Hanford Speedway – Hanford California

Part three of the rich history of the first superspeedway west of the Mississippi

From the debut of automobile racing with jalopy races in May 1951 through 1962, racing events on Marchbanks Stadium’s paved ½-mile, oiled dirt 1/3-mile and 1-3/8-mile high paved tracks had been promoted by the track builder and owner Bircha Lewis “B.L”. Marchbanks.

The racing facility southeast of Hanford California was managed during the 1963 season by Bakersfield boxing promoter Ed York’s Racing Associates Inc. then in late June 1964 it was announced that race driver “Caveman” Bob Christie and his partner Tommy Francis had signed a lease with an option to buy the facility.  Writer Jack Lattimer, who broke the story in the San Mateo Times newspaper, noted that the big oval with three 22-degree banked turns had seen very little use lately outside of some “small time races.”

Christie, a 40-year old racing veteran from Grant’s Pass Oregon had qualified for eight consecutive Indianapolis 500-mile races between 1956 and 1963 with a best finish of tenth in 1960. Outside of Indianapolis, much of Christie’s racing career was spent in AAA (American Automobile Association) and USAC (United States Auto Club) stock cars. Christie appeared to be an unlikely candidate for a race track promoter as when not racing, he traveled the country as an employee of JC Penney Automotive Centers.

Just over a month after that surprising announcement, a United Press International wire article revealed that KS Enterprises Inc. had signed a 20-year lease for Marchbanks Stadium. T L “Tommy” Francis, identified as the KS vice president and general manager, said that the facility would immediately be renamed Hanford Speedway.

Francis a former stock car racer from San Gabriel California had notably competed in the 1950 Carrera Panamericana Mexican road race. Francis and co-driver Jimmie Crum were initially reported as killed after their 1950 Ford crashed and rolled over in the final stage, but that report was corrected after the pair and their battered car appeared at the finish line in Chiapas after the time limit had expired.   

In an extended newspaper interview, Francis related that the newly-formed company headed by Kalmon “Kal” Simon planned to spend $200,000 over a two-year period to develop the track into “the Indianapolis of the West.”  Simon, a machinery dealer, was virtually unknown although he had been involved in racing previously as the owner of a late model stock car. The new business, KS Racing Enterprises, Inc. was registered as a California corporation on May 11, 1964 with the 12-story Taft Building in Hollywood listed as its official address.   KS also maintained business offices in an industrial section of the City of El Monte and the Yucca Vine Tower office building in Hollywood.

The new company’s plan was to bring Indianapolis-type cars to Hanford “possibly within six months” to race for a purse of $20,000 before projected crowds of 35,000 to 75,000. In the UPI article Francis stated that “California is the breeding ground for racing with 48 race car builders located in the state,” and he noted that “of the 311,000 fans at the Indianapolis ‘500,’ 48,000 were from California.” 

Francis also revealed that Henry Banks, the USAC Director of Competition, and Louis Meyer, the first three-time Indianapolis ‘500’ winner, had recently inspected the Hanford facility and given a “100% okay for USAC stock car racing” and that the pair of retired champions thought that the track would be suitable for Indianapolis-type cars with a “few minor changes.”   

On September 5, 1964, the California Racing Association (CRA) sprint cars ran a 100-lap feature on the Hanford Speedway paved half-mile track in a program with a purse of $3,500. The entry list for the 24-car starting field included local favorite (and three-time Hanford track champion) Frank Secrist in the #94 Boghosian Brothers car, but it was Bob DeJong from San Francisco who set quick time in qualifying.

Speedway General Manager Francis reported paid attendance of 7,156 fans who watched Paul Jones (Parnelli Jones’ younger brother) flip down the backstretch during the feature and suffer a broken leg and collarbone in the crash. Hal Minyard in his Leonard Surdam owned Chevy-powered sprinter beat defending CRA champion “Lover Boy” Bob Hogle to the checkered flag with the race completed in 42 minutes 41.3 seconds.   

Due to the success of the first CRA visit, Hanford Speedway hosted the sprint cars again on Sunday afternoon October 11, with additional grandstands erected to accommodate up to 12,000 fans. In the penultimate CRA race of the 1964 season, things were not much different as DeJong again set quick time and Minyard won the feature again - this time Hal edged out 1961 CRA champion Jack Brunner who had started the 100-lap feature from eighteenth starting position.

In notching his tenth CRA feature win of the season on a warm 90-degree day, Minyard also shaved two minutes off the track record for the 50-mile distance. Bob Hogle second in points raced the Morales Offenhauser powered sprinter with an arm injury suffered in a crash the week before, but soldiered on to finish sixth after he stopped twice for new tires.  Two weeks later after the CRA season finale at Ascot Park, Minyard at age 40 was crowned the 1964 CRA driving champion as his car owner Leonard Surdam from Rialto California won the car owner’s title.

On Sunday afternoon November 29, 1964 the Hanford Speedway, which was now referred to as a mile and half long track, hosted the USAC stock cars, with qualifying held on Saturday the 28^th. 1964 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner AJ Foyt won the pole position with an average speed of over 109 miles per hour (MPH) followed by Joe Leonard and Rufus “Parnelli” Jones, who three days earlier had won the Turkey Night Grand Prix for midgets with Bobby Unser in the fourth starting position.    

Other USAC ‘stars’ in the field included Lloyd Ruby, Bob Christie, Norm Nelson, defending USAC stock car champion Don White, Dempsey Wilson and Eugene “Jud” Larson who made an unusual stock car start.  With Hanford the penultimate event on the USAC schedule, Jones, the 1963 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner held a 300-point advantage over Nelson for the title of 1965 USAC stock car champion but Parnelli needed a solid finish to clinch.    

Bobby Marshman, who shared Rookie of the Year honors in the 1961 Indianapolis 500 with Jones, was scheduled to appear at Hanford but he suffered critical burns on November 27 in a tire-testing crash of his Pure Oil Firebird Lotus 29-Ford at Phoenix International Raceway. Marvin Porter winner of the 1960 NASCAR Grand National Marchbanks race was called upon to substitute for Marshman.  

KS Enterprises predicted more than 20,000 fans would attend the 200-mile ‘Billy Vukovich Memorial’ race, but only 6,500 fans passed the turnstiles.  Foyt in a 1964 Dodge charged into the lead trailed by Leonard, and the top remained static until the pair pitted around halfway through the race. Jones who had pitted earlier around lap 50 took the lead on the pit stop exchange but was forced to the stop for more fuel on lap 105.

When Jones stopped, Foyt regained the lead and raced to the win over Jones, Leonard, Unser and Marvin Porter with Lloyd Ruby in sixth place. Jones had secured his 1964 USAC stock car championship earlier in the race when the engine in Norm Nelson’s Plymouth blew up on lap 39. With his third-place finish at Hanford, former AMA motorcycle champion Joe Leonard clinched the USAC stock car division’s Rookie of the Year honors.  

During the 1965 season Hanford Speedway, which KS Enterprises billed as “Big H” that they advertised offered racing that included “stock, Indy Cars, sprint, sport and unlimited,” hosted two CRA sprint car races, both 50 lap events. The first CRA event was held on Sunday February 21 on what was now billed as Hanford’s 5/8-mile track. In practice on Saturday, Ernie Koch in Ben Zakit’s rear engine Offenhauser-powered sprint car from Oregon crashed and the crew was unable to make repairs in time for the car to compete in the next day’s races.

Ray Douglas in the Fisher Chevrolet-powered car topped the 31 cars that presented for qualifying and he set a new track record of 21.95 seconds. Second and third qualifiers Dick Atkins and Dee Hillman, teammates on the team owned by John Pestana and Bob Lang that used the former Fike Plumbing machinery, also eclipsed the old track record.  Don Thomas, Tink Elenberg, and Billy Wilkerson were the winners of the three five-lap preliminary heat races.

Douglas started the feature from the pole position and led the first 16 laps of the feature which was slowed by four caution flag periods for oil on the track, spins and crashes. Atkins powered past Douglas on the backstretch on the 17^th lap and then held off his teammate Hillman to win by two lengths. Bob DeJong the former track record holder finished third trailed by Hal Minyard and Bob Hogle.  

In the week following the CRA sprint car race, San Mateo Times writer Jack Lattimer reported that with new financial backing, Hanford Speedway manager Tommy Francis was remodeling the “poorly designed” 1.8-mile track. “Parts of the track are being rebuilt and the racing groove stretched to two miles,” Lattimer’s article claimed “the turns will be 65 feet wide with two short and two long straightaways similar to Indianapolis. All turns will be equal and banked 15 degrees.” According to Lattimer, Francis hoped to have the new track ready by April 7 for a 200-mile USAC national championship race.

A month later, Lattimer wrote in the San Mateo Times that Hanford would host a 200-mile USAC championship race on the two-mile oval on November 7, followed by a 150-mile USAC stock car race on November 27.  There is no confirmation that the USAC schedule actually planned on a 1965 Indy Car race, but neither the race or the promised track construction ever occurred.  A planned 1965 American Motorcycle Association (AMA) 125-mile championship road initially scheduled for April or May 1965 was cancelled during the month of March according to the AMA “due to the promoter’s failure to confirm date.”

Hanford Speedway hosted an open-competition 200-mile race for cars with “early late model stock bodies (1950 to 1962) with big late model mills” for the weekend of April 17-18, 1965.  The $5000 purse event, run over the track’s 15-turn 1.8-mile road course was sanctioned by California Auto Racing Inc (CAR), the successor to the California Jalopy Association.

CAR president and race promoter Art Atkinson, a used car dealer and former race car driver, explained that the race was part of a “new trend of road racing stock cars which is spreading fast.” Advertised entries for the “Cotton Picker 200” included Frank Secrist, Jim Cook of Norwalk, Marshall Sargent of San Jose Speedway fame, and drivers from the nearby towns of Bakersfield, Shafter, Oildale, Porterville and Delano. Practice was scheduled for Friday with qualifying on Saturday to determine the “100 fastest cars to start.”

The promotion was a disaster as only 31 cars entered with some of the entries Atkinson described as “so bad we warned them not to run over 30 miles per hour.” Atkinson claimed that a “calculated cold-blooded plot” was the reason for the failure, because “other minor league local clubs called mandatory inspections for Sunday to sabotage my program.”  Bobby Mills of Porterville won the race despite that fact that during a pit stop an excited crewmember accidentally poured two gallons of water into the car’s fuel tank. 

The CRA sprint cars returned on Saturday night May 29 1965 for a scheduled 24-car 50-lap feature race. Entries included earlier winner Atkins and Frank Secrist, but Jay East drove Leonard Surdam’s orange #1 car to victory in place of regular driver Hal Minyard, who was “back East” as sale representative for his ‘McHal’ line of racing helmets. East started the feature from eighth place and made a daring last lap pass in turn two to claim his first career CRA feature victory.    

The November 28 race at Hanford Speedway was the final date on the 1965 USAC stock car schedule, and the Rookie of the Year honors had already been awarded to Canadian phenom Billy Foster but the driver’s championship still hung in the balance. Norm Nelson held a 260-point advantage over second-place driver Paul Goldsmith with 400 points available to the race winner. Behind the lead pair, Don White and Jim Hurtubise were separated by just 215 points in their battle for third place.   

Other big-name USAC drivers entered for the 200-mile included Sal Tovella, Bay Darnell, 24-year old Gary Bettenhausen and the 1965 Indianapolis 500-mile race rookie of the year and new USAC National Champion Mario Andretti in a 1964 Ford sponsored by Hanford Speedway promoter Kal Simon. Other entries included midget racer Tommy Copp, Dempsey Wilson, Lloyd Ruby, and USAC stock car rookie and three-time race winner Bobby Isaac although none of that quartet was able to crack their way into the 31-car starting field which was led by fast qualifier Goldsmith in Ray Nichels’ 1965 Plymouth.

The race day crowd of over 9,000 fans saw Foster start second in a 1965 Dodge and Hurtubise from third in Norm Nelson’s #56 1965 Plymouth. Hurtubise, Foster and Goldsmith all lead early but each retired with engine failure, and Goldsmith’s retirement on the 87^th lap not only handed the lead to Norm Nelson, but clinched Nelson’s second USAC stock car championship.  Nelson crossed the finish line several laps ahead of Scotty Cain to claim the $2,000 winner’s check with Mario Andretti in third, five laps behind Nelson, with only 11 cars were still running at the finish.  This marked the USAC stock cars final appearance at Hanford, and it would be four years before the CRA sprint cars would return.    

The Marchbanks Speedway – Hanford California

Part two of the history of the first superspeedway west of the Mississippi

For the 1960 racing season Kings County California farmer Bircha Lewis “B.L”. Marchbanks expanded his 160-acre stadium automobile racing venue southeast of Hanford with the construction of a new 1-3/8-mile long paved oval with three corners that incorporated the sharp 22-degree banked first turn shared with the existing ½-mile paved oval track.

The new track, reportedly designed by Marchbanks himself, also featured a lake in the infield, created when the material removed was used to the build the banking for the new tri-oval layout.  Marchbanks reportedly spent $200,000 (later listed as $700,000 then as much as $1 million) on the improvements which included a new 7,000-seat grandstand located on the front straightaway near the entry of the first turn.  

The first event at the new Marchbanks Stadium were boat drag races on the lake held the weekend of February 13 & 14 1960 sanctioned by the National Boat Timing Association of Bakersfield which had originated the sport several years earlier.  Fans paid an admission charge of $1.00 each to watch 15 classes of racing in time trials and eliminations and Harold Kindsvater of Fresno won Top Eliminator honors with a run of 100.1 miles per hour (MPH).

That same week, Mr. Marchbanks traveled to Daytona Beach Florida site of the Daytona ‘500’ to drum up interest for the upcoming ‘California 250’ NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Racing) race scheduled for June on his new speedway.  Rex White related his initial impression of Marchbanks in his autobiography Gold Thunder. “While at Daytona I met this character from California named Marchbanks - everywhere he went he wore a cowboy hat and boots. He had come from California to get drivers to run his new track in Hanford - Joe Weatherly and I agreed, making plans to go in June.”  

Rex White and Joe Weatherly were not yet “big names” in NASCAR although White had won five Grand National races in 1959 in his own gold and white #4 Chevrolet Impala and Weatherly had notched 12 wins in four seasons in the NASCAR convertible division as a factory-backed Ford Thunderbird driver.

The June 11^th and 12^th weekend races were advertised as “the biggest race west of the Mississippi” with a hardtop race scheduled for the half-mile track on Saturday night prior to the Sunday afternoon main event. Pre-race newspaper articles falsely stated that the ‘California 250’ “would attract the nation’s leading late model drivers among them Lee and Richard Petty, Ned Jarrett, Junior Johnson, Bobby Johns, Buck Baker and Fireball Roberts.”    

A majority of the 33-car starting field for the ‘California 250’ were California drivers with a sprinkling of other drivers from Western states - White and Weatherly were the only Southeastern NASCAR drivers to make the trip to California. White recalled in his autobiography, Gold Thunder that “many of the drivers decided not to go to California as the money was too little to warrant the trip. I’d promised Marchbanks I’d be in his inaugural race and signed the registration. Since he’d advertised my entry and Bill France was flying me out and back I was committed to go.” Rather than his regular 1960 Chevrolet wrenched by Louis Clements, White was scheduled to drive a 1959 Ford owned by legendary West Coast racer Scotty Cain, while Weatherly was entered in a 1960 Ford owned and sponsored by Torrance California car dealer Vel Miletich.

With a total posted purse of $18,425 (including $4,875 in contingency money) NASCAR President Bill France, on hand for the race, proclaimed it to be “the biggest stock car race on the west coast since the Gilmore Gold trophy race at Mines Field in 1934” and that “this little town will be the hub of auto racing west of the Rockies.”  

some of the drivers labeled the first turn “dangerous” after pre-race practice on Friday, but in Saturday afternoon qualifying, Frank Secrist of nearby Oildale won the coveted pole position at a reported average speed of 94 MPH trailed by Colorado’s John Rostek, Lloyd Dane and Cain with Fritz Wilson rounding out the top five.  

According to newspaper reports, Secrist’s 1960 Ford Starliner “hit 137 MPH on the straights.” White who had won earlier in April and was in third place in Grand National points qualified ninth while Weatherly, tenth in points, and the hottest driver on the NASCAR circuit with three wins so far in 1960, started 32^nd.   

After qualifying and prior to the start of the hardtop race the track hosted a “cowboy barbeque” for fans at the cost of $1.00 a plate. Rex White remembered that “Marchbanks perhaps should have opened a restaurant. He got a front-end loader, dug a hole in ground, added an air tunnel, built a fire in the hole and put timbers over the fire. He let it burn down to coals and added mesquite. Then he lowered a dead skinned cow into the timbers and covered the whole thing over with dirt. It cooked for 24 hours. When he took that cow out, he cut away dirty part of the meat and served it to fans. I ate some myself and I’ll tell you it was good.” 

The morning of the race, 400 Autolite parts distributors from various locations throughout Northern California arrived in eight chartered Greyhound busses to join the sold-out crowd. Secrist, Cain, Dane and Las Vegas’ Mel Larson each took turns in the lead before Marvin Porter from Redlands California, the 1959 NASCAR Short Track National Champion led the final 50 laps to claim the victory, with his teammate for this race, Weatherly, 46 seconds behind him.

Rex White finished the ‘California 250’ in eighth place, which gained him valuable points on his way to the 1960 NASCAR Grand National championship.  Although White misidentified the track surface incorrectly in his autobiography, Gold Thunder as he recalled that “the track was good considering it was dirt but there was little hope of its survival. They had a few grandstands, outhouse toilets and unbearable heat - race day it was 104 degrees.”

In July 1960, the banked half-mile track hosted the Formula Racing Association two-day event which featured Formula Juniors and sports cars including lady racer Odette Bigler with a Lotus 18, that competed for cash prizes. This professional sport car race was repeated in 1961 with an event that attracted many prestigious West Coast racers including Jack McAfee and Bruce Eglinton.      

On September 11, 1960, the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) motorcycles raced in a scheduled 100-mile race that was race shortened to 75 miles due to the heat. Though it is undetermined which of the three tracks hosted the event, three-time AMA champion Joe Leonard held a two-lap lead when his machine broke a valve, and Don Smith took the victory. 

A week later Marchbanks Stadium hosted a two-day event for the California Sports Car Club along with “grand prix motorcycles” on the 1.8-mile road course which used portions of the 1.4-mile tri-oval, the 1/3-mile oval and the ½-mile oval. With the cars and cycles racing on what was described as the “Monza-style banking” lap speeds of over 100 MPH were optimistically predicted in pre-race news articles.

Perhaps due to concerns about heat, the date for the 1961 NASCAR ‘California 250’ was moved to March 12 and featured a larger purse of $14,075 with $2,600 earmarked for the race winner. Rex White returned, this time joined by fellow Southerners Edwin ‘Banjo’ Matthews and Glen ‘Fireball’ Roberts. Roberts, in a 1961 Pontiac owned by Arizona’s JD Braswell, started on the outside of the front row, led every one of the 179 laps, and he won by more than two laps over second place Eddie Gray’s 1961 Ford.   

Throughout the summer and fall of 1961 for 22 consecutive Saturday nights beginning May 6, the Marchbanks Stadium half-mile track hosted a modified and claimer car racing program, with 1960 track champion Frank Secrist the headliner for the modified program along with Bud Dyson, Al Pombo and Johnny Mello, with the claimer field led by Bob Knight and Eddie ‘Bad Boy’ Bradshaw.  Marchbanks with the umbrella company, Marchbanks Sports Clubs Inc., continued as the promoter at Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale. 

In early November 1961, perhaps based on the success of the Formula racing events, B.L. Marchbanks promoted “the greatest road show race on the West Coast,” a 125-mile race with the 75 fastest “stock cars, late models, modified and claimer drivers and cars on the West Coast.” Dubbed the ‘Pacific Coast Championship Road Race,’ sanctioned by NASCAR to be held on the nine-turn 1.8-mile road course, the race attracted the entry of headliner Al Pombo, who was billed as “the best driver to come out of Fresno since Bill Vukovich.”  Pombo was the 1961 California state hardtop racing champion as well as the Kearney Bowl and Clovis Speedway track champion.    

For the 1962 season, Mr. Marchbanks was no longer the promoter of Bakersfield Speedway, replaced by boxing promoter Ed York’s Racing Associates Inc. In early 1962 Marchbanks Speedway advertised that they would hold NHRA sanctioned drag races the third Sunday of every month but it is unknown what if any other weekly racing programs were held during the 1962 season.

On Sunday April 8, the track hosted a NASCAR sanctioned 100-mile “new stock car race” for Pacific Coast Late Models on the 1.4-mile tri-oval.  Entries included Pombo in a 1961 Oldsmobile, Scotty Cain in a 1962 Ford along with Lloyd Dane, Louie Unser in a 1962 Pontiac, and 1951 Marchbanks NASCAR winner Danny Weinberg all competing for a $4,200 purse.  

Downey’s Danny Letner, the 1955 NASCAR Pacific Coast champion, won the pole position in a 1961 Ford with Eddie Gray alongside to lead the 30-car starting field to the green flag. Only 4500 fans turned out to watch Letner lead the 72-lap race wire-to-wire in what was apparently the last NASCAR Pacific Coast Late Model event held at Marchbanks.

With an announcement of an agreement in late April, the 1963 Marchbanks Stadium racing season opened on May 17 with the track operated by Racing Associates Inc. Initially Marchbanks Stadium ran a jalopy and sportsmen racing program on Friday nights with Bakersfield Speedway holding a similar program on Saturday nights along with periodic boxing matches at the facility.

Mid-way through the 1963 season, a figure-eight layout was added to the 1/2-mile Marchbanks oval for the new ‘Crazy 8’ racing program to cash in on a short-lived fad. These races were open to sportsmen, jalopies or modified cars, with the race stopped only if a car was upside down, on fire or if the driver was “obviously injured”- a track blockage did not necessitate any action by the flagman. Although the races were open to different types of cars, there was claimer rule in place such that the engine in a winning car could be claimed by a fellow competitor for $149.

For 1964, operations at the Marchbanks Stadium facility were about to take another turn with a new promoter which will be discussed in part three of our story.  

The Marchbanks Speedway

Hanford California

Part One- the early history of the first superspeedway west of the Mississippi River


This article previously appeared in the Classic Racing Times - subscribe at http://theclassicracingtimes.com/subscribe

Bircha Lewis “B.L”. Marchbanks was born in 1895 and grew up to become a cattle rancher in Lamb County in the southern part of the Texas panhandle until he went bankrupt in 1924 and lost his ranch. Marchbanks arrived in California nearly penniless and settled in Kings County in the Central Valley near the small town of Hanford.  

Through years of hard work he and his two sons-in law built a large cotton and corn farm southeast of Hanford, and in 1950 Marchbanks decided to devote 160 acres to the construction of a new stadium venue located at the corner of the Central Valley Highway (also known as 8th street in Hanford) and Idaho Avenue.

Marchbanks Stadium included a rodeo grounds and a half-mile dirt track with a quarter-mile long straightaway that would also be used for quarter-horse racing. The first rodeo took place during 1950, but B.L.’s hopes of pari-mutuel gambling never materialized, and automobile racing debuted with jalopy races on May 12, 1951.  

One of the more unusual features of the new facility was the building that was used primarily for the driver’s meetings – B. L. Marchbanks bought the old one-room  King Schoolhouse building and had it moved to the race track site which was just north and east of his ranch home at 6888 Idaho Avenue.  

Later that year, the fledgling National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) group staged five Grand National races in California; three at the half-mile dirt Carrell Speedway in Gardena, one at the 5/8-mile high-banked oil-dirt Oakland Stadium, and on October 28 1951, a 200-lapper at the new Marchbanks Stadium.  

Admission to the race promoted by Johnny Mantz, the winner of the inaugural NASCAR ‘Southern 500’ the previous year, offered grandstand seats for $2.40 each while box seats were priced at $3.60 apiece.

The fans that arrived early to watch qualifying which began at 2:30 PM saw Danny Letner of Downey emerge as the fastest qualifier of the 31 cars with a best lap of 29.92 seconds. Other entries that aimed for their portion of the $3,550 total purse included North Carolina’s Marvin Panch, Oregon racer Herschel McGriff, sprint car and midget standout Allen Heath, and Indianapolis 500-mile race veterans Harold “Hal” Cole and James “Dick” Rathman.    

Herb Thomas, on his way to capturing the 1951 NASCAR championship with six wins already that season, led the first 34 laps in a 1951 Hudson owned by Marshall Teague until he was involved in a crash which handed the lead to second place starter Truman ‘Fonty’ Flock. ‘Fonty’  held the point until lap 74 when his ‘Red Devil’ 1951 Oldsmobile dropped out of the race on the same lap that the day’s fast qualifier Letner crashed out in spectacular fashion as barrel-rolled his 1951 Hudson three times.

Denny (sometimes stated as Danny) Weinberg in a 1951 Studebaker Commander V-8 owned by Tony Sampo of Downey picked up the lead on lap 75. Weinberg led the rest of the way and local newspapers reported that Weinberg “outlasted the nation’s point leaders to win” with only five cars reportedly running when Weinberg took the checkered flag.

Weinberg was a member of the family that owned and operated the Coastal Grain Company in Norwalk California a firm that processed and stored dairy feed and made loans to its customers to finance their farm and livestock operations. Robert Weinberg, a vice-president of Coastal Grain fielded entries for three years on the AAA Championship circuit from 1950 to 1952 for former Southern California track roadster standout Manny Auyolo.

During the 1952 racing season, B.L. Marchbanks staged a weekly slate of race that featured jalopies, hardtops and roadsters under the sanction of the Valley Jalopy Racing Association (VJRA).  On Friday Memorial Day 1952 Marchbanks Stadium held a 100-lap VJRA jalopy race that proved to have high a level of attrition as many cars failed to finish due to broken axles, tire blowouts and crashes into the retaining wall.

The VJRA, run by Ed Spellman, appears to have been a short-lived organization that sanctioned races only during the 1952 season at Marchbanks, and nearby Central Valley tracks in Visalia and Selma.   

An aerial photograph of the Marchbanks facility taken during 1953 showed off the addition of some new features - a one-third mile oval (oiled dirt) within the half-mile oval and a new short infield section that created a five-eighth mile road course. In addition to the newly constructed permanent parking facilities, the half-mile track had been paved with asphalt, and the facility opened on Mother’s Day May 9 1954 with a heavily-advertised race on the half-mile paved track for the URA “sprint cars.” Driver Bud Richmond suffered a concussion when his car crashed during warm-up laps.

For the 1954 racing season NASCAR had expanded to the West Coast under the direction of former champion midget driver turned race promoter Bob Barkheimer. The NASCAR Pacific Coast Late Model circuit presented a nine-race schedule at venues throughout California with   Marchbanks Stadium’s 100-lap race scheduled for Saturday June 26.

Don Basile who had previously managed Carrell and Clovis Speedways, told local newspaper reporters that NASCAR and the track planned for a 24-car field with at least eight different makes and models, but after qualifying was completed, only 22 cars representing six different makes started the race.

The field included entries from a pair of competitors that had participated in the 1951 NASCAR Marchbanks race, Danny Letner and Marvin Panch, but the 1951 winner Denny Weinberg had retired from racing. In addition to the race with a $2,500 guaranteed purse, the night’s admission price included a “free full half-hour” of fireworks.

The fast qualifier was John Soares who posted a lap at 29.264 seconds, almost 6/10 of a second faster than the 1951 pole position time. Soares led the first two circuits in his 1954 Dodge until he yielded to Panch’s similar machine, and Panch led the rest of the race to win $450 with Soares second and eventual inaugural NASCAR Pacific Coast series champion Lloyd Dane in eighth position.

NASCAR established a strong position and served as the regular sanctioning body for Marchbanks Stadium. After the 1955 season when it co-sanctioned the jalopies, modified hard tops and claiming races (for amateurs) with the Valley Stock Car Racing Association (VSCRA), NASCAR became the track’s sanctioning body for many years.

   

On July 23 1954 the Northern California-based Bay Cities Racing Association (BCRA) and the Southern California based United Racing Association (URA) staged an unusual mid-season jointly sanctioned 100-lap midget race on the Marchbanks Stadium 1/3 mile oiled dirt track which was won by BCRA two-time defending Johnny Baldwin.

Nearly a month later, on August 21 1954, BCRA and URA co-sanctioned another 100-lapper won by the URA points leader Billy Garrett with Baldwin second trailed by BCRA regulars Earl Motter and Norm Rapp in third and fourth places respectively. The midgets returned to the Marchbanks 1/3-mile track one more time during the 1955 season with the August 27 BCRA sanctioned race won by Johnny Baldwin.

 On Sunday October 10th 1954 Marchbanks Stadium hosted a $1,000 purse jalopy and modified hardtop race on the “speedy half-mile paved track” that featured such emerging Central Valley racing stars Frank Secrist and Johnny Mello. In late July 1955 regular competitor Ronald McLane was critically injured when he inexplicably walked across the track during a yellow caution flag period of the 500-lap race. Struck by a passing race car, the impact broke both of McLane’s legs and his pelvis and he was reportedly off work for a year.

Marchbanks Stadium hosted a “Little Indianapolis” 500-lap race for jalopies and hardtops during the Memorial Day holiday in both 1956 and 1957 but the events were marred by tragedy. During the May 29 1956 running of the race, Arlen Smith a 22-year old mechanic for the car of ‘Chick’ Connery was struck in the back and shoulder by a wheel that had left the race car driven by Fred Dudley of San Jose.

Smith a resident of Las Vegas suffered a concussion when his head hit the ground after he was knocked down and he unfortunately died at the Hanford Community Hospital two hours after the accident.

One year and a day later, during the 1957 “Little Indianapolis” race, Ernest “Ernie” Cornelson, a successful Central Valley area jalopy and modified racer perished when his “Beacon Propane Special” rolled over several times, slammed into the retaining wall and burst into flames. Newspapers reported that the 30-year old Cornelson was mercifully killed instantly in the crash, and the race which had just completed its 148th lap was stopped for over an hour as the wreckage was cleared.

During the 1958 season the Marchbanks Sports Club Inc. appeared as the sponsor of the amateur claiming jalopy races sanctioned by NASCAR held every Saturday night during the season.  On Saturday September 20 the Marchbanks Stadium featured California Racing Association-sanctioned "big car" races, and the Marchbanks 1958 season closed with a visit from the NASCAR modified and sportsman series which drew entries from both the southern and northern California series.

For the 1959 season, B. L. Marchbanks under the guise of his company Marchbanks Sports Club Inc. became the promoter of the Bakersfield Speedway in Oildale California, and he made dramatic changes to the facility that included paving the racing surface with asphalt. The renovated facility opened on May 30 1959 with a double-header program of claimer jalopies and modified stock cars with the jalopy feature won by Ron McLane and the modified feature won by Johnny Mello who scored a bonus of 100 silver dollars from promoter B. L. Marchbanks.     

Marchbanks Stadium meantime had opened its 1959 season on May 10 and in early June Marchbanks’ two paved tracks featured back-to-back Saturday and Sunday night URA midget programs. The Marchbanks Stadium 1959 racing season closed in October with the “Valley Championships” for the modified hardtops and jalopies.   Big changes were on the horizon for the 1960 season at Marchbanks Stadium which will be detailed in the second and final installment of the history of the Hanford superspeedway.

1968 Gurney AAR Eagle

One of the stars of the recent Vintage Motor Racing exhibit with a special tribute to Dan Gurney at the Lyon Air Museum was Dan Gurney’s own 1968 Eagle race car.

The 1968 Eagle chassis designed by former Lola engineer Tony Southgate featured a lower flatter nose due to the use of outboard suspension assemblies. The car’s main tub was also lower in profile, with a laid-back windscreen and a body/engine cover which ended with a squared off tail section instead of the earlier rounded tail used in the 1966 and 1967 Eagle designs.

There were five 1968 Eagles built by All American Racers on Santa Ana California in the 33-car starting field for the 1968 Indianapolis 500-mile race,  First was the featured car owned by Gurney’s primary sponsor Oscar L “Ozzie” Olson of the Olsonite Corporation, manufacturer of molded one-piece plastic toilet seats. 

Gurney’s entry was powered by a 303-cubic inch stock-block Ford V-8 engine fitted with Gurney-Weslake Mark Four cylinder heads. For qualifying with the addition of nitromethane to the alcohol fuel the Gurney-Weslake engine could develop 525 horsepower.

1968 was the height of innovation at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway which was reflected in the variety of powerplants fitted to the other AAR Eagles that were entered. Roger McCluskey drove an Eagle owned by Atlanta sportsman Lindsey Hopkins that was powered by a 159-cubic inch 4-cylinder Offenhauser engine fitted with a turbocharger which was sponsored by G C Murphy stores. 

Bobby Unser drove a similar chassis and engine combination owned by Bob Wilke’s Leader Card Racers with sponsorship from Rislone oil treatment. IN 1968, a turbocharged Offehauser engine could develop 625 horsepower in qualifying trim.  

Gurney’s teammate on the Olsonite team for the ‘500” would be 1967 Formula One world champion Denis Hulme who became available after his original entry, the Shelby-Wallis turbine powered machine was withdrawn. Hulme drove the #42 Olsonite AAR Eagle which was powered a conventional 255-cubic inch DOHC (double overhead camshaft) Ford V-8 engine.   

The last Eagle entry in the Indianapolis 500-mile race field was owned by PSA airline heir Tom Friedkin powered by a 159-cubic inch turbocharged DOHC Ford engine driven by Jerry Grant with sponsorship from Bardahl oil treatment. 

While it could potentially produce the highest horsepower of the available engine, at high boost levels, the Schwitzer turbocharged Ford engine suffered both head gasket and fuel distribution issues which resulted in burned pistons.

In qualifying time trials, Unser led the Eagle contingent as he started third, on the outside of the front row, with McCluskey next in seventh place. Gurney himself started the 1968 ‘500’ in tenth place, while Grant started fifteenth, and Hulme in a late-developing program started in twentieth place.

After the leading STP Lotus turbines broke with nine laps left in the race, Bobby Unser lead the final nine laps and won by 53.81 seconds over Gurney. In a stunning debut, the 1968 AAR Eagles swept three of the top five finishing positions as Hulme finished in fourth place.

Two weeks later at the mid-June 1968 two-heat ‘Telegraph Trophy 200’ at the Mosport International Raceway in Bowmanville Ontario Canada, Gurney and his Eagle swept the program. 

A new 1968 Eagle powered by a 305-cubic inch Chevrolet V-8 stock-block engine built by Traco Engineering was entered for the event by Roger Penske for sports car ace Mark Donohue which finished in the top five of both heat races. This marked Penske’s first Indianapolis type racing car entry.

Gurney started from the pole position with a 110 MPH (mile per hour) average speed around the 2.5-mile road course. At the drop of the green flag, Dan led all forty laps of the first heat as Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Bobby Unser crashed his 1968 Eagle on the first lap. In the second Mosport heat with only 15 starters, Gurney again dominated from the pole position,as he led every lap and finished the 100-mile heat race in 55 minutes.  

Gurney did not race his Eagle Indy Car again for five and half months as he next appeared at the 1968 United States Auto Club (USAC) season finale at the Riverside International Raceway for the ‘Rex Mays 300.’ 

Gurney qualified the AAR Eagle now fitted with stubby front wings on the nose and a rudimentary wing that spanned across the rear exhaust pipes, qualified for the pole position with an average speed of 118-1/2 MPH around the historic 2.6-mile road course.

Gurney led the first four laps of the race, before Mario Andretti in a tight battle for the 1968 USAC national championship led the next four circuits. Gurney surged back into the lead on lap nine and never looked back as he led the remaining 108 laps and won by a lap over Bobby Unser’s 1968 Eagle which had been repaired from its Mosport damage and fitted with a DOHC Ford engine. 

The #48 Olsonite AAR Eagle raced five times during the 1968 USAC season and scored three victories and one second place result  was displayed at the Lyon Air Museum as it appeared at its final race as a tribute to Dan Gurney who passed away on January 14 2018.  

Bugatti 35B race car 

As part of their Vintage Motor Racing exhibit the Lyon Air Museum displayed a  Bugatti 35 B Grand Prix race car. This car is powered by a 138-cubic inch straight eight-cylinder SOHC (single overhead camshaft) engine fed by a single stage Roots-type supercharger through a single Zenith carburetor to develop a remarkable 135 horsepower.


The Bugatti 35B originally known as the 35TC was a development of the original type 35 that debuted in 1924. The 35B was a state of the art race car for its day, with a curb weight of just 1510 pounds, and 19-inch aluminum wheels that used integral drum brakes. The front axle was hollow and the semi-elliptical front springs actually pass thorough the axle. The front wheels exhibit the characteristic Type 35 positive camber with the tops of the front wheels lean out away from the car. 


The 35B is indeed a rare machine as only 45 examples were built. A 35B won the 1928 Targa Florio, the 1929 French Grand Prix, and the 1930 Czech and Monaco Grands Prix.       

All photos by the author

The 1972 AAR "Mystery Eagle" on display 

The Lyon Air Museum of Santa Ana California recently hosted the “Vintage Motor Racing exhibit” with a special tribute to Dan Gurney. This was a fitting memorial as Gurney’s All American Racers has been based in Santa Ana since 1970. One of the two AAR Eagle race cars on display was a recreation of the historic 1972 “Mystery Eagle.” shown as it appeared at the 1972 ‘California 500.’

Veteran racer Jerry Grant began the month of May 1972 without a ride for the Indianapolis 500-mile race but campaigned for the seat in the second Eagle for Dan Gurney’s All-American Racers (AAR) team. Grant was an ideal candidate for the highly sought-after ride in second AAR Eagle, but there was a problem: Gurney had a fast machine but no sponsorship.

Photo of Jerry Grant in 1972 courtesy of

the IUPUI University of Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

Gurney and Grant had a long relationship which dated back to 1965, when Grant first co-drove with Gurney in a Lotus 19 in the Daytona 2000-kilometer race. Grant had driven for All-American Racers in 1966 in the ill-fated Gurney-Weslake Ford engine powered Lola T70 sports car in the USRRC and SCCA Can-Am series.

On Thursday, May 18, 1972 Jerry Grant was formally announced as the driver of the second AAR 1972 Eagle painted purple and white and dubbed “the Mystery Eagle.” The car appeared to outsiders to be unsponsored, as aside from contingency decals, there was only the logo of CV Enterprises on the rear wing and the company logo “You Name it” emblazoned across the nose of the car and on the rear wing end plates.  

CV Enterprises was a company operated by the mysterious Christopher A. Vallo Junior, a self-described millionaire from the Chicago suburb of Highland Indiana who also owned property and a restaurant in Minnesota.  Vallo, a Korean War veteran of Greek descent, had been convicted in 1965 of passing counterfeit currency and was sentenced to three years of probation.

In late 1970, the 265-pound Vallo approached stock car builder and racer Ray Nichels and his son Terry with a check for $1 million for the Nichels’ to build Vallo a team of winning Pontiac stock cars.  In November 1971 Nichels filed an $8 million lawsuit against Vallo that alleged non-payment per their contract terms.  

According to fellow historian and writer William LaDow, the contact for the 1972 Indianapolis ‘500’ CV Enterprises sponsorship came through Bobby Unser, who introduced Vallo to Gurney during the month of May when Gurney was desperately searching for sponsorship for a second Indianapolis entry. In hindsight, given the nationwide publicity given to Nichels’ lawsuit, one wonders why (or if) Gurney was not wary of Chris Vallo, or perhaps he was that desperate for sponsorship.  

The terms of the agreement between the pair was never revealed, but Grant got the ride on May 18 over Unser’s objections, as Unser reportedly wanted a sprint car driver as his teammate according to Gordon Kirby. On Friday May 19, 1972, Grant took his first laps in the #48 “Mystery Eagle” and after just 20 or so laps of practice, posted a best lap of 186.881 MPH.

The following day, after the remaining “first day” qualifiers failed to knock Unser from the pole position, Grant qualified for the 1972 Indianapolis 500, his sixth Indianapolis start, in the 15th position. Grant’s four-lap average speed of 189.294 MPH with the last lap run at 191.164 MPH, was the fourth fastest run overall, and the fastest qualifier of the third day non-pole position eligible cars.

 

In a post-qualifying interview with the Associated Press, Grant commented on such a fast run after so few practice laps. “Sure, I’m excited. But it’s easy to explain. I have the world’s best former driver as a car owner and the world’s best current driver as a teammate.” According to Gordon Kirby, however, there was tension behind the scenes, as Unser who had done all the testing and development work, resented Grant’s immediate success. 

The 1972 Indianapolis 500 featured a new rule that required that, a car take on fuel during at least four mandatory pit stops during the 500-mile race. The rule further stated that “approved procedures under this supplementary regulation will be covered in bulletin form.”  The total amount of fuel allowed for each car to complete the 500 miles was 325 gallons, the same as 1971 but with one additional stop required.

Each car started the race with 75 gallons of methanol fuel on board, and the pit tank limited to 250 gallons. While a total of 325 gallons seems like a lot of fuel today with contemporary electronic engine controls, it was going to be close for many teams in 1972 to average better than 1-1/2 miles to the gallon with their mechanical fuel injected turbocharged engines. 

At the start of the 1972 Indianapolis ‘500’ on Saturday May 27, pole-sitter Bobby Unser took the lead at the drop of the green flag and led the first 30 laps until his car retired on lap 31 with ignition problems. Gary Bettenhausen, in Roger Penske’s McLaren then took control of the race.  

Grant battled with Bettenhausen and took the race lead of lap 162 when Gary pitted and then held it for three laps until he pitted and Bettenhausen resumed the lead. On lap 175, Grant retook the lead and held on while Bettenhausen’s car retired on lap 182 with ignition problems. Bettenhausen’s teammate Mark Donohue inherited second place but was nearly a lap in arrears.   

While in the lead, Grant’s Eagle began to vibrate and “push” or understeer entering the turns with what Grant thought was a bad right front tire, so with just thirteen laps to go, Grant was forced to pit a fifth time. Without working team radio communications since early in the race, with only hand signals from the driver, Gurney and the crew surmised that Grant’s Eagle was running out of fuel. With the “Mystery Eagle’s” 250-gallon pit side fuel tank empty, the crew stopped Grant in teammate Unser’s stall.  

In a chaotic situation, the crew connected the fuel hoses, and then Gurney realized the problem was not fuel and ordered the crew to disconnect the hoses. The AAR crew changed the right front tire before they realized the problem was with the left front tire. 

By the time the disastrous pit stop was over, Grant’s car had been stationary for 38 seconds and Mark Donohue in the Sunoco DX- sponsored McLaren had swept past into the lead. Over the final 12 laps, Grant could not close the gap and crossed the finish line nearly a lap behind Donohue.

To finish second after he led the ‘500’ with thirteen laps to go must have been a crushing disappointment to Grant and the AAR team, but the worst was yet to come.

George Bignotti, crew chief for Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing, owner of third-place finisher Al Unser’s ‘Viceroy Special’ filed a post-race protest which claimed that Grant’s car should have been “automatically disqualified “after it took fuel from Unser’s fueling tank. Bignotti’s protest was reviewed by the stewards overnight, and meanwhile, the AAR team studied videotape as they suspected that the USAC scoring was wrong and that Grant had actually won the 1972 Indianapolis ‘500.’

When the official race results were posted at 8 AM on Sunday morning May 28 1972 , Jerry Grant and the “Mystery Eagle” were placed twelfth in the finishing order. Chief Steward Harlan Fengler, Referee Don Cummins, and Steward Walt Myers had upheld Bignotti’s protest and that Grant was not credited any laps after the pit violation, just as if the car had retired at that point.  

After a hearing the USAC Appeal Board announced their decision on Wednesday afternoon June 7 1972.  While the panel agreed with Dan Gurney’s claim that the lap 188 refueling of Grant’s car was a mistake, as the car did not need fuel to complete the race, Chief Judge Charlie Brockman said that Gurney’s  “line of testimony is not relevant. The stewards cannot be responsible for the mistake of a contestant. The panel respects Mr. Gurney’s forthright honesty as he admitted that he would have taken the same action and chanced whatever penalty had he positively identified the need for more fuel.”  

The USAC Appeal Panel determined that a violation of the rules had occurred and cited the 1972 500-mile race Approved Supplementary Regulation #23 which stated that the maximum fuel supply other than that carried in the car was 250 gallons.  

On the heels of the stunning loss of more than $71,000 of Indianapolis ‘500’ prize money, Gurney and Grant found that the mysterious Chris Vallo had disappeared. Like Ray Nichels and David Pearson the pair wound being owed a lot of money which they would never collect.  Until his death Jerry Grant would show visitors to his home a copy of 1972 check for $10,000 from CV Enterprises stamped twice by the bank “NSF” (Insufficient Funds). 

In March 1976, the law finally caught with Chris Vallo, then 45 years old, as he was convicted on several federal counts: failing to file income tax returns, making false statements to obtain bank loans and firearms and possession of firearms as a convicted felon.  Vallo who had earlier filed for bankruptcy to escape several civil judgments was sentenced to five years in federal prison. Upon his release, Vallo remained out of the public eye and passed away in 2000.

Grant’s promising 1972 USAC season came to a halt for lack of sponsorship with the purple and white #48 AAR Eagle grounded for three months. In mid-August, Gurney’s primary sponsor Oscar L “Ozzie” Olson of the Olsonite Corporation, manufacturer of molded one-piece plastic toilet seats, announced that he had purchased the “Mystery Eagle.” 

Olson announced that Jerry Grant would run the final three USAC races on the 1972 schedule, starting with the third leg of the USAC ”Triple Crown” the ‘California 500’ at the 2-1/2 mile “Indianapolis of the West,” Ontario Motor Speedway.

Practice at Ontario California began on August 22 1972 and both the Eagles of Grant and teammate Bobby Unser soon posted practice lap speeds of over 200 miles per hour (MPH). Experts calculated that the turbocharged Offenhauser engines in the AAR Eagles had to produce nearly 1,100 horsepower to accomplish the 200 MPH feat.

That huge amount of horsepower from 159 cubic inches of engine displacement came at a price as the high level of boost pressure put a tremendous strain of the engine’s internal components.  Unser experienced two engine failures in practice and then in pre-qualifying practice on the morning of August 26, Unser’s car suffered another engine failure, which opened the door for Grant.

Jerry Grant’s first lap around the Ontario Motor Speedway in the purple and white #48 “Olsonite Eagle” lap was completed in 44.7 seconds, or 201.414 MPH. Jerry Grant was the first man to officially turn a lap in an Indianapolis-type championship race car at over 200 MPH. Grant’s lap broke Peter Revson’s day-old Ontario track record of 194.470 MPH and set a new world’s closed course speed record and took the two-year old "world’s closed course speed record" away from NASCAR stock car racer Bobby Issac.

Grant’s last three laps of his 10-mile time trial run were progressively slower, but he would start the ‘California 500’ from the pole position with a four-lap average of 199.600 MPH. In a post-qualifying interview, Grant explained “I didn’t want to push it, so I backed off a little after that first lap. The track is slick, and I didn’t want to make a stupid mistake.”

Grant seemed a bit underwhelmed by his accomplishment. “Going 200 MPH to say you’ve gone 200 MPH is not the object. I want to get a good starting position in the race and any of the three in the front will be fine with me.”    

Meanwhile, the AAR crew replaced the engine in Unser’s car in time for him to make his time trial run later on Saturday, but rain showers in the area kept Unser off the track and therefore he was ineligible to make a run for the pole position. The next day, Sunday August 27, Unser’s Eagle blazed to a new track and world’s record with a lap of 201.965 MPH and a four-lap average of 201.374 MPH but because his run came a day too late, Unser started the 1972 ‘California 500’ from the twenty-third starting position.

If there was any question of the level of animosity between Grant and Unser, it was answered by Grant’s quote printed by the Associated Press after Unser’s record-setting run. “Isn’t it ironic?” said Grant, “the B team is sitting on the pole and the A team is back in 23rd?”  Unser later told Preston Lerner "that record should have been mine.  Letting Jerry get the record irks me like hell because I did all the development work on the car.”

In pre-race publicity, AJ Foyt predicted race laps would be in the 175-180 MPH range with engine turbocharger boost levels reduced and the cars carrying full fuel loads. In final practice on September 1, Grant ran a lap with full tanks at 190.779 MPH, and Unser practiced at 192.028 MPH. In an article published the day before the race the Long Beach Press-Telegram ranked Grant as a 10-1 favorite to win the race to be held on September 3 1972.  

Jerry Grant’s “Mystery Eagle” failed to complete the first parade lap of the third annual $700,000 “California 500” before a rod bolt in the Offenhauser engine broke. The magical flight of the "Mystery Eagle" at Ontario was over.


In an interview days later with Ohio sportswriter Rick Yocum, Grant revealed “I never felt more confident about a race in my life than I did about Ontario. Usually we change the engine after qualifying, but mine was running good, and you hate to fool with something that’s working so well. We changed pistons, valves and bearings, but not the bolts.” 

 Grant ran the two final 1972 USAC races - the penultimate event at Trenton New Jersey where the engine failed after 53 laps, then in the season finale at Phoenix were he was flagged as the eighth place finisher. While the 1972 season certainly did not have the results Grant and Gurney hoped for, Grant will forever be remembered as the first man to post an official lap in an IndyCar at over 200 MPH. 

Fellow historian Jacques Dresang noted that the original "Mystery Eagle" was sold to Bruce Crower in 1973 who still owns the chassis. The car shown at the Lyon Air Museum is a tribute built up with a NOS (New Old Stock) tub.     

All photos by the author except as noted