for the Milwaukee 100 at the dirt Milwaukee Mile in place of Lee Wallard who was worn out after his Indianapolis adventure. Johnny easily qualified for the 18-car starting field, as the seventh fastest car of the 31 cars that posted qualifying times. 

Pole position starter Johnny Mantz led the first 71 circuits until the Offenhauser engine in the J C Agajanian #98 broke a piston and Mantz dropped out of the race. The third place starter Emil Andres picked up the lead in Carmine Tuffanelli’s “Tuffy’s Offy” and held on to win the race as Shackleford finished in seventh one lap behind Andres at the finish. For his efforts in the hour and fifteen minute race, Johnny earned $840 and 60 championship points.

A week later Shackleford and the “Iddings Special,” reconfigured as a “big car” were entered for the Sunday June 13th AAA Midwestern “big car” series race booked at the high-banked oiled dirt half-mile Dayton Speedway.  On the third lap of the day’s 20-lap feature, Shackleford ran in second place behind Ted Horn when he lost control of the car and the Iddings Special swerved into the fence. 

Johnny Shackleford's final moments shown in a

photograph scanned from the June 16 1948

edition of the Middletown Journal newspaper

 

The crowd of 11,000 fans watched in horror as the car began to roll over as it tore out a long section of the upper wooden guard railing at the top of banking.  The blue #91 car disappeared over the embankment then rolled and crashed to ground approximately 40 feet below. Johnny, 34 years old was taken to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Dayton where he died four hours later. John H. Shackelford Junior was laid to rest in the Woodland Cemetery in Dayton, Ohio.

 

The “Iddings Special” was rebuilt following Shackleford’s fatal accident and entered at the 1949 Indianapolis 500-mile race for rookie Johnny McDowell who qualified 27th and finished 18th. Mark Light failed to qualify the Iddings Special for the 1950 Indianapolis 500, then in practice at Indianapolis on Thursday May 24, 1951 rookie driver Jimmy Daywalt spun and hit the fourth turn wall in the “Iddings Special.”


The crash bent the frame and the car could not be repaired in time to make a qualifying attempt. In 1952 Texas rookie driver Jud Larson passed his rookie test in the John Zink Kurtis-Kraft 3000, then stepped out of that car in favor of the ”Iddings Special” but failed to make a qualifying attempt in the Henry Meyer-built machine’s final Indianapolis appearance.

Johnny Shackleford–part one

Johnny Shackleford in a photograph scanned

from the November 17 1945

edition of the Wilson Daily Times in

Wilson North Carolina

John H. “Johnny” Shackleford, Junior was born on November 24 1913 in the northeast Ohio town of Jefferson, but during his racing career he always listed his hometown as Dayton Ohio, which in that era was one of the “hot beds” of Midwestern auto racing.  This author has been unable to find any records of Shackleford’s early racing efforts, but in an article in the May 1 1941 edition of the Van Wert Times Bulletin provides a clue, as it stated that Johnny “will break into the limelight after riding in the shadows the past few seasons.”

That optimism was warranted as for the 1941 season-opening race at the Greenville Motor Speedway Johnny was scheduled to be behind the wheel of a “big car” (today known as a sprint car) owned by Carl Keppler of Springfield Ohio powered by a "copy of the four-cylinder Offenhauser engine built by Keppler himself."  Keppler, a former racer had his driving career cut short with a September 1929 crash at the New Bremen (Ohio) Speedway which shattered his pelvis and left him hospitalized for months afterward.

Photo courtesy of Kem Robertson

Subsequent research with assistance from fellow historian Kem Robertson indicates that the Keppler engine may have started as an Offenhauser copy, but it wound up quite a bit different. The Keppler 16-valve engine photographed when it was apart of Bob McConnell's collection, appears to be considerably different than an Offenhauser engine.  The author is anxious to learn more about Carl Keppler and his engine.

Photo courtesy of Kem Robertson

  

The race scheduled for May 4 1941 sanctioned by the Central States Racing Association (CSRA) on the high-banked dirt ½- mile track located southeast of the town of Greenville Ohio on Eidson Road attracted entries from many famous drivers that included Elbert “Pappy” Booker, Travis “Spider” Webb and Ed Zulacki. The CSRA was founded in February 1936 by a group of track promoters that included Frank Funk with high-banked tracks in Winchester, and Fort Wayne Indiana, Dr. J. K. Bailey of Dayton Speedway and Foster (Oscar) Schultz who promoted the Greenville oval. 

The CSRA was considered an “outlaw” club by the larger and more powerful AAA (American Automobile Association) and drivers that competed in “outlaw” events were not allowed to race in AAA events. Despite the threat of being banned by AAA, many drivers built reputations racing with the CSRA which offered larger purses than AAA races. The CSRA operation, which east of the state of Ohio was known as the Consolidated Racing Association, was run day to day by Norm Witte from an office next door to Dr. Bailey’s ear nose and practice on Clay Street in Dayton.    

Contemporary belief is that racing at Greenville ended at the end of the 1941 season, but in fact Greenville like many tracks continued to race until the Office of Defense Transportation banned automobile racing effective July 31 1942.  Sadly the ban came too late for two drivers Earl “Zook” Harton and Eugene “Woodie” Woodford who died together in a grinding crash at Greenville on May 10 1942.  

Shackleford must have experienced some decent success with the CSRA in the Keppler machine as later in the 1941 season when the CSRA returned to race Greenville, the Piqua Daily Call newspaper noted that the “world speed record holder” Emory Collins was “anxious to tangle with CSRA stars such as Jimmy Wilburn, Ben Musick and Johnny Shackelford who have been burning up the CSRA courses in early season races.” 

During World War II, Shackleford enlisted in the United States Army in February 1944 at Fort Thomas Kentucky and he listed his occupation as auto mechanic with two years of high school education, with his marital status listed as divorced with no dependents. It’s unclear what unit Johnny was assigned to during his brief service stint in the United States Army.

He was back in action in a race car less than a month after the official end of World War II.  Interestingly, the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT) allowed the resumption of midget auto racing on January 9 1945, prior to Germany’s surrender in May 1945, with the provision that the cars “operate on non-rationed fuels - industrial alcohol or petroleum distillates, and the tires used must be pre-war stock.” The general auto racing ban was lifted by ODT on August 17, 1945, days after the atomic bomb attacks on Japan but prior to Japan’s formal surrender.   

The 20-lap AAA-sanctioned feature race was held on Sunday September 30 1945 on the one-mile Trenton New Jersey Fairgrounds dirt track.  By joining the AAA ranks, Johnny was now on the pathway to eventually race at auto racing’s crown jewel, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Sadly on the eighteenth lap on the race, Harry Hutchinson lost control of his car entering the first turn crashed through the fence hit several parked cars and was “instantly killed.”

Bill Holland the 1940 and 1941 AAA Eastern champion who would later win the 1949 Indianapolis 500-mile race, tried to avoid the debris from Hutchinson crash and lost control of his car in the second turn, crashed through the wooden fence overturned and injured his left shoulder. The race was halted after the accident with veteran racer Joie Chitwood was declared the winner and Shackleford scored in second place.     

Chitwood, Shackleford and a list of well-known Eastern AAA drivers that included Frank Luptow of Detroit, Carlyle “Duke” Dinsmore of Dayton, “Pappy” Booker, Bill Holland, New Jersey’s Bob Sall, George “Dutch” Culp from Pennsylvania and Milt Marion of Long Island New York were scheduled to participate in a series of AAA sanctioned races in the Carolinas promoted by Sam Nunis. The first race on the tour was scheduled for October 7 1945 at the Greensboro Fairgrounds in north central North Carolina, and then two weeks later those same drivers were in action in another Nunis promotion at the Southern States Fairgrounds in Charlotte North Carolina.

The advertised highlights of these races were the entry of “five $10,000 Millers,” a reference to exotic pre-war dirt track racing cars built by the Harry A. Miller Company of Los Angeles, California. As a point of reference the average family income in 1945 was $2,400, and $10,000 in 1945 would be equivalent to $137,000 today. The North Carolina racing tour also included races at the Rocky Mount Fairgrounds on November 11 (postponed from November 4 by rain) and the finale at the Wilson Fairgrounds on November 18 1945.  

Shackleford opened his 1946 racing season at the end of March on the one-mile dirt track at Lakewood Park in Atlanta Georgia for the AAA-sanctioned “Mike Benton Sweepstakes,” named for the late President of the Southeastern Fair Board.  Before a reported crowd of 34,000 fans, Jimmy Wilburn won the “big car” race in record time as he covered the 20 mile distance in 14 minutes and 28.11 seconds, breaking Billy Winn’s standard set eight years earlier by 16 seconds. Indianapolis ‘500’ veteran Ted Horn finished second, with Chitwood third, Holland fourth and Shackleford in fifth position.

Johnny hadn’t yet been offered a ride at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, so Memorial Day 1946 found him racing an AAA “Big Car” at the one-mile oval in Trenton New Jersey. Shackleford drove Joie Chitwood’s Offenhauser-powered machine while Chitwood raced at the big Indianapolis oval. Shackleford won one of the preliminary heat races, and then won the 20-lap feature event over Bill Holland.

Johnny continued to race with the AAA “Back East” during June 1946 with appearances at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania on June 9, then at the Fairgrounds in Greensboro North Carolina on June 23, where he was billed in promoter Nunis’ pre-race advertising as the ‘Indiana State Champion.”  Thursday July 4th 1946 found Shackleford far to the west as he drove the “Christy Offenhauser” in the “National Championship Auto Races” at Des Moines Iowa.

Johnny, billed as the “western racing champion” scored a “clean sweep” in the July 7 1946 races at Williams Grove Speedway, as he notched the fastest qualifying time, won the “fast” heat race, and then won the feature event, which was called complete after 26 laps following the crash which injured Billy Devore. Johnny was one of the entries for the July 15 races in at Municipal Park in DuBois Pennsylvania which were sponsored by the local DuBois Brewery as part of a program of events billed as the “GI Homecoming Celebration.”  

Shackleford closed out the month of July 1946 with a repeat appearance at Langhorne on the 21st where he won his preliminary heat race and finished second in the feature behind George Robson, then again a week later at Williams Grove Speedway where he won the semi-main event then drove through the field to finish second behind Ted Horn after 1946 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner George Robson’s car broke an oil line on the 19th lap of the 30-lap feature event.

August 1946 found Shackleford on the Nunis Speedways Pennsylvania tour with stops in Bedford on August 10 where he was billed as the “1941 Indiana State Champion” behind the wheel of the Ted Nyquist Offenhauser-powered big car, and Johnny took part in an unusual “match race” pitting the Nyquist car against a midget race car for 10 laps around the Allentown Fair Grounds oval. 

Two weeks later, at Uniontown Speedway Johnny and the other touring “Indianapolis stars” were entered against a field of local drivers that included Otis Stine, Mark Light, and Walt Ader. Johnny, along with Horn, Stine, Ader, Chitwood and many other stars were scheduled to race at Williams Grove on October 20 in the heavily advertised 50-lap added purse “Championship Trophy Race” but the race was cancelled due to rain which ended Shackleford’s 1946 season.   

Racing at Indiana’s Lake Manitou Fairgrounds

 

 

Allen Brown’s comprehensive reference book The History of America's Speedways: Past and Present lists two ½-mile dirt oval tracks from the past located in the vicinity of the north central town Indiana town of Rochester.  

The Rochester Fairgrounds ½-mile track which operated during 1922 was the track where Hall of Fame racer Ira Hall began his racing career, according to an interview with Hall published in the May 21 1958 edition of the Terre Haute Star newspaper.   The second entry in the Brown book is the Rochester Speedway which operated from July 4 1927 to September 9 1934 and was the site of Ted Hartley’s first victory in a ‘big car’ in the inaugural race.

After conducting research which included the use of the resources of the Fulton County (Indiana) Library, specifically the Fulton County Handbook written by Wendell and John Tombaugh, the author is convinced that these two speedways listed in Brown’s book were in fact the same race track operated at different times by different promoters.   

The track was featured part of the eponymous fairgrounds built on the northwestern shore of Lake Manitou, a man-made lake created from three smaller spring-fed lakes with the construction of a dam.  The low dam was built in the eighteen twenties by the United States government to fulfill a treaty with the Potowatomi (alternately spelled Pottawatomie) tribe to build a corn grist mill near the lake outlet.

Local legend holds that the Potowatomi called the one of smaller original lakes “Man-I-Toe” translated as “Lake of Great Spirits” due to the tribe’s belief that a supernatural  serpent monster named ‘Meshekenabek’ lived in the lake.  The basis of the legend may have been uncovered when workers who surveyed the 55-foot deep lake prior to the construction of the grist mill reported their sighting of a 30-foot dark-colored monster fish with a long neck and a horse-like head.   

 

A historic post card shows the Lake Manitou dam

 

 

After the mill was abandoned around the turn of the twentieth century, in the decade of the nineteen twenties, Lake Manitou became a vacation destination. The area featured a number of resort hotels and the Long Beach Amusement Park and billed itself as “Indiana’s Summer Playground.”

In 1924 the Fulton County Agricultural and Mechanical Society, operators of the original fairgrounds encountered some unknown financial setbacks after nearly 50 years of operation and entered receivership.  A January 1925 auction of the rights to the property failed to garner a bid sufficient to “liquidate the indebtedness of the Association.” In February 1925 a group of 98 citizens of Rochester each put up $100 apiece to purchase shares in a new corporation known as the Manitou Fair and Athletic Club which was incorporated later in 1925.

The new corporation paid off the previous debts and took control of the Fairgrounds located on 35 acres of Tim Baker’s farm on the northwest side of the lake.  In April 1925, it was announced that a committee headed by Norman Stoner and Howard DuBois was in charge of construction of a new half-mile race track.

 

Days later, it was revealed that a second committee led by John McClung and Frank McCarter had been appointed to oversee the construction of a new 1,500 seat grandstand “with concrete steps.”  In July 1922 with the cost of building the track and structures estimated to total $16,000, the Rochester Sentinel reported that “it is expected the race track grandstand and fences will be erected as soon as possible.”

The Fulton County Fair first used the new race track which the Sentinel described as “magnificent” in August 1923, not for automobile racing but for horse harness racing which was sanctioned by the Rochester Driving Club.  During October 1924 Lady Patch, a local yearling brown filly who was the daughter of the famed Dan Patch, set a new American Trotting Association 1- mile record of 2 minutes at 18 ¼ seconds on the Rochester half-mile course.   The Lake Manitou Fairgrounds track was unusual in that was a “true” half-mile track which actually measured 2,640 feet when measured at a distance of four feet from the outer guardrail.

The grounds suffered severe damage from a tornado that struck on the afternoon of March 10 1925 as the storm leveled several stock barns and sheds, destroyed long expanses of fencing and left “the chairs in the big grandstand shattered and plied up.”  Later in March it was announced that during 1925 season the Lake Manitou Fair and Athletic Grounds would host a series of Sunday automobile races. The auto races were just one of several new additions to the 1925 schedule which also included rodeos, gun contests and greyhound races as the Association tried to recoup the storm repair losses.

The Interstate Racing Association (IRA) a group led by racer Herbert Marrow of South Bend Indiana had leased the grounds for the 1925 season of motorcycle and automobile racing programs at a cost of $1,200.   The IRA which reportedly had operated a track in Benton Harbor Michigan the previous season and claimed to operate tracks at LaPorte, Elkhart and Valparaiso Indiana installed ‘Doc’ Essex as the Rochester track manager.

The IRA’s first scheduled race on the Manitou Fairgrounds track was set to begin at noon on Sunday May 17, 1925 with time trials followed by three races - a three-mile race, a ten- mile race and the 25-mile feature.  A week before the races, noted Hoosier dirt track racer Chauncey “Chance” Kinsley visited the facility and after he saw the “high-banked “ half-mile track Kinsley the track record holder at Hoosier Motor Speedway boldly predicted to the Logansport Morning Press that he would establish a new record with his Frontenac racer. 

Besides Kinsley, the May 17 entry list which IRA promised would top twenty cars included entries from Indianapolis based racers Arthur “Fuzzy” Davidson and future Indianapolis 500-miles race competitors  Joe Huff and Charles “Dutch” Bauman. The City of Chicago was represented by drivers Harry Nichols and Jay Brook, while Harold ‘Hal’ Morine, Bill Platner and Charles Valenski came from South Bend. Defending the honor of Rochester was local garage man Harold “Bill” Masterson with his race car powered by a Ford engine fitted with a Frontenac head.

Race day May 17th dawned chilly and breezy, but the 2,000 hardy fans that showed up watched as Kinsley partially back up his published boast as he posted the fastest qualifying time of the 14 entries but his fastest lap was completed in 32 seconds flat, far off the existing half-mile track record.  The day’s first racing event was the three-car three-mile “match race” for the three fastest cars driven by Kinsley, second qualifier Howard Wilcox (II) who had timed in at 32.1 seconds and Wilbur Shaw, whose qualifying time was recorded at 32.3 seconds. Wilcox won the short six-lap race trailed by Shaw and Kinsley as the three Frontenacs finished the three-mile dash in just over three a half minutes. 

In the day’s second racing event, the 10-mile race for the nine fastest cars, Wilcox again emerged victorious, this time winning over Charles “Dutch” Baumann with Kinsley in third place, after Shaw failed to finish after spun out as he tried to pass Wilcox for the lead. Wilcox then swept the racing program with his victory in the 25-mile (50 laps) finale which featured fourteen starters with Kinsley in second place as once again Shaw spun himself out of contention when he tried to pass Wilcox for the lead.

The next scheduled race at the Lake Manitou Fairgrounds was held June 14, 1925, with featured entries from Floyd Shawhan and Clarence ‘Curley’ Young, as well as Wilcox, Shaw, Platner, Davidson, and Huff.  We do not yet know the results of the three races which were 5, 10 and 20 miles in length, but an article indicated that ‘Howdy’ Wilcox set the new track record at 30 and 2/5 seconds in time trials.  More significantly this event was touched by two fatalities unrelated to the racing program. 

Harlan Thompson, a Rochester stationary engine fireman reportedly felt ill for a few days prior but he still attended the races with a group of six friends. The group parked their automobile on the north side of the race track and used the car as their vantage point for the races. At approximately 5:30 PM just before the start of the last race of the afternoon, the 20-mile feature, Thompson suddenly collapsed. 

 

His friends administered first aid while they sped towards the Woodlawn Hospital in Rochester where doctors attempted to revive Thompson “with a hypodermic,” but were unsuccessful. Following an autopsy Thompson’s official cause of death was listed as “sudden and acute dilation of the heart brought about by the dust and heat.”

The grand finale of the day’s program, held after the last race of the day was a double parachute drop from a balloon which was tethered at an altitude of 2,200 feet above the fairgrounds. After the men set off bombs to preface their exciting leap, at around 6:30 PM the first parachutist, Jack Trumbell from South Bend left the basket and began his descent trailing smoke.

Perhaps three seconds later, the second jumper James M Stewart leapt from his perch, also trailing smoke, but his parachute failed to open. Stewart a 26-year old World War I veteran with 19 months of service overseas had previously performed similar jumps at the Long Beach Amusement Park, plummeted past his partner at a dizzying speed and struck the ground while Trumbell was still an estimated  200 feet aloft.

Many in the crowd appeared unaware of the tragedy, as they perhaps believed that the second jumper’s fast plunge was a part of the act but of course this was not the case.  Stewart’s father was the first rescuer to reach the stricken man who was found lying on his back deep in the mud at the edge of Lake Manitou. A group of men dragged Stewart’s body out of the mud and loaded him into an automobile which rushed towards Woodlawn Hospital, where he was pronounced dead upon arrival.  

 

In the parking lot of the hospital, Stewart’s distraught youngest brother, Arthur, drew a pistol and threatened suicide before the other surviving Stewart brother, Fred, disarmed him.   In a post mortem examination the Cass County Coroner C B Hiatt found the right side of James Stewart’s chest crushed and that he had suffered a shattered left leg and broken neck.

 

The car and driver shown in the photo with

 this advertisement is Chance Kinsley

photographed during May 1925.

Unfortunately when this ad appeared,

Kinsley had been killed in an accident

at Roby Speedway June 7 1925

 

Prior the races scheduled for Saturday July 4 and Sunday July 5 promoter Herbert Marrow predicted to a local newspaper that records would fall as he had received entries from “Speed” Crouch, Shaw, Wilcox and Valenski as well as two entries from Green Engineering of Dayton, Ohio one of which was supercharged. Interestingly the article in the July 3 edition of the Kokomo Tribune noted that “to insure the minimum of dust workmen have been employed to heavily coat the surface with salt before the sprinkling process.”

 

 

A 100-mile race with a massive $2,500 purse scheduled for the Lake Manitou fairgrounds track on Sunday August 9 1925 was cancelled on August 3 by Horace Reed, President of the Lake Manitou Fairgrounds Association.   This action came after Indiana Governor Edward L. Jackson stopped Sunday auto racing at Winchester and Kokomo after he received petitions from citizens of those communities and Reed learned of a similar drive in Rochester.  At the time, the Indiana “blue law” prohibited the staging of professional sporting events on Sunday, but the law had been frequently overlooked as far as automobile racing was concerned.  Reed stated that in the future racing at the Lake Manitou Fairgrounds would only be held on holidays through the week.  

Advance publicity for the next on race Labor Day Monday September 7 1925 touted the appearance of ‘Howdy’ Wilcox and the promotor’s invitation to Indiana Governor Edward Jackson to act as the race’s honorary referee. The race itself was a fiasco, as the following day’s Peru Tribune described the event as “a farce which was advertised as an auto race.”  The Huntington Herald reported that “Edward Speer of Roanoke who paid $2 Monday to see ‘forty-four sporting automobiles for 100 miles’ actually saw four alleged speed machines take the track was so disgusted that he has filed charges of obtaining money under false pretenses against Herbert Marrow promoter of the races.”  

The track’s new promoter for the 1926 season Harold “Hal” Morine from South Bend Indiana scheduled the first of a series of races sponsored by the Fair Association for Monday May 31 with twenty-five “guaranteed” cars entered according to Morine. Two of the featured entries listed in the article in the Logansport Morning Press included Morine himself, who it was (falsely) reported “raced Stutz cars at Indianapolis five years ago” and Bill Broadbeck, reported as “fully recovered from a broken neck suffered last season.”  The article noted that among the five events was “a five-lap dual event, each car taking opposite courses on the track. In this event, each car passes the other twice a lap.” 

Both the 10- and 50-mile 1926 July 5th holiday races promoted by the Lake Manitou Fair Association were captured by racer “Happy” Edwards from the tiny town of Windfall Indiana near Kokomo. Edwards won $460 of the overall $1000 purse posted for the nine-car program. Edwards finished the 10 mile distance in twelve minutes and two seconds (just less than 50 miles per hour (MPH) average speed), and took the checkered flag for the fifty mile race at an average speed just short of 45 MPH.  The program with an admission price of $1.10 also featured a musical performance by Martin’s Pirates from the Colonial Terrace Gardens Hotel.

“Happy,” the son of Windfall Buick garage owner Thomas Edwards had raced previously but he became much more successful after he purchased the Orr & Wolford Chevrolet Special in late May 1926 after the car’s regular driver Guy Orr was injured in a crash at Kokomo on May 10 and briefly retired. Edwards followed up his Rochester successes with wins in five and fifteen-mile races at Fairmount Speedway on Labor Day 1926. Edwards closed the 1926 season in October as one of five cars at his hometown Kleyla Speedway but blew up the engine during the feature which apparently ended his racing career.  Edwards whom newspaper later reported as “resembling a stratosphere balloon,” briefly owned a Ford ‘V-8 60’ midget race car but sold it at an auction during 1946.

The annual Lake Manitou (Fulton County) Fair held annually in August continued to be a “losing proposition” and the Manitou Fair and Athletic Club Incorporated was unable to recover from the losses incurred from the 1925 tornado damage.  In May 1927, Tim Baker, the owner of the fair property claimed the group was two years in arrears on rent.  Through the years the Fair group had invested over $30,000 in improvements which included over 100 stables, pig and poultry sheds, and wells and pumps in addition to race track, judges stand, grandstand and 1,000 seat bleachers.  Baker offered to sell the group the property for $7,000 but when that deal failed to materialize, he leased the property for 1927 to a “South Bend man” (Hal Morine) for automobile races.

“Square Shooting” Hal Morine promoted the races at the Rochester oval during the 1927 season under the banner of his Northern Indiana and Southern Michigan Racing Association (NISMRA).  A newspaper advertisement in the Kokomo Tribune prior to the Sunday July 31 1927 race stated that a “Morine promoted race means satisfaction,” and challenged readers to “ask those who saw events at Manitou July 3 and 4.” The ad also stated “Track is oiled- no more dust” and that “Morine cut admission to 75 cents with autos parked free.” 

After he had presented a single race at the Lake Manitou Fairgrounds in September 1927 Harry Bricker of Fort Wayne Indiana who operated the Bricker Auto Racing Association Inc. leased the grounds for the 1928 season. Bricker who ran the company together with his wife and son Harry Junior promised to present “at least” five racing programs during the summer which was kicked off by a race scheduled for June 10 1928.  

There were published reports of races at Rochester held on Decoration Day in May 1929 and 1930, but thus far the author has been unable to uncover the entry lists or the results of those races, the identity of the promoter or the schedule for those seasons.  

In the spring of 1931, Harry Bricker purchased the fairgrounds property outright from Baker and named it the Lake Manitou Speedway. Bricker’s first race as the owner was scheduled for July 19 1931 after “men and tractors reconditioned the track” and “several thousand gallons of oil” was placed on the track surface.  Bricker relocated to Rochester where he was “well and favorably known for the past five year, having had supervision of racing at the local speedway for the past five years except for the two years when his services were centered on the management of racing at Fort Wayne. “

The five-race season 1931 opener on May 17 featured wins recorded by Emil Andres, Beuford ‘Doc’ Shanebrook and Sherman ‘Red’ Campbell, while four drivers were injured in crashes – Charles William, Fred Little, and Wesley Gail were slightly hurt, but Ed Lewis a driver from Indianapolis reportedly received critical injuries after his race car hit the fence and overturned in front of the grandstand. Research revealed that the May 24 1931 program drew 2000 fans, and that Bricker staged at least five other races during the 1931 season which included Sunday events on July 19, August 23, September 6 and October 25.

The Manitou Speedway 1932 season opened under new management by American Speedway Attractions on Sunday May 15 with a “banner event” run on an elimination format. Time trials were scheduled for 10 AM with cars that timed slower than 33 seconds for a lap around the half-mile track eliminated. The program consisted of five preliminary races to further pare down the field for the 25-mile feature race.  As later reported in the Culver (Indiana) Citizen, it was a “sensational meet that ended with five bad accidents.”  The “National Dirt Track Auto Championship” race at the Manitou Speedway was scheduled for Sunday May 29 and Monday May 30 1932 with two days of “auto and air races” which included parachute jumps with the tragic event of seven years earlier apparently forgotten. 

When the track known as ‘Rochester Speedway’ closed after the September 9 1934 race won by local driver Don Donaldson, ownership of the property eventually reverted back to its original owner.  Farmer Tim Baker later converted the grandstand into a barn to store hay for his livestock until it was destroyed by an arson fire several years later. Baker sold the property south of Indiana Highway 14 west of Lake Manitou to a contractor/developer in 1945 and today the site of the former Lake Manitou race track site is a residential housing tract known as Manitou Heights.  

The author encourages any readers who have additional information regarding early automobile racing on the Lake Manitou Fairgrounds half-mile track to contact him at kevracerhistory@aol.com