The notorious ‘Tiny’ Wainwright

Part three – 1949 and 1950

Branch ‘Tiny’ Wainwright raced for most of the 1948 season with the Midwest Midget Auto Racing Association (MMARA) a group run by John Gerber as he drove the black #2 Ford V-8 60 powered Kurtis-Kraft midget owned by Lloyd Van Winkle of Lincoln Nebraska. After the racing season ended, ‘Tiny’ was implicated as a member of a 5-man criminal gang that committed nineteen robberies.   

Free on bond awaiting trial, Wainwright was without a ride for the second midget auto race of the 1949 season at the Ce-Mar Bowl in Cedar Rapids Iowa, although it was reported that he had contacted car owner Paul Van Zee and asked to drive the #63 midget. The defending MMARA series champion Danny Kladis driver of the #39 midget, was in Indianapolis in an unsuccessful attempt to qualify the ‘Speedway Cocktail Special’ for the 500-mile race, but his midget car owner Eric Lund stated that he would not put any other driver into his car in Kladis’ absence.  

The featured attraction at Ce-Mar on Sunday afternoon May 22 was the appearance of the “Marvel Man” Don Haynes who had had himself welded inside a 1949 Kaiser Deluxe 4-door sedan. Haynes from Ashland Oregon claimed that he intended to live inside the car for 14 months to win a $25,000 bet with a local farmer.  Haynes was a 39-year-old truck driver and an ex-Merchant Marine so his stunt was also known as the “Seaman of the Sealed Car.’  

Haynes was welded inside his car on February 19, 1949 with chrome bars installed over the windows along with an exercise machine, chemical toilet, folding bathtub, electric shaver, typewriter, radio and a record player. There was no need for a bed, as the Kaiser already featured a rear seat that folded down into a bed. Haynes sponsored by Richard Reinan, the owner of an Ashland lumber mill planned to visit the major cities in all 48 states with visits at Kaiser-Frazer dealerships. Haynes, stopped at Ce-Mar in support of Dan Hunter the local Kaiser-Frazer distributor while enroute to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indianapolis 500-mile race.  

Haynes eventually lost his bet (which after all that time appeared to be a fabrication) when he had the car doors cut open and he exited the car after being inside thirteen months and eighteen days. Haynes had drove a reportedly 110,000 miles, but ended his ordeal because public interest in his stunt waned and no more paid appearances were booked.  Haynes and his wife tried a similar stunt in 1958 as they were welded into a 1958 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser station wagon but it met with much less success then his earlier publicity stunt.

Tiny drove the John Spach #7 at the Ce-Mar Bowl on May 22, and at Playland Park on May 24 where he finished second in the trophy dash. At Indianola Iowa on June 14 ‘Tiny’ finished seventh in the 20-lap feature, and when the MMARA series visited Davenport on Friday June 17, 1949, Wainwright did not have a ride, but he was scheduled to drive the John Spach #7 midget at Ce-Mar on Sunday June 19. That did not occur because ‘Tiny’ was arrested on Saturday in Columbia Missouri and he was transported by Missouri State Highway Patrolmen to the Cole County jail in Jefferson City Missouri.    

Joe Heninger, an older bachelor farmer who lived in rural Russellville Missouri, alleged that on the evening of Thursday June 16, Wainwright and an unknown accomplice acted as though they had experienced car trouble in front of Heninger’s farmhouse. When Heninger came to investigate, the pair drew guns on him and forced him back inside his home. The pair then used adhesive tape to bind the farmer to a chair and proceeded to ransack his home, while they repeatedly shouted, “where do you keep your money?” When the robbers found no money after several hours, they left bound and Heninger worked himself free from his bonds early Friday morning and called police.

Once ‘Tiny’ was in jail in Jefferson City, police found that he was already under indictment in Moberly Missouri for his participation in an earlier burglary with $315 taken from a food market in Columbia Missouri on March 25, 1948.  Wainwright made his first appearance before Magistrate Foster S Wheatley in Jefferson City at 3 PM on Monday June 20, 1949 and his bail was set at $10,000.  On July 6 a hearing was held in Moberly without ‘Tiny’ who was still in jail in Jefferson City, regarding the 1948 burglary and it was discovered that in addition to his $5000 bond for that case, Wainwright was also out on a $3000 bond on a charge of safe burglary in Dallas Texas.

On July 27, 1949 ‘Tiny’ was released from the Jefferson City jail on a $10,000 bond posted by two Kansas City women, Stella Parke Beatty and Glady Parke Kline. In his next court appearance before Judge Sam Blair on October 3, ‘Tiny’ entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of assault with intent to rob. Two weeks later, his accomplice, William DeWayne Brown, a parolee from Leavenworth who had served 11 years of a 25-year sentence for theft of US mail was identified, arrested and charged.

During his March 1950 assault trial, Wainwright testified that he had driven home to Kansas City from Davenport Iowa, and arrived home in the early hours of June 20, 1949. He said he slept until the afternoon, ate dinner at the Golden West Bar and Grill and then attended a Catholic church carnival until 10 PM. His local attorney, HP Lauf, called ten witnesses that supported ‘Tiny’s’ account, but on March 14, 1950 the jury returned a guilty verdict and recommended Wainwright receive a two-year prison sentence.  

Judge Sam Blair postponed sentencing to allow time for appeal and on April 12 another of ‘Tiny’s’ attorneys, Ed C Orr, requested a new trial on the basis that the entire testimony was not recorded while the trial was in progress and that the prosecution testimony was weak, ambiguous and incomplete. A month later Judge Blair held the appeal hearing and on May 17 ‘Tiny’ was granted new trial over the objections of Prosecutor James T Riley.

While out on bond and awaiting his new trial date, ‘Tiny’ raced Bruce Bromme’s Offenhauser powered ‘big car’ at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in De Moines in August 1950. ‘Tiny’ qualified 14^th fastest in a field of 27 cars with a time of 28.80 seconds.  During the “B” feature, due to rough track conditions the front suspension of the Bromme car collapsed and the car flipped end-over-end as it cartwheeled along and through the inner wooden guardrail. ‘Tiny’ reportedly was thrown free and suffered only facial cuts and bruises.      

On September 7 Wainwright drove the repaired Bromme #77 in the two-day IMCA ‘big car’ program at the half-mile track at the South Dakota State Fairgrounds in Huron, ‘Tiny’ timed in eleventh fastest in time trials with a lap of 29.20 seconds compared to Deb Snyder’s fast time of 24.85 seconds. Wainwiright finished third in his heat race and advanced to compete in the feature race where he finished eighth behind winner by Frank Luptow.

Wainwright’s second trial on the felonious assault charges against Joe Heninger was held October 4, 1950 again before Judge Blair. On October 5, after 2-1/2 hours of deliberation, the second jury found ‘Tiny’ guilty and recommended a two-year sentence in the Missouri State Penitentiary. On October 31 ‘Tiny’s’ attorney Ed Orr filed paperwork that requested a new trial, but in open court on November 6, 1950 Orr asked that Judge Blair overrule his appeal of ‘Tiny’s’ second conviction, as his client was out of money and unable to continue the legal battle.

Judge Blair immediately sentenced Wainwright to two years in prison and he was assigned prisoner number 64186 in the Missouri State Penitentiary also located in Jefferson City.  His accomplice in the Heninger assault, William DeWayne Brown, was tried in Howard County on October 26 and the jury deadlocked but in his second trial held on January 18, 1951, Brown was convicted and given a two-year prison term.  

“Tiny’s’ racing career was on hold while he was incarcerated for assault – in the next and final installment we will share the direction Wainwright’s life took after 1951.