Carpinteria
Thunderbowl
Part 11 – 1957
A competing race track
Author’s note – This 12-part article
highlights the brief 12-year history of one of Southern California’s
least-documented auto racing venues – the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.
To open this
installment, we will profile three interesting characters that competed at the Carpinteria
Thunderbowl during the 1957 racing season.
Buford Lane,
the 1956 Tri-Counties Racing Association (TCRA) champion and Paul Lang, the 1956
TCRA runner-up were fierce competitors on track but close friends off the track.
Buford lived in Ventura and ran a Mobil service station, while Paul, married to
Lane’s sister, Marie, ran a plastering business in the adjacent town of Oxnard.
The pair partnered on Lane’s first racing jalopy in 1949 then Lang built his
own jalopy the following year.
Buford born in
Knoxville Tennessee in 1924, served in the United States Navy in Ventura County
as a mechanic in World War Two. After
the war, Lane stayed in the area and worked as a mechanic at various auto repair
shops in Oxnard before he opened his own service station in Ventura in 1956. Married with a three-year son, Buford raced as
a hobby, having built six jalopies in eight years of racing.
Lane revealed
in a Ventura County Star-Free Press interview that he preferred to race
in the outside groove “because you don’t have to turn as much out there as you
do on the pole,” and summed up his racing philosophy as “I try to drive ahead
of myself and anticipate what’s going to happen.” Buford told the interviewer
that he preferred to build his engines with 1935 and 1936 Ford V-8 blocks
because of the lighter (60-pound) crankshaft, and he liked night-time races due
to better track conditions and cooler air.
During the
summer of 1957, Joe Savatier, a Ventura automobile mechanic and owner of two
jalopies that raced at the Thunderbowl, built a sports car to be powered by a
“vapor engine” designed by Ventura police detective Doug Paxton in partnership with
local boilermaker Harry Weaver and retired automotive engineer Clyde Aldrich.
The trio planned to race their revolutionary sports car at Sebring in 1958, and
believed their engine would eventually revolutionize the automotive industry.
Designer Paxton
claimed that his “vapor engine” would be half the size and weigh a quarter of a
contemporary V-8 engine but develop twice the horsepower with astronomical
amounts of torque. The designer, no relation to
Robert Paxton McCulloch, who developed and built the Payton Phoenix
steam car shown on the cover of the June 1957 issue of Road & Track
magazine, received a United States patent for a stationary version of his
“vapor engine” in 1970.
Joe Savatier, born
in 1897, told George Kelton of the Ventura County Star-Free Press in
August 1957 that he ran his first race on July 4, 1914 in Visalia which father won
and he, Joe, finished third. Joe related that he later raced on the great board
track at Beverly Hills and at the original Ascot Speedway.
Savatier moved
to Ventura in 1942 after he worked for Preston Tucker whom he described as “one
of the greatest guys that ever lived” (Tucker passed away in December 1956). In
1954, Savatier bought a Hudson Hornet stock car from Jack McGrath after the AAA
stock car season and entered it in three West Coast NASCAR (National Association
of Stock Car Racing) events for Tony Nelson. In the 1960’s Savatier built the ‘Domar
Special’ driven in CRA (California Racing Association) sprint car races by Ned
Spath and Stan McElrath.
The Carpinteria
Thunderbowl advertised that the 1957 season-opener season on Monday May 6th
would feature “new talent,” because the races were no longer sanctioned by the
Tri-County Racing Association (TCRA) as the members of the TCRA were in the
midst of planning to build their own race track, the Oxnard Speedway.
During the 1957
season, local newspaper coverage of racing at the Thunderbowl became spotty. The annual “Poor Man’s Indianapolis” racing
program at Carpinteria, run on May 27,1957, featured a 16-car field racing for
50 laps and, as promised, many of the drivers’ names were unfamiliar to the 900
fans in attendance.
Don Barlow won
the trophy dash, while heat race wins went to Don Myer, Jack Rowland, Roy
Alstat, and Cecil Moss, then Joe Kidd captured the semi-main win. In the feature, however, familiar names from
previous seasons rose to the top as Frank Kephart won the race, trailed by
Buford Lane and Chuck Gibson.
On June 3,
Barlow repeated his trophy dash win while Paul Dickerson, J R Weber, Alstat and
Lane scored heat race wins. Joe Dominguez led the first fourteen laps of the
semi-main, but spun out on the last lap and handed the win to Alstat. Irene
Kephart won the special Powder Puff Derby race, then the crowd of 500 fans
watched as Lane won the 30-lap feature over Gibson as Pete Gallagher, the
night’s fastest qualifier, finished in third place.
On June 10th
Buford Lane beat Lee Andrews and Bob Garrett in the 30-lap feature held before
just 500 fans. Frank Kephart flipped during the semi-main - he emerged
uninjured but his car was finished for the night. A week later, Lane repeated his winning ways
as he topped Paul Dickson and Andrews with “some 1,500 fans on hand.”
At the June 24th
race, Chuck Gibson set fast time at 17.76 seconds but Buford Lane won the
trophy dash. All the drivers that won heat races that night – Bob Garrett,
Chuck Woods Joe Dominguez and
Pete Gallagher – called nearby Ventura home. Jack Rowland of Santa Barbara won
the semi-main event, and Dick Trealor of Ventura won the feature by a fender
over Kephart with Buford Lane third.
For the July 1st
program, the Thunderbowl advertised fireworks and gave away free bubble gum and
pony rides to the children in attendance for the 50-lap feature that had a
guaranteed $250 purse. Before reportedly “the biggest crowd of the season,”
2000 fans watched as Chuck Gibson set fast time at 18.16 seconds and won the
trophy dash. Bill Cherry won the helmet dash, as Dave Revard, Don Donmeyer,
Frank Kephart and Lee Andrews won their heat races.
Kephart also
won the semi-main race, then after lap 20 in the feature, Andrews, Bob Young
and Buford Lane broke away from the rest of the field. After the three diced
for the lead over the last 30 laps, at the checkered flag, Young nipped Andrews
for the win with Lane in third place. The fireworks show had to be canceled because
the fire department refused to issue the track a permit.
The TCRA’s new
Oxnard Speedway, managed by Paul Lang, hosted its first race on Thursday
afternoon July 4, 1957 and opened a new chapter of racing in Ventura County. The
crowd reported as either 1200 or 2000 fans, saw a dusty program, with the
30-lap feature won by Dave Revard in his 1934 Ford coupe.
On the night of
August 26th, Chuck Gibson won the Carpinteria jalopy feature over
Lee Andrews, and Frank “Captain” Kidd won the September 9th feature.
In the Thunderbowl season finale on September 23rd, Gibson capped
off his season championship with his victory in the 50-lap feature. Buford Lane
was the 1957 season runner-up followed by Lee Andrews and Pete Gallagher with Dick
Trealor rounding out the top five in points.
The Carpintera Veterans Hall today
After 22 weeks
of racing, the Thunderbowl closed out its 1957 season with a barbeque hosted by
track owner and promoter Jim Slaybaugh for 150 members of the Thunderbowl
racing community on September 30 at the Carpinteria Veterans Memorial Building.
Check out
the next installment of the Carpinteria Thunderbowl story as for 1958 the track
would feature a new racing surface and the TCRA would return to sanction.
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