A pair of races at the Oakland Speedway and the death of Fred J Wagner

Part Two

Ironically, the next race for the AAA Pacific Coast big cars after famed racing starter Fred J Wagner’s death reportedly from the injuries he sustained at Oakland on New Year's Day 1932 was scheduled for Sunday November 12, 1933 at the Oakland Speedway.  Besides Wagner’s death (actually from heart disease), the face of big car racing on the West Coast had changed dramatically since January 1 1932.

Bryan Saulpaugh, who had set multiple world’s records at Oakland Speedway on New Year’s Day 1932 before his car swerved out of control and struck the judge’s stand, perished in a practice accident at Oakland Speedway on April 22, 1933.


Saulpaugh was practicing when he lost control of Danny De Paolo’s ‘Red Lion Special.’  Witnesses reported that Saulpaugh’s car appeared to clip the outside guardrail as Bryan exited turn four then overturned three times with Saulpaugh crushed beneath the car during the accident. 

April 1933 was a particularly deadly month in West Coast big car racing, as in addition to Saulpaugh, on April 2 Class B racer Tom Forsyth died in an accident at Legion Ascot Speedway, and the 1932 AAA National Champion Bob Carey was killed in a practice crash at Legion Ascot just six days before Saulpaugh’s fatality.

‘Babe’ Stapp, the winner of the 1932 Oakland New Year’s Day race, on the comeback trail after he suffered critical injuries in an April 27 1932 crash at Legion Ascot and missed much of the 1932 racing season, crashed in the October 22 1933 ‘big car’ race at Oakland after a tire blew out and his car hit the inside railing and rolled over.

‘Babe’ was thrown out of the car and fractured his right leg. Although he was only confined to the Fairmount Hospital overnight, ‘Babe’ was again out of racing action for several months but returned in time to race in the 1934 Indianapolis 500-mile race.       

As the AAA Pacific Coast big car championship competitors arrived in Oakland for the 100-mile race on November 12, 1933 there were three men at the top contending for the championship - Ernie Triplett, Rex Mays and Al Gordon.


Ernie Triplett, the 1931 and 1932 Pacific Coast champion had started the 1933 season strong and in the early stages appeared to be headed for his third title in a row, but in the latter part of the 1933 season, Triplett’s usually reliable car suffered a succession of mechanical failures, which opened the door for a young up-and-coming racer from Riverside California named Rex Mays.

After several troubled early 1933 season outings after he graduated from the Class B ranks, the 20-year old Mays served notice that he was for real when he scored a third-place finish at Oakland on April 23. At the next race at Legion Ascot on May 1, Mays qualified well but fell out of the 100-mile feature on the race’s 23rd lap with a broken axle.  On lap 40 Mays took over for veteran Art Boyce in the Sparks & Weirick "Poison Lil"  after Boyce lost the feeling in his left arm after he was hit by a rock and pitted.   Mays rejoined the race in seventh place but stormed back through the field to win in a time of 48 minutes and 14 seconds for his first big car win.

Mays continued to score wins, and before the October 22 Oakland race, Mays led the AAA Pacific Coast championship over Triplett by six points. During that race, both Mays and Triplett dropped out - Mays’ machine with a broken crankshaft and Triplett’s car with carburetor trouble. 

Their retirements opened the door for third place points man Edgar “Al” Gordon to grab the win and make it a three-man race for the 1933 Pacific Coast title. By the time they returned to Oakland in November, Mays led Gordon by 39 markers and Triplett by 74 points. A win at Oakland would reward the winner with 83 ½ points while the second-place finisher would earn 41 points.

During Saturday’s practice session, 18-year-old Oakland resident Lowell Lamoureux presented Ernie Triplett with a hand-built pine scale model of Triplett’s red Miller-powered machine owned by Bill White.  

Al Gordon was the day’s fastest qualifier and he re-set the world’s one-mile dirt track record, as he circled the one-mile oval in 33.86 seconds, with an average speed of 106.32 miles per hour.  Also spicing up time trials were incidents that involved Mac McCulley whose car lost a right rear wheel, and Bob Valla who spun but did not hit anything and finished his run.


Time trials were followed by a series of five-mile Class B races, with wins scored by George “Swede” Smith and Jim Wilkerson. Louis Tomei won the 15-mile semi-main event over Art Boyce and Ray Gardner.

In the 100-mile feature, Cavino “Kelly” Petillo jumped into the lead from his outside front row starting position and led the first eight laps before Gordon steamed by into the lead.  Triplett then got past Petillo, whose machine retired on lap 66 and surrendered third place to another newcomer Harris Insinger who earlier in the week had been named the pilot of the De Paolo ‘Lion Head Special’ formerly driven by Saulpaugh, as a replacement for George Connors.

Al Gordon who lived in Long Beach clinched the 1933 AAA Pacific Coast Championship after he won the postponed 150-lap (92 mile) race at Legion Ascot on December 10 an event during which he re-set the track record at 25.71 seconds. Gordon won again at Legion Ascot the following week, then the final race of the 1933 season a 200-lap race scheduled for December 31, 1933 was postponed by rain for one week to January 7, 1934.

Waldo Stein the acting AAA Western Zone supervisor announced that the points from the rescheduled race would count towards the 1934 tally, but controversy quickly erupted. The decision was reversed, and in an odd situation, the points earned in the first race of 1934 were awarded for 1933.

After all the buildup, Al Gordon breezed to his eighth consecutive victory in the Art Sparks & Paul Weirick owned "Poison Lil" Gilmore Blue-Green Gasoline-sponsored #5 machine.  Despite running out of fuel on the last lap, Rex Mays coasted across the finish line in second place ahead of Kelly Petillo and thus claimed second place in the 1933 AAA Pacific Coast Championship over Ernie Triplett who finished the 200-lap grind in fourth place.  

On January 18, 1934 Ernie Triplett announced that he was retired from ‘big car’ racing events and would restrict his racing activities to Indianapolis and road “stock car” races.  However, early March found Triplett back in a ‘big car’ on the one-mile Imperial Speedway in El Centro California, and he died in an accident that involved "Swede” Smith and Al Gordon that also claimed the lives of Smith and a mechanic Cambern “Hap” Hafley.

Al Gordon would later figure into another accident that claimed the life of another of the racers mentioned in this article. On the third lap of the 50-mile Sunday September 8, 1935 AAA Pacific Coast ‘big car’ race, Gordon’s car hooked wheels with the machine driven by Harris Insinger. Insinger’s ‘Garant Special’ cartwheeled down the back straightaway and Harris just 26 years old, suffered a fatal skull fracture with Gordon cast as the villain in the accident in newspaper reports.     

Al Gordon himself would lose his life in an accident four months later during the January 1936 ‘Ascot 150’ the second AAA championship car race at Legion Ascot Speedway. The grinding crash of Bill White’s cream and blue “Cocktail Hour Cigarette Special” also claimed the life of the riding mechanic William “Spider” Matlock. 

The unfortunate pair of Gordon and Matlock were last two racers to lose their lives at the dangerous oiled-dirt 5/8-mile high-banked oval,  as the track closed days later which brought a particularly dangerous era of West Coast racing to a close.

Prior to the 1938 Indianapolis 500-mile race,  Pearl, the widow of William “Spider” Matlock,  married race driver Al Putnam who had been married previously with two sons. Tragically, Pearl was widowed a second time as a result of an auto racing crash on Sunday September 15 1946 as Putnam perished in qualifying crash at the 'Indianapolis 100' held at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.
        

   

   

A pair of races at the Oakland Speedway and the death of Fred J Wagner

Part One

In time trials for the twice-postponed scheduled 100-mile 1932 New Year’s Day race at Oakland Speedway, a new one-lap, one-mile qualifying world record was set by Bryan Saulpaugh in the Gilmore Lion #19 at 101.95 miles per hour (MPH). The Oakland Speedway, which opened in 1931  was a fast one-mile dirt oval actually closer to Hayward California, the site of which is now the Bayfair Mall.


Ernie Triplett, the defending American Automobile Association (AAA) Pacific Coast ‘big car’ champion grabbed the lead at the start of the feature and proceeded to set new AAA race records at the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10-mile distances. Bryan Saulpaugh grabbed the lead from Triplett and set a new 25-mile race record at 94.163 MPH.

Back in the pack, Ralph Hepburn’s car crashed after the right front tire of his car blew out and the car plunged through the upper guardrail. Hepburn a former champion motorcycle racer who had finished third in the1931 Indianapolis ‘500’ was thrown from the machine in the accident and suffered a broken jaw and a broken kneecap.


Hepburn’s injuries kept him confined to the Hayward General Hospital through the end of March and sidelined him for the 1932 season.  

During the clean-up of the Ralph Hepburn accident it began to sprinkle rain,  but the AAA officials elected to let the race continue. As he neared the completion of his fiftieth lap, race leader Bryan Saulpaugh lost control of his DePaolo/Miller machine and in the crash, the struck and collapsed the judge’s stand.

Saulpaugh suffered serious injuries as his car veered into a guard rail and rolled over after it struck the judge’s stand. Saulpaugh was thrown from the cockpit and suffered a fractured skull and a dislocated shoulder.

Five AAA officials– referee Bert Dingley, assistant starters George Theobald and Les Manning, AAA zone supervisor Hal F Weller and starter Fred J. Wagner - were inside in the 14-foot high wooden stand when it collapsed onto the track surface. The two assistant starters were reported to have suffered “cuts and scratches” while the other three officials were said to only suffered a “mild shaking up.”  

     

Elbert ‘Babe’ Stapp miraculously steered his car through the wreckage of the judge’s stand to complete his 51^st lap and was declared the race winner. The car piloted by Stapp, formerly was driven by Francis Quinn who was killed by a drunk driver on December 13, 1931 in a highway accident just north of Fresno, California. Quinn nicknamed “the Bald Eagle” was on his way home to Southern California after the original Oakland Speedway race date was postponed due to rain. 

Hal Weller, an automotive advertising executive and a resident of nearby Berkeley, had been a member of the AAA Contest Board since 1924 served as the AAA Western zone supervisor and was on hand to oversee the day’s timing and scoring activities.   

Bert Dingley was a retired pioneer-era West Coast race car driver who drove in his first race in 1904 at the Del Monte race track near Monterey California. In 1909 Dingley drove for Chalmers-Detroit and scored two race wins and four top five finishes and for many years, the AAA recognized Dingley as the 1909 National Champion until the AAA Contest Board retroactively made revision to the standings in 1951. 

Bert’s promising racing career ended with an accident on July 4, 1914 as he fought for the lead on the penultimate lap of the 250-mile Montamarathon Trophy Race held on the 2-mile Pacific Coast Speedway dirt track in Tacoma Washington.

Initial news reports following the 1914 accident stated that Bert and his riding mechanic Edward “Swede” Swanson were “probably fatally injured.” They were thrown from their bright green Ono (a chain drive Fiat retrofitted with a Pope Toledo engine) after it ran into ditch and overturned. 

Dingley recovered from his severe injuries, which included a fractured skull, broken shoulder and a compound leg fracture but he never raced again. Dingley worked in the automotive industry and at the time of the 1932 New Year’s Day accident was a vice-president of the Stutz Motor Company and served as a referee at AAA races across the nation. 

The role of starter was an important one in those days before radio communications - the starter controlled the action on the course with knowledgeable assistant starters to help keep track of the action.  Assistant starter George Theobald was the flagman at the original San Jose Speedway while Les Manning, an Oakland police corporal, was the regular starter at Oakland Speedway.

Fred J. Wagner was born in Covington Kentucky in June 1869 and began his sporting career as a track and field star, then became a bicycle racer after which he served as a starter for bicycle races for a dozen years. Wagner claimed to have flagged his first automobile race in the fall of 1899 in Chicago Illinois.

Away from the track, Fred was a shrewd businessman with deep ties to the automotive industry and was at one time was the president of Horseless Age magazine.  He increased his notoriety by publishing his memoirs in serial fashion with the title “Roaming through Speed Mad Years” in the AAA’s American Motorist magazine. Wagner’s historical stories, while entertaining, contained many factual errors. 

“Wags,” as he was known in his younger years, then a resident of Long Island New York was the starter for all but the first of the Vanderbilt Cup races, at the time the most prestigious auto racing events in the United States. There is substantial evidence to support the contention that it was Wagner who pioneered the use of a black-and-white checkered flag to signal the end of an automobile race.

Wagner, served as the starter at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway beginning in 1909 and Fred started the first 1911 International 500-Mile Sweepstakes Race. Wagner’s reign as the starter at Indianapolis ended after the 1912 500-mile race when he and track president Carl Fisher got into an argument.

Their dispute was over whether to flag off the final car still running on the track long after the winner had taken the flag and fans had left. In the early days of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, to collect the prize money, a car and driver had to complete the full race distance.  

Hours after winner Joe Dawson had taken the checkered flag of victory, the Knox of Ralph Mulford continued to circulate around the 2-1/2-mile brick oval, and the sun began to set. Wagner was ready to flag Mulford off the track, but Fisher insisted that Mulford be allowed to finish.

After he lost the argument, Wagner stormed off and never served in any official capacity at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway again. Mulford eventually completed the 500-mile distance but it took nearly nine hours and he finished with an average speed of just 56 miles per hour which makes him the slowest finisher in Indianapolis 500-mile race history.   

As the years passed, Wagner became nationally famous as the pre-eminent starter of automobile races across the United States except of course at Indianapolis. In addition to working the flags at the races, Wagner also shepherded teams from race to race, oversaw track preparations, worked with the local race promoters to ensure a smooth event principally that the competitors got paid and that the AAA received its sanctioning fee.

By the nineteen twenties, as he entered his sixth decade, Wagner became known affectionately as “Pops.” Competitors admired and respected Wagner so much that prior to the 1925 season-ending ending AAA national championship race at the Culver City board track, Wagner was given the keys to a new 1926 Buick sedan, paid for through by a collection from nineteen of the country’s leading race drivers.

After the New Year’s Day 1932 Oakland race, the AAA Pacific Coast ‘big car’ racers moved on to the ½-mile dirt Bakersfield Speedway on January 3, 1932 for a 50-mile feature. The race, aired live on the National Broadcasting Company’s Orange (Pacific Coast) network in a broadcast sponsored by the Richfield Oil Company, was won by Ernie Triplett in Bill White’s car powered by a 151-cubic inch Miller Marine 4-cylinder engine with oval side draft intake ports. 


According to published Bakersfield news reports Fred Wagner served as the race’s starts assisted by Fresno pioneer-era race car driver turned car dealer Eddie Waterman as the referee.

The report about Wagner at Bakersfield seems curious in retrospect, as ten days later, his hometown newspaper described Wagner as recovering from the injuries received on New Year’s Day at his ranch in the orange groves of Covina California.


In early February, Wagner, 66 years old, was reported in critical condition in a Covina hospital from the injuries he had suffered in the New Year’s Day accident. A few days later, a follow-up article stated that doctors had been forced to relocate Fred to a sanitarium for privacy as he had been unable to rest due to the constant stream of visitors in the hospital.

Wagner had sufficiently recovered from his injuries in November 1932 and he returned to his roots as he acted as the starter of a six-day bicycle race held on the temporary velodrome built inside the Winter Garden ice skating rink in the heart of Hollywood.


In late December 1932, Wagner visited the Legion Ascot Speedway and watched the races from a private box.  During a break in the racing action, Wagner was escorted to the track surface where he presented several awards and addressed the crowd for few moments.

In April 1933, Wagner and his friend, former driver and car owner Frank Allen, hosted a dinner for Los Angeles area ‘big car’ drivers that included Louis Schneider, Bill Cummings, Howard “Howdy” Wilcox II, Bob Carey and Ernie Triplett and ‘big car’ owners Art Sparks and Clyde Jones.


The group met to discuss the recent cut of purses by the board that controlled Legion Ascot Speedway (remember the country was the depths of the Great Depression) and Wagner and Allen proposed to act as intermediaries to mediate the dispute which had seen the top drivers refuse to enter events at Legion Ascot.

During the Summer of 1933, Fred J. Wagner’s health took a turn for the worse and he was hospitalized again in Covina in late October 1933, where he passed away on November 5 reportedly at 67 years of age.


The injuries that Wagner suffered in Oakland on January 1 1932 were blamed in newspaper articles as the cause of his death.  Fred was survived by his wife Nancy also known as “Mother Wagner,” he was interred in the Forest Lawn Cemetery Mausoleum in Glendale California.

 A few years ago, fellow racing historian James Thurman researched the circumstances of Fred Wagner's death and found Wagner's official death certificate in the Los Angeles County Records office. The official causes of death listed included chronic myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle), chronic aortitis (inflammation of the aorta) and acute bronchitis. The former two conditions were noted as having existed for several years. Thurman's research refutes the period newspaper claims that Wagner died from complications from  the injuries he suffered at the race in Oakland. 

In 1938, five years after his death, Wagner’s memoirs, entitled The Saga of the Roaring Road, (the genesis of which had been published in American Motorist in 1926) were published in hardbound format by Meador Publishing, a small firm based in Boston.  Wagner’s racing stories combined with his memories of working in the early automotive industry written by author John M. Mitchell, were later revised and published in 1949 by Floyd Clymer in both hardbound and softbound editions.  

In 1952, Fred J. Wagner became one of the inaugural ten inductees in the AAA Auto Racing Hall of Fame (now known as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum Hall of Fame) and was a member of the second class of inductees into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1991.

1972 Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team VPJ-1

1972 Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team VPJ-1

Maurice Philippe started his career designing airplanes before he joined Lotus Cars in 1965. Phillipe worked with Colin Chapman and redesigned the Lotus 39, and then drew the BRM-powered Lotus 43. The next Phillipe design was the classic Lotus 49 and later Philippe was involved in the design of the 1968 Lotus four-wheel drive turbine Indianapolis cars.

Phillipe’s master stroke was the Lotus 72, a dramatic Formula 1 design which broke new ground by mounting the radiators alongside the driver in sidepods, a design that McLaren Cars adapted for the M16 USAC car that won the Indianapolis pole position in 1971. In late 1971, Maurice left Lotus to work as a free-lance designer.

Philippe's 1972 design for the Vel’s Parnelli Jones (VPJ) Racing Team featured wings sprouting at a 45-degree angle off the monocoque known as dihedral wings which also contained the radiators. Most shocking there was no rear wing mounted behind the turbocharged Offenhauser engine.

The new Parnelli also featured new Phillipe-designed suspension technology known as dual camber compensators meant to keep the triangular shaped chassis monocoque level in all racing conditions.

The VPJ team was the first of the modern “super teams” with a lineup of top drivers, mechanics, and strong sponsorship so expectations were high for the new car. The team featured drivers Joe Leonard, Al Unser and Mario Andretti, Leonard was the defending United States Auto Club (USAC) national champion in the PJ Colt, a chassis that was copied from a Lola design.  

Unser was the two-time and defending Indianapolis 500-race race winner, while Andretti was a three-time USAC national champion and the 1969 Indianapolis champion. George Bignotti the multiple time Indianapolis winning mechanic was the team’s chief mechanic paired with mechanics John Capels and Jim McGee.  

Leonard’s car carried season long sponsorship from Samsonite luggage, while Andretti’s and Unser’s cars carried full sponsorship from Viceroy cigarettes. The sponsorship was supplemented with a massive influx of funding from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which was engaged in a “tire war” with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. 

A press photo from the 1972 VPJ-1

 unveiling at Ontario Motor Speedway

author's collection

  

The VPJ team and the national auto racing media gathered at the Ontario Motor Speedway in March 1972 for the car’s introduction, and after a coin flip with teammate Mario Andretti, Al Unser took the prototype out for its first laps. After several laps Unser pulled into the pits and Andretti then took the car out for some slow laps, then drove directly to the garage area. Shortly thereafter the press outing ended.  

Not disclosed to the press was the fact that the car, known as the VPJ-1 was a horrible combination – it was both scary and slow. The team went to work to revise the design and develop the VPJ-1. The team used the older Colt chassis at the season-opening race in Phoenix, then the new car debuted at Indianapolis minus the dihedral wings, with a conventional suspension system and more typical front and rear wings.

In the 1972 Indianapolis 500, the VPJ-1 finished second, third, and eighth.  Later in the 1972 USAC season, Joe Leonard won three consecutive races – a 200-mile race at Michigan, the Pocono 500-mile race, and the Tony Bettenhausen 200 at Milwaukee. On the strength of those results, Joe Leonard captured his second straight USAC national championship with Al Unser in fourth place in the 1972 points.

Despite the early problems, Maurice Phillipe penned the 1973 Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing Team entry, the VPJ-2, the VPJ-3 used sparingly in the 1974 USAC season (the team switched to 1974 AAR Eagle customer chassis for most of the season) and the VPJ-4 ill-fated Formula 1 car powered by a Cosworth engine.    

The Vintage Indy Registry displayed VPJ-1 chassis #102 owned by Chuck Jones was shown in its original dihedral wing configuration at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show. The car is expertly restored as it appeared in early season testing. 

This chassis was driven by Joe Leonard to a third-place finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Leonard drove chassis #102 to the three wins during the 1972 season at Michigan, Pocono, and Milwaukee until the was damaged in a tire testing crash before the season-ending race at Phoenix, and Leonard drove VPJ chassis 104 at Phoenix. 

Leonard crashed chassis #104 in practice and did not start the Best Western 150. Fortunately for Leonard, he had a commanding points lead over second place Billy Vukovich and claimed his second consecutive USAC National driving Championship.    

All photos by the author except as noted 

The short-lived 

Argonne Forest Park Speedway

Part one

Note - the author wishes to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of his friend and fellow racing historian Bob Lawrence, who provided information about Bowen & Onley and the results of the 1939 races referenced in this article. A link to Bob’s website is provided at the end of this article.

  

Growing up in the Linden Heights neighborhood of Dayton Ohio, Null M. Hodapp’s childhood best friend was his neighbor Ralph Clemens. The pair shared many adventures as young men, grew into adulthood, graduated college and became prominent men in Dayton in the nineteen-teens. 

Hodapp worked as an attorney with the firm of Burkhart, Heald and Pickrel, in downtown Dayton while Clemens was a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) with the pioneering Dayton accounting firm of Louis G. Battelle.   

With the entry of the United States into the Great War in Europe, both men registered for the draft in June 1917 and were drafted into the United States Army in September 1917. Assigned the same unit, the 322^nd Field Artillery Unit, they reported to Camp Sherman near Chillicothe Ohio for training.




Clemens became a sergeant in Battery ‘A’ while Hodapp was assigned to the Headquarters Company. The 322^nd
shipped out of Camp Sherman on June 4, and then boarded the SS Canopic in Hoboken New Jersey on June 12, 1918 for their deployment overseas.

Upon the 322^nd Unit’s arrival in Europe, they were sent to the Western Front.  The 322^nd supported the US Army's 37^th Ohio Division in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the largest and bloodiest operation of World War I, which cost more than 26,000 American lives.  Sergeant Ralph Clemens was killed in action just hours before the Armistice went into effect at 11 AM on November 11, 1918 in the dense Forest of Argonne near Belgium.

Hodapp, heartbroken at the loss of his life-long friend, returned to Dayton after his wartime service. Nell continued his career in the law, in partnership with his brother, married, had two children and was elected a municipal court judge in Dayton in 1926.


That same year he bought land southwest of Dayton along Germantown Pike on the banks of Possum Creek. On the site Hodapp created the Argonne Forest Park in memory of his childhood friend and the place where he had fallen, to provide a place for veterans and their families to enjoy the outdoors.  

The clubhouse for veterans was the first building constructed on site and was dedicated on October 15, 1927 along with a reenactment of the Meuse-Argonne engagement. Later Hodapp and a group of investors incorporated as Argonne Forest Park, Inc. and through the years added an 80-foot by 40-foot dance pavilion, a carnival midway, a horse race track and stables, a gasoline filling station and a football field.


The Park also featured a baseball diamond with bleachers, a shooting range and a swimming hole with a diving platform. Later after his divorce from his wife, the noted soprano LoRean Hodapp in 1932, Hodapp built a home on the Park site.

Argonne Park became a popular destination for family picnics and group gatherings, and the hall hosted dining and dancing on Wednesday and Saturday nights and the occasional boxing match.  For many years on his birthday, July 4, Hodapp and members of the 322^nd Field Artillery Association would reenact the artillery battle of the Forest of Argonne.  Through the years thousands of Daytonians attended the reenactments which always closed with a huge fireworks display.

The deepening Great Depression caused attendance at the park to decline so additional activities were added which included auto races known as “junk yard derbies” on a new figure-eight dirt track in the Summer of 1939. These races were promoted by Don C. Onley, onetime partner with his brother, W. W. Bowen in the Bowen & Onley racing promotions company from 1926 to 1931 until Bowen retired. In addition to auto races, Onley Amusements & Sports Promotion promoted events from Ohio to California that included automotive and motorcycle stunt shows and boxing matches.

“Junk yard derbies” were popular in the late nineteen thirties in the Midwest with events held in dozens of cities in the state of Ohio. Oftentimes, these events were not held on established race tracks, but instead on roughly-hewn tracks in a farmer’s field and generally attracted several hundred spectators that paid 25 or 30 cents each for admission.

Many of these tracks had no names, but others used colorful names with references to Lucifer, such as “Satan’s Merry Go Round” which was located one mile north of Piqua Ohio and was also known as the “Devil’s Bowl.”  Early in 1939, the ½-mile figure-eight track at the Argonne Forest Park was promoted as the “Devil’s Race Bowl”, then became known as the “Argonne Forest Speedway.”   

The vehicles entered in these “junk yard derbies” could scarcely be called race cars, as the only rules were that the driver had to 21 years of age and the car had to be stock and worth $100 or less. Safety was of little concern and these type of “junk yard” races sadly had a high fatality rate, with many of the driver deaths recorded as traffic accidents.  As many as seven “junk yard” racers died in Ohio during the Summer of 1939, including one man who left behind a widow and ten children. 

It appears that the first automobile race at the Argonne Forest “Devil’s Race Bowl” was held Sunday July 30, 1939 on what was described in advance promotional articles as “the world’s most hazardous auto race course,” and the “famous hair-raising figure eight track.” Despite the threat of rain, a reported 4,000 fans attended – children were admitted for 10 cents while adults paid 40 cents each, except for “blonde ladies and plump ladies over 200 pounds,” who were admitted free. 

The inaugural fifty-lap feature race, with all the cars carrying a driver and a rider, was described the following day in the Dayton Herald as a “comic novel event with chills and thrills,” was won by “Doc” Ashbaugh of Miamisburg, Ohio but not without some controversy, as other racers filed post-race protests. 

The other racers claimed that the #22B 1929 Ford driven by Ashbaugh, appearing in his first race, was equipped with a “full-fledged race motor.” Although “Doc” kept the victory, officials would not accept his entry for the next week’s race unless he agreed to race with a different motor.

Despite the early controversy, Ashbaugh proved to be a solid competitor in jalopy racing at Argonne and moved up the ladder and became a favorite in modified stock car racing across the state of Ohio. “Doc” later raced track roadsters with the Mutual Racing Association after the World War II with fellow Daytonian and Argonne alumni, negro racer Leroy Nooks, and participated successfully in a series of midget races held in Pomeroy Ohio in 1948 and 1949.   

The next race at Argonne Forest on Sunday August 6 introduced a novel idea - the Gold Cup Trophy. Each week’s top six qualifiers were eligible to compete in a 10-lap dash, and the first man to win three of these weekly dashes would win the permanent trophy, a 24-inch tall gold cup filled with silver dollars.  

The first dash was won by Ashbaugh, the days’ fastest qualifier at 50 second flat, while the feature was won by Jim McCabe of Dayton driving a 1929 Ford. Two racers were injured in a grinding crash at the figure 8 intersection – driver Glen Tyler sustained a compound leg fracture and his rider Henry Vrining suffered a fractured spine. Several of the drivers had equipped their car with “safety hoops” and officials encouraged this addition for safety but did not yet require their use.

For the August 13th race at the “Devils Race Bowl” in the Argonne Forest Park, officials eliminated the requirement for cars to carry a rider, trumpeted as a safety measure. The racing program opened with “Doc” Ashbaugh of Miamisburg as the winner of the 10-lap dash, to complete his second leg in pursuit of the Gold Cup Trophy.  The day’s feature race was marred by a serious accident in which Daytonian Robert Dulinsky’s car tangled with the machine of John Eaton also of Dayton and left the 21-year old Dulinsky with a fractured skull.

With Dulinsky transported to St. Elizabeth Hospital in grave condition, the race was called complete at 30 laps following the accident. The leader at the time Jim Edwards of Franklin Ohio a small community about a dozen miles south of the racetrack was declared the winner with Bud Cider second and Bates Lewis scored third in a 1929 Ford.

Dulinsky lingered in the hospital for nearly a week then died at 9:20 AM on Saturday August 19, survived by his parents with whom he lived, and two married sisters. The next day’s race at the “Devil’s Bowl” became a benefit race for injured drivers that also featured automotive and motorcycle daredevil stunts interspersed into the racing program. In addition to the money raised through gate receipts, fans donated $70 for Dulinsky’s family during the program.

In qualifying Jim Edwards set quick time, a new track record of 47 seconds, then in the feature ran down the early leader Ashbaugh, passed him on lap four then led the rest of the distance. Ashbaugh finished second as he edged 20-year old driver Ray Kruger, younger than the track’s 21-year old age limit, but who raced with the permission of his mother, Etta, who was in attendance.  

On Sunday afternoon August 27, the track debuted its new oiled surface designed to control dust, and brunettes were admitted free of charge. After his car lost a wheel during a special four-car 15-lap match race, Ashbaugh came back and again visited victory lane in his 1929 Ford.  During the week before the next race held the day before the Labor Day holiday, Ashbaugh spilt with the owner of the successful #22B 1929 Ford but come Sunday, in a new car, Ashbaugh smashed the track record by three seconds. Jim Edwards won the feature.

On September 10, the program featured a special 10-lap race for women drivers won by 23-year-old Margaret Quire in a time of 9 minutes and 47 seconds. Jim Edwards swept the race of the program as he won the 10-lap heat race, the 15-lap match race and the 20-lap feature over Ashbaugh and Ray Kruger.

Ashbaugh, a crowd favorite who drove in house slippers, claimed three wins on September 17 – the “slow” feature, the “fast” feature and the 10-lap heat race, while John Turner finished second in all three races. Ms. Quire won the 10-lap ladies’ race and lowered her winning time to nine minutes flat. 

On September 24, the Argonne Forest course was quiet, as many of the track’s stars, including Ashbaugh, Krueger, McCabe, and Edwards were all scheduled to take part in the modified stock car races at Frank Funk’s high-banked ½-mile oiled dirt Dayton Speedway.

Argonne Speedway officials put the off week to good use as they added a ¼-mile track for midget car racing and graded and resurfaced the ½-mile figure-eight track which had seen more accidents since the oiled surface was adopted. 

Argonne officials cancelled the scheduled October 1 event early due to predicted rainy weather and many of the track’s top drivers raced instead at Funk’s Dayton Speedway modified stock car event. Ashbaugh led the first 35 laps at Dayton Speedway before his car experienced mechanical troubles; Ashbaugh’s retirement handed the lead to Jim Roberts of Springfield, Ohio who led the rest of the way to victory.

The October 8 feature victory which featured 20 cars was copped by 21-year old Orval (alternately spelled “Orville”) Epperly of Dayton, who went on from his start racing at Argonne to have a growing career in post-World War II American Automobile Association (AAA) “big car” racing until he lost his left leg in a gruesome heat race accident at Winchester (Indiana) Speedway on July 25, 1948. 

The 50-lap 1939 Argonne season finale on October 15 was captured by Russ Cowic also of Dayton in a time of 36 minutes flat. Russ Cowic raced for many years until he was seriously burned in an accident at Eldora Speedway in 1971.  It appears that no driver was able to win a total of three “Gold Cup Trophy” dashes and claim the permanent trophy. 

Don Onley’s promotional efforts at Argonne Forest Speedway ended at the close of the 1939 racing season with the promotion and sanction taken over by the Central States Stock Car Racing Association.

We will continue with the history of the Argonne Forest Speedway by looking at the 1940 season in the next installment.

Visit Bob Lawrence's websites: http://winfield.50megs.com/

Bobby Unser's first Indy winner 

The big storyline leading up to the 1968 International 500 Mile Sweepstakes at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway centered around turbine-powered race cars. Andy Granatelli had his team of four day-glo red four-wheel drive Lotus 56 cars sponsored by STP Oil Treatment, while Carrol Shelby had a pair of turbine-powered cars sponsored by Botany 500 men’s clothing, and last but least Jack Adams had his single car entry.

Through the month, the Granatelli turbines were fast, but driver Mike Spence was killed in an accident in practice on May 7 as he tested teammate Greg Weld’s machine. After Spence’s accident the #30 car was withdrawn, and veteran Art Pollard was hired to take over Spence’s original ride. Meanwhile, the Shelby turbines were withdrawn under a cloud of suspicion and the Jack Adams car proved noncompetitive.    

On May 18^th in time trials, Graham Hill in a STP Lotus 56 reset the track one-lap and four-lap records with a four-lap average of 171.208 miles per hour, then his teammate Joe Leonard reset the one-lap record at 171.953 and took the pole position with a new record four-lap speed average of 171.559 MPH. The third STP turbine entry driven by Pollard qualified in eleventh place.  

The third fastest qualifier set to start on the outside of the front row on Memorial Day was a conventional rear-engine rear-wheel drive turbocharged Offenhauser All-American Racers Eagle mark four driven by Bobby Unser. The car owned by Bob Wilke’s Leader Card Racers and sponsored by the Rislone Oil additive company, qualified with a four-lap average of 169.507 MPH. Unser came to Indianapolis on a three-race winning streak at Las Vegas, Phoenix and Trenton New Jersey and had surprised many railbirds on May 16 when he recorded the first 170 MPH lap in practice.

Joe Leonard led from the pole position at the start of the ‘500’ for the first seven laps, before Unser took over, and the race continued as a battle between Unser, Lloyd Ruby, and the Pollard and Leonard turbines.  On lap 188, Pollard’s STP turbine coasted to stop inside of turn one, and three laps later Leonard’s race-leading turbine car rolled to a stop alongside Pollard’s, both cars victimized by broken fuel shafts.  

Leonard’s retirement handed the lead to Unser, who lead the last eight laps and crossed the finish line 53.81 seconds ahead of AAR’s owner Dan Gurney’s Eagle. On the strength of his Indianapolis win, Unser won the 1968 United States Auto Club (USAC) national championship by just eleven points over Mario Andretti. Surprisingly, Unser did not the Indy-winning car much the rest of the season because as he told an interviewer, “we had a hard time making that car handle.”

Owned today by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway  Foundation, Bobby Unser’s winning car from the 1968 Indianapolis ‘500’ was on display at the special Unser Family Tribute at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis.  Besides it’s historical significance as an Indianapolis winning car, Unser’s Rislone Special was the last car to win at Indianapolis without the benefit of added aerodynamic devices.  

Footage of Unser's car shot during the 1968 '500' were used in the 1969 Hollywood film "Winning" that starred Paul Newman as Frank Capua as the race winner in the "Crawford Special."  

All photos by the author 

Ed Carpenter's quarter midget at PRI 2018 

One might ask how did a man who has started from the coveted pole position for the Indianapolis 500-mile race three times and finished as the runner-up in the 2018 Indianapolis ‘500’ get his start in racing?

The answer is quarter midget racing, and Ed Carpenter’s quarter midget was part of the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit. at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis.

Ed began to race his quarter midget in 1989 at age eight, comparatively old for that type of car, as some quarter midget drivers start at age four. Before he moved up to up to three-quarter midgets at age 16, Ed won several local and regional titles. At age 17, Carpenter debuted in full-size midgets and during his career, he has driven in all three of the USAC national series - midget, sprint and Silver Crown championship cars.

Carpenter started in the Indy Lights series in 2001 and the Indy Racing League (run by his step-father Tony George) in 2003. Ed has won three IndyCars races - in 2011 at Kentucky Speedway, 2012 at Fontana Speedway and Texas Speedway in 2014. 

Carpenter started from the pole position at the Indianapolis ‘500’ in 2013, 2014, and 2018. As an IndyCar owner/driver since 2011,Ed Carpenter has only driven on oval tracks in IndyCar since 2014. 

For comparison, we share photos of a modern quarter midget race car as shown at the Bilstein booth at the PRI show. Compare with Ed Carpenter's 1990's era quarter midget to see how technology has advanced. 

All photos by the author