The rise and fall of the Pacific Coast Speedways Association

The rise and fall 

of the 

Pacific Coast Speedways Association

In the glory days of midget auto racing in the Los Angeles basin in the late nineteen forties, there were two major sanctioning bodies that battled  - the United Racing Association, a regional midget-only group, and the American Automobile Association the powerful national organization that sanctioned all types of auto racing. The two organizations' battle sometimes put race track promoters in the middle, so they took action. 

In a meeting held at the posh Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel on Saturday January 19 1946, a group of nine men met and formed the Pacific Coast Speedways Association (PCSA), a nonprofit group of managers and owners of auto racing tracks to “help coordinate the sport on the Coast” according to the Los Angeles Times article.

The PCSA had three stated goals – coordinate racing dates, publicize the sport, and act as a liaison between the promoters and the midget driver association.  To fund group operations, each track pledged to contribute 1% of their gross receipts to the Association.    

The members unanimously elected Tom Haynes of San Diego as president, Bob Ware of Long Beach as vice-president and Dave Crosley and Long Beach as the group’s treasurer. The group named Bob Moore as their business manager.

In addition to those three promoters, attendees included Ross Page, promoter of races at Santa Maria and San Jose, Bill Loadvine from Culver City,  Harold Mathewson of Fresno, James LaFave and Frank Guthrie from San Diego. Promoters from tracks in Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento and Oakland did not attend the January 19^th meeting but instead provided proxies.      

The founding members

William E “Bill” Loadvine born in 1913 the son of oil wildcatter and real estate investor E W Loadvine, worked as a child actor at the Mack Sennett Studios in the silent movie era. Loadvine recalled that his meeting 1922 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Jimmy Murphy as a young man ignited his life-long interest in automobile racing.

Loadvine related that he raced on the Muroc Dry Lake in the early 1930’s and worked as a mechanic for “big car” drivers Ernie Triplett and Al Gordon.  According to Bill, injuries that he sustained in a crash in 1934 ended both his planned entry in the 1934 Indianapolis ‘500’ and his driving career. Bill began to work in racing promotion at various tracks, which he said included the Legion Ascot Speedway. 

After the end of World War Two, Loadvine purchased the former Culver City Legion race track, located at the western edge of Culver City near the northeast corner of the intersection of Lincoln and Washington Boulevards. The 1/4-mile dirt track was originally built in 1932 for the Culver City Kennel Club for greyhound racing.  The track operators surreptitiously allowed wagering which led to occasional police raids, but the track closed for good during 1939 after the new California Attorney General Earl Warren promised increased state enforcement.

The flat quarter-mile track briefly operated as a motorcycle and midget auto racing venue during 1941 known as the Culver City Legion Stadium co-managed by WH “Reg” Regelin and financier RC Wade with sponsorship from the local American Legion Post #46 and sanctioned by the United Midget Car Association.  

Robert K “Bob” Ware, a native of Arkansas had an impressive history in auto racing. He drove his first race car at the age of 16, and became one of the pioneers in midget auto racing with the United Midget Association (UMA). He finished fifth in the 1935 Turkey Night Grand Prix and was one of a group of thirteen drivers arrested at the infamous Victor McLaglen Stadium raid on July 30 1936 for violations of the Los Angeles city fire code.  Ware retired from driving after a serious crash at the Orange Empire Speedway in Colton California on July 4 1940.

In addition to his co-management of the Bonelli Stadium in Saugus Ware partnered in a Long Beach insurance agency with David “Dave” Crosley who co-managed the Bonelli Stadium race track owned by William Bonelli. Crosley, midget racing fan moved into race management in 1945.

Ware and Crosley proposed construction of a $125,000 stadium with parking for 7000 cars and a 16,000 seat concrete and steel grandstand for football, rodeos, and midget auto racing in Harbor City. When that plan fell through, the pair promoted a Labor Day 1946 midget and big car race, the first post-war race at the nearby “new” Gardena Bowl at 182^nd and Vermont Avenue built on land owned by Judge Frank Carrell. A crowd of 12,000 fans watched as Johnny McDowell won the midget feature ahead of Danny “Poison” Oakes after the early leader “Bullet” Joe Garson blew a tire.   

Ross Page lived in Santa Maria and had a colorful legal history. In 1940 and 1941, as the operator of the Melody Club, Page had several scrapes with local law enforcement regarding gambling and operating a lottery on the night club premises. In 1943 Page bought a supercharged 183-cubic inch Miller powered Indianapolis car from Leon Duray.

The February 5 1943 article in the Santa Maria Times demonstrates the inability of writers in that era to check and substantiate claims by their subjects. The article stated that the race car that Page purchased from Leon Duray is “the holder of the current Indianapolis Motor Speedway record of 130 2/5 miles per hour.” That statement blended several components of truth to craft a falsehood.

At the time, the standing lap record at the Speedway of 130.757 MPH set by Jimmy Snyder in the Joel Thorne owned 180-cubic inch Sparks “Little Six” powered car. The car Page bought built by Duray in 1938 never set on the pole position or set track records. As an owner/driver, Leon Duray, whose real name was George Stewart, set the track record in Indianapolis in 1928 of 122.39 MPH in his Miller front-drive car that stood for 11 years.

The Santa Maria Times article went on to indicate that Page himself would drive the car at Indianapolis when racing resumed, and noted that Page last drove at Indianapolis in 1936 in the Martz Special. The author has been unable to uncover any record to support the claim that Ross Page ever drove or was a riding mechanic at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  The Larry Martz owned Hudson-powered car driven by George Bailey did not qualify in 1936, and in previous appearances in 1933 and 1934 was driven by Gene Haustein with Ed Beaudine as the riding mechanic. 

In September 1945, Page promoted a midget auto race on the ½-mile dirt track at the Santa Maria Fairgrounds in partnership with Dr. Lloyd Clemons won by Gordon Cleveland after favorite Johnnie Parsons crashed in time trials. 

For 1946, Page became the promoter of the San Jose Speedway on Tully Road, and that same year the “Ross Page Special” the proto-roadster built by Frank Kurtis and powered by the Duray supercharged 183-cubic inch Miller engine, first appeared in the Indianapolis ‘500.’

Tom Haynes and his partner, Frank Guthrie began promoting races at the San Diego City Stadium, later known as Balboa Stadium, in 1939 with the United Midget Association. In 1940 the pair took over the management of the Orange Empire Speedway in Colton and the Atlantic Speedway in East Los Angeles. In 1946, they refocused their efforts on San Diego. 

     

Harold “Hal” Mathewson from Fresno was a motorcycle hill climber an amateur member of the Indian motorcycle factory team and in 1938 was crowned the class B Pacific Coast champion. In 1937 as the president of the Fresno motorcycle club, Harold got his first taste of promotion while as he continued to compete. Hal’s events continued through 1942, as like auto racing, motorcycle racing events continued up until midnight on July 31 1942.   

Months after the Second World War ended, Hal and a partner Frank Ennis promoted a combined motorcycle and midget auto racing program on September 29 1945 at the Tulare-Kings County Fairgrounds. At the time of the Pacific Coast Speedways Association meeting in January 1946, Mathewson planned to build a new midget auto racing facility in Bassett, east of El Monte California. When that fell through he promoted midget races at the Huntington Beach Speedway.

The PCSA in 1946

In a meeting in Los Angeles on February 19 1946, the PCSA announced the sanctioning of four midget racing meetings - Stockton Fairgrounds promoted by Frank Crowley would open on April 7, the same date that Ware and Crosley were set to open Bonelli Stadium.

Ross Page would open the racing season at San Jose on May 5^th and Haynes and Guthrie were set to open Balboa Stadium in San Diego on May 30. The Association received applications from track in Alhambra, Bassett, Bakersfield, Long Beach and Santa Fe Springs, but indicated it would not issue sanctions to those planned tracks until permits were issued for construction.

On March 15, 1946, the PCSA issued a sanction to the new track under construction in Oildale near Bakersfield by James Banducci and Carl Lindsay. Originally known as the ”B and L Speedbowl” it featured eight-foot high banked turns and grandstands seating for 6500 fans built on the west side of the track.  With the approval from the PCSA to open on May 4 1946, Roy Morrison, President of the United Racing Association, then issued his group’s sanction for Saturday night racing at Oildale in the 1946 season.  

In late April 1946 the Fresno Airport Speedway, rebuilt after the war with 3000 additional seats to allow for a total of 9500 fans, announced its affiliation with the PCSA. With Fresno’s scheduled opening on Sunday night May 5, the PCSA now had tracks in Sacramento, San Jose, Bakersfield, Fresno, Saugus and San Diego.

The 1948 Crisis

By 1948, the URA and the American Automobile Association (AAA) were in fierce competition for tracks and cars, and the Pacific Coast Speedways Association put themselves in the middle of the dispute. In the second week of January, the PCSA convened a three-day conference for the managers and operators of their 13 affiliated tracks at the storied Hollywood Roosevelt hotel to plan a unified racing schedule for the upcoming season. 

Attendees included charter PCSA members Haynes and Guthrie, and Mathewson with his new partner at Fresno, Huntington Beach and San Bernardino, Ernie Lauck. New PCSA members included Dick Russell, promoter of the Last Frontier Sportsdrome in Las Vegas (which had opened in late 1947), Stewart Metz, promoter at Orange Show Speedway, Bob Murphy, who ran the Tulare, Bakersfield (Oildale track) and Carpinteria “Thunderbowls,” Stan Moore and Billy Hunnefield, operators of Hughes Stadium in Sacramento, the Stockton 99 Speedway and Modesto 99 Stadium and Burt Chalmers the Culver City Stadium publicity director.

Also attending the January meetings were representatives from Carrell Speedway and Gene Doyle from Gilmore Stadium but those two tracks were not yet members of the association. The promoters listened to a presentation from representatives of the URA and when the meeting concluded on Wednesday January 7 the group agreed to continue to operate under a URA blanket sanction.  

Between four and six of the tracks would operate as “open tracks” which would allow Offenhauser and non-Offenhauser engines to compete, while the balance of the PCSA tracks would be part of the “Red” or non-Offenhauser circuit.  Haynes was re-elected PCSA president, Lauck, the vice-president, with Guthrie as the secretary and Metz as the group’s treasurer.      

Two days later, “Hollywood” Bill White, the promoter of midget auto races at the Los Angeles Coliseum announced that his events would be held under AAA sanction. At the announcement, AAA Western Region supervisor Gordon Betz took the opportunity to criticize the PCSA group and told Jack Curnow of the Los Angeles Times that the AAA was first invited to speak to the promoter’s group during the conference, then the invitation had been withdrawn. According to Betz, “the deal was cut and dried before the meeting opened.”    

Despite the blanket sanction agreement, there were still machinations behind the scenes, as the URA board balked at the concept of “open competition,” the board said that tracks were to be designated as either “Red” or “Blue” circuit tracks which did not align with the PCSA-URA agreement. 

On January 28^th Burt Chalmers, the PCSA spokesman, announced that Gilmore Stadium had joined the Association and thus would be a URA track in 1947.  Haynes detailed that five PCSA tracks - Gilmore, Culver City, San Bernardino, Fresno and San Diego - would be “open” to cars with either Offenhauser or pushrod engines. The remaining PCSA tracks - Tulare, Carpinteria, San Jose, Stockton, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Bonelli Stadium, Modesto and Huntington Beach – would ban Offenhauser powered midgets. 

Haynes the PCSA President than gave the URA board an ultimatum – they had seven days to either accept or reject the PCSA proposal. The PCSA’s inclusion of San Diego as an “open” track triggered an immediate outcry from URA ‘Red” circuit car owners and drivers, because Balboa Stadium in San Diego had traditionally been a stronghold for the non-Offenhauser URA circuit, and the change “would put them out of business.”  The URA board agreed with the non-Offenhauser car owners and drivers and refused to accept the PCSA proposal.  

With a race scheduled at Las Vegas on Sunday February 29, on Monday February 9 1948 Haynes and the PCSA began to sign up car owners and drivers in preparation for sanctioning their own races. The Los Angeles Times auto racing writer, Jack Curnow, reported that 36 car owners and 35 drivers signed up that first day. The list of car owners included AJ Walker, the 1947 URA “Blue Circuit” car owner champion, Ray Gardner, the Krause brothers and the Famaghetti brothers. Curnow reported that drivers that signed with the PCSA included the rising star Troy Ruttman and veterans Lyle Dickey and Johnny Garrett. 

Former racer Roscoe Turner the new URA President, called for an emergency board meeting on February 11 to reconsider the PCSA proposal specifically regarding Balboa Stadium. The URA Board still refused to consider San Diego as an “open” track and in response the PCSA group broke off negotiations.

On Valentine’s Day 1948 the PCSA announced that Gilmore, Culver City, San Diego, and San Bernardino would operate under AAA sanction in 1948.  Betz could barely contain his glee as many former URA drivers and cars that included Lyle Dickey, Gordon Reid and Peewee Distarce, signed in at the pit gate at the Los Angeles Coliseum for the season-opener the following night.  

Alas, the AAA alliance did not hold, as Betz could not guarantee 24 cars for every program, and after low car counts at Culver City in early April, just before the 1948 season opened in earnest, the PCSA announced that all 14 PCSA tracks would be “open” to Offenhauser and non-Offenhauser cars under URA sanction.

With all the races classified as “open,” Roscoe Turner and the URA had no problem meeting the 24-car minimum, particularly at the “Big Four” LA-area tracks - Culver City (Tuesday nights), Balboa (Wednesday nights), Gilmore (Thursday nights) and San Bernardino which ran a Friday night schedule.

This crisis was the last action by the Pacific Coast Speedways Association – in 1949, midget racing began to decline, the American Auto Association pulled out of the Southern California midget racing picture and the United Racing Association controlled its own destiny as far as schedule and the PCSA promoters’ group faded into obscurity.

For the 1949 season, the regular scheduled URA “Blue” circuit stops were Gilmore on Thursday nights, followed by San Bernardino on Friday nights and Culver City on Saturday nights. Huntington Beach on Tuesday nights, Balboa in San Diego on Wednesday nights and Fresno on Sunday nights became the regular stops on the 1949 URA “Red” circuit which banned Offenhauser engines.  

As the decade of the nineteen fifties continued midget car counts dropped so much that the URA ceased to count separate “Red circuit” or “Blue circuit” points and crowned a combined champion.