Track Roadster re-creation

In the late 1940’s "hot rod roadster" or track roadster racing was the rage, with clubs across the United States, but there were three prominent clubs – Mutual Roadster Association in the Midwest, the California Roadster Association in Southern California, and the Northern California Roadster Racing Associatio - that shaped the sport. Many "hot road roadster" racers  advanced to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, namely '500' race winners Troy Ruttman and Bob Sweikert.

In Bakersfield California, Fay Mooney and JT “Spud” Simkins built a hot rod roadster of their own that used a 1925 Ford Model T body on a custom-built frame powered by an inline 6-cylinder GMC engine fitted with three carburetors.

Their very attractive car was built for both show and go as it appeared at the 1950 Oakland Roadster Show and in the pages of the January 1950 Hot Rod magazine, as well as on race tracks at Bakersfield, Porterville, Gardena and Culver City California driven by Simkins, Earl “Rosie” Roussel, and Harold Hall.   

With the original car lost to history, Mooney’s son Paul, commissioned Image Street Rods of Santa Maria California to build this accurate re-creation using period photographs.  The finished car was shown at the Coker Tire display at the 2018 SEMA show in Las Vegas.

All photos by the author

The short-lived Argonne Forest Speedway

Part 2 -1940 - the final season

When the 1940 racing season opened on in late April at Argonne Forest Speedway in Southwestern Dayton Ohio, the terms “jalopies” and “junk yard derby” were no longer used in promotions. The race cars were then referred to as “stock cars,” and the racing was described as “hazardous but not dangerous.” The figure-eight ½-mile layout was gone, as the track had been re-worked into a 3/5-mile oval with a lake in the infield. Harold “Red” Korn was named the track’s new promoter.

New challengers to 1939 favorite drivers Ashbaugh, McCabe, Epperly and LeRoy Nooks included Amer Smith, Fred Larkie, Al “Pappy” Aker all of Dayton and Ray Saunders from Middletown.

Orval Epperly a winner at Argonne Forest during 1939 now hailed from Fort Wayne Indiana won his heat race then won the 20-lap feature over Miamisburg’s Adam “Doc’ Eshbaugh. The May 19^th program apparently was rained out.   On Sunday May 26, 1940 during his qualifying attempt Dayton driver Roy Knight’s car skidded and went over the top of the track’s banking.

The 22-year-old Knight was thrown from his machine which then rolled over and crushed him. He was transported to St. Elizabeth Hospital where he died an hour later and left behind a widow and baby daughter. Later a hailstorm struck the area which forced the postponement of that day’s races.

Orval Epperly claimed his second 1940 season Argonne Speedway win on June 2, over Amer Smith after Orval won his 10-lap heat race earlier in the day. Jim McCabe and Charles Vale suffered less severe injuries when their machine hurtled the banking, and Russ Crowic lost control and his car wound up in the infield lake.

Eshbaugh captured the June 9 feature over Epperly and LeRoy Nooks while “Doc” Viock was seriously injured in a crash during the program and suffered a broken collarbone, ribs, and fractured pelvis. Amer Smith won his heat race, but lost control of his car during the feature and drove into the lake.

On the night of June 11, 1940 members of the Central States Stock Car Racing Association (CSSCRA) voted to rename their group the Argonne Forest Speedway Association (AFSA). The group also announced that beginning with the June 16^th program all cars entered at Argonne would race in the same division. Time trails were scheduled to commence at 11 AM with racing set to begin at 2:30 PM.

The AFSA announced that racing programs at Argonne would feature three eight-lap heat races, a consolation race and a 35-lap feature race, and on June 16, a pie-eating contest would be an added attraction. Drivers were scheduled to drive two laps around the track, then stop and eat a pie before continuing, with a stop scheduled to eat a pie each successive lap until five laps were completed.

The previous two weeks’ work on the track surface resulted in Ray Farquar setting a new track record in qualifying at 38-1/2 seconds, nearly a second fastest than the previous record. Unfortunately for the second straight week, the rains arrived just as the feature was being lined up and cut the program short.    

On June 23, 1940 LeRoy Nooks and Ray Krueger won their 8-lap heat races and 22-year Ray Everhard crashed and suffered a dislocated shoulder in an accident before racing was suspended for the third consecutive week in row by rain. On June 30, negro driver LeRoy Nooks won his heat race and then captured the 35-lap feature over Fred Larkie, Saunders and Aker. 

On July 4, 1940 Argonne Forest Speedway staged a standard racing program as a benefit to aid injured driver “Doc” Viock.  Nooks and Farquer battled all afternoon in their heat race and reportedly the finish of the feature was nearly a dead heat between the two Dayton drivers but Farquar took the win, his second of the season.  Ray Saunders crashed and suffered a deep laceration in his right leg.

On July 14, “Bus” Henderson was the fastest qualifier, but L.C. Smith from Dayton won his heat race and then won the 25-lap feature as he outdistanced E. Corrin by half a lap. “Pappy” Aker challenged Smith over the first 12 laps of the 35-lap feature but dropped out with a burnt rod bearing in his car’s engine.  “Bus” Henderson was the day’s quick qualifier and won the first heat race.

The pie-eating contest was rescheduled for the July 21 program, but we do not know the results of that contest or the day’s other races.

Due to races scheduled at other Dayton area tracks, Argonne Park Speedway was dark until August 11, 1940. ‘Doc’ Eshbaugh was the fast qualifier and won his heat race but he was eliminated during the feature when his car lost a wheel. The win was captured by Jimmy Springfield over heat race winner ‘Bus’ Henderson, Al Aker, and Howard Seither who had won the day’s third heat race. Eshbaugh also won the day’s novelty race a 15-lap “all-pleasure car race.”

Argonne did not host another race until September 1, as the drivers took part in big money races held at Frank Funk’s Dayton and Winchester Speedways. Orval Epperly claimed his third Argonne win of 1940 as he barely bested Dick Beard and the day’s fast qualifier Ray Kreuger.   

Following the September 8 racing program, a group of four drivers were injured in a crash as they drove home following the races. The car driven by Thomas Rhodes, struck a passing car driven by Joseph Heller and overturned. Rhodes and Mr. Heller were uninjured while Ashbaugh and Ray Marang were treated at St. Elizabeth Hospital and released, but 18-year old James Larkin a high-school sophomore was seriously injured and was hospitalized for several months.

On Sunday September 22, in addition to the regular modified stock car feature, Argonne Speedway featured a special 15-lap “jalopy race” for cars older than 1931 models. Sadly, tragedy struck on the seventh lap of the day’s 25-lap feature.

Sophomore driver Amer Smith passed Doc Eshbuagh for second place as the pair passed under the flag, but as they entered turn one Smith’s car shot over the top of the nine-foot tall embankment and overturned. Smith 26 years old was thrown out and crushed by his race car owned by John Fry. Smith was pronounced dead on arrival at St. Elizabeth Hospital, and the races were halted with Orval Epperly in the lead.  

The Journal Herald newspaper reportedly the following that day that his family that included his wife, two children, mother, brother Ellery and married sister, Carrie Stowe,  attempted to talk Smith out of racing, but that as he left he told them “I only have one time to die.”  According to the Dayton Herald newspaper, at Amer’s funeral, held on September 25 at his mother, Nettie Nemyer’s home, she spoke to the dozen drivers that attended. The grieving mother asked the group not to race at Argonne again until the track was made safe, and she made a public appeal to investigate conditions at the Speedway.

The group of drivers gathered around Mrs. Nemyer and one-by-one, promised not to race. The drivers then presented her with a check for $4.25 that represented Amer Smith’s winnings from his last race. When Judge Hodapp was informed of the driver’s agreement, he told the Herald reporter that he didn’t care, as “the place has never made any money,” and “we can’t afford to fix it.” Hodapp said as far as he was concerned the track was closed forever.

The same day, the Herald published a scathing editorial entitled “Death Ends a Death Trap,” that read in part “three times young men have gone to that track to race and lost to death,” and that “three times is enough. There should be no more races there under present conditions.” The editorial closed by stating “The pity is that this death trap could not have been closed before another life was claimed.”     

Two days later, promoter Korn responded in an interview with the Herald in which he stated that racing at Argonne Forest Speedway was operated “more or less as a place for the boys to race as a hobby and not to make money.” Korn maintained that the track “is in fairly decent shape,” and that he had visited with Judge Hodapp, and if the boys want to race, it is okay with him, and the next scheduled race was October 13.

The racers held true to their promise to their fallen friend’s mother, there was never a race held at Argonne Park Speedway. Judge Null M. Hodapp died on January 5, 1945 at age 51, three days after he had been found in a coma on the floor of the kitchen at his home located on the Argonne Forest Park property.   After his death, his family steadily sold off portions of the park property, with most of the property, 300 acres, sold in 1966 to the Montgomery County Parks District, which renamed it the Possum Creek Reserve.

The clubhouse built in 1927 still stands, and visitors can glimpse the rotting remains of the Park structures as they hike the trail through the Argonne Forest section of the reserve, but the figure 8 racetrack is beneath the man-made Argonne Lake built by the parks department in 1979.  Visitors to the Possum Creek Reserve are likely unaware that three brave race drivers lost their lives at the park.                 

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.