The Carpinteria Thunderbowl
Part two – racing through the 1947 season
Author’s note – This is part two of our 12-part series that highlights the brief 12-year history of one of Southern California’s least-documented auto racing venues – the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.
The 1/5-mile dirt oval dirt “Carpinteria Thunderbowl,” a racing facility designed for midget auto racing, located approximately one mile east of the coastal community of Carpinteria, began its second month of operation as it hosted the United Racing Association (URA) “Blue Circuit” midgets on Labor Day evening, September 1, 1947.
A crowd of 4,500 fans were on hand as Gordon Reid, a native Oregonian who lived in Burbank and worked in the film industry, won the 15-lap semi-main race which featured a flip. The left front wheel of Dick Hogan’s machine hooked the inside rail and the midget flipped one time and landed on all four wheels with Hogan miraculously unscathed.
Johnny Garrett won his third 30-lap Thunderbowl feature race in four attempts in Cecil Shaw’s maroon and white #42 Offenhauser-powered midget and edged out the previous week’s winner, Johnny Mantz with Walt Faulkner, who earlier won his 6-lap heat race, in third place.
The September 8, 1947 midget racing program drew a “near-capacity crowd” according to the next day’s Ventura County Star – Free Press newspaper report. Joe DeHart won the15-lap semi-main event, then Johnny Mantz in the Ernie Casale #25 returned to his winning ways in the feature race and broke the 8-minute barrier as he finished the 30 laps in 7.59.78. Johnny Garrett finished second with Ronald “Mack” Hellings, who won the trophy dash, in third place while Walt Faulkner finished fourth.
The United Racing Association’s “Blue Circuit” point leader Mack Hellings set quick time on September 15th and opened the night’s racing program as he beat Johnny Mantz to the line in the three-lap trophy dash. Bob Barker and Willard “Billy” Cantrell each won their respective 6-lap heat races in motorcycle engine powered machines and newcomer Frank Wilson won the semi-main event over Jimmy McMahon.
Johnny Garrett took command early in the 30-lap main event and was headed for another win until his car broke its driveshaft on lap 27. Johnny’s misfortune handed the lead to Barker, who held the lead over the last three circuits in the #16 Billy Cantrell owned Drake-powered Kurtis-Kraft machine to win over Johnny Mantz with an elapsed time of 8 minutes and 6.64 seconds.
With just a week left in the 1947 URA regular season, Mack Hellings led the URA “blue circuit” points with 1030 markers, which placed him far ahead of Mantz with 672 points and Johnny Garrett with 618 points. Gib Lilly, a distant fourth in the URA standings with 523 points who won a 25-lap race in Las Vegas at the Lost Frontier Sportsdrome on September 14th, trailed by Walt Faulkner with 322 points in fifth place.
The outcome of the next midget race at Carpinteria on September 22nd was again decided by mechanical trouble. Mantz, the night’s fastest qualifier in his #25 midget, scored the trophy dash win over Mack Hellings. Chauncey Crist of Garden Grove won the first 6-lap heat race and newcomer Frank Armi won the second preliminary race.
Jim Springfield in his #120 two-cylinder motorcycle-powered midget won the third heat race. Jim’s midget was “the only car in the business with a plastic body” according to the next day’s Ventura County Star-Free Press newspaper report. Johnny Garrett won the fourth also known as the “fast” heat race, while Armi won the semi-main over Ed Kassold and Crist.
Garrett and Mantz battled for the lead in the feature until Mantz’ midget suffered engine trouble and slowed. Mantz’ sudden problem caught out seventeen-year-old hot rod roadster graduate Troy Ruttman. Troy ran into the back of Mantz’ #25 machine then his car bounced into the backstretch guardrail.
With Ruttman and Mantz eliminated, Garrett roared to his fourth Carpinteria feature victory ahead of Hellings and Rod Simms in 8 minutes and 4.01 seconds.
In time trials on the night of September 29. Troy Ruttman and Rod Simms tied for quick time, with each posting a best lap of 14.93 seconds. Ruttman won the three-lap trophy dash over Simms, then Tommy Beverlin, Hal Minyard, and Billy Cantrell won the first three heat races. In the fourth “fast” heat race, the finishing order was Mantz, Garrett and Hellings and Frank Wilson won the 15-lap semi-main race over Earl “Rosie” Rousell and Minyard
The feature shaped up as a titanic battle between the “big three” of Mantz, Garrett and Hellings, but both Mantz and Garrett experienced mechanical troubles. Mantz dropped out of the lead on the 25th lap when his car broke its driveshaft. Mantz’ problem handed the lead to Garrett, but soon the four-cylinder Offenhauser engine in the Shaw Special began to misfire.
Johnny fell back as Hellings inherited the lead. Hellings and the Johnson Offenhauser powered midget blazed across the finish line ahead of Ruttman as Garrett settled for third place with a new track record time of seven minutes and 47.27 seconds.
Johnny Garrett was not in action at Carpinteria on October 6 as he nursed the burns that he suffered at the Rose Bowl on Sunday night after his midget caught fire. Mack Hellings the newly-crowned 1947 URA “Blue Circuit” champion emerged as the big winner at the Rose Bowl and was crowned the American Motor Racing Society (AMRS) national champion. Hellings won the first of two 100-lap races and the final 50-lap race among the top finishers of the previous races to decide the AMRS championship.
The AMRS was a year-old national group comprised of sanctioning bodies, drivers, car owners, and promoters. In addition to its president, Ab Jenkins, other racing luminaries involved in the AMRS were Oklahoma promoter Ray Lavely, Pennsylvania promoters Irving Fried and Ed Otto, and former Indianapolis 500-mile race winners Harry Hartz and Louis Meyer. The season-ending races at the Rose Bowl was advertised as a national championship, but few if any Eastern or Midwestern midget racers attended.
Before the October 6 program began, Carpinteria Thunderbowl promoters Bob Murphy and Jack Harwood announced that due to chilly Fall evening temperatures, the rest of the 1947 Carpinteria races would be held on Sunday afternoons.
The fastest qualifier, Gib Lilly, won the trophy dash and Hal Minyard won the semi-main. In the feature, Billy Cantrell in the Walton & French Drake-powered machine doggedly hung onto the lead as he kept the #56 Kurtis-Kraft midget tight against the inside rail.
Lap after lap, Johnny Mantz attacked Cantrell but could not get past and at the end of 30 laps, Johnny settled for second ahead of Ruttman. With his Carpinteria win, Cantrell capped off a great week – he scored three wins and captured the URA 1947 Red Circuit season championship.
On Sunday afternoon October 12 1947, promoters Jack Harwood and Bob Murphy presented a “hot rod roadster” racing program sanctioned by American Sports Cars Incorporated (ASCI). The officials of the association, in business since July, pointed out to the writer of the Ventura County Star-Free Press article that the cars “must pass rigid safety inspection and are not to be confused with common garden variety of hot rods.” Prior to Carpinteria, the ASCI roadsters staged several races at Don-Mar Speedway, a ¼-mile dirt oval located on Firestone Boulevard between Downey and Norwalk.
Mickey Davis won the 15-lap semi-main event and Bill Steves won the Sunday afternoon 25-lap Carpinteria “hot rod roadster” feature. The Ventura County Star – Free Press reporter observed that the larger roadsters appeared to have trouble as they negotiated the narrow short track and were slower than the more nimble midgets. During the program, it was announced that the midgets would return the following Sunday afternoon.
October 19 saw a day-time midget program midget racing program capped off with a 50-lap feature. With neither Mantz nor Garrett entered, the feature win went to Rod Simms in the Beavis Offenhauser with Rodger Ward second Allen Heath third and Gordon Reid, who finished second in the trophy dash behind Gib Lilly, in the fourth position. Ed Kassold won the 15-lap semi-main over Jack Habermehl and Burton Spickler.
The Thunderbowl’s final event for 1947 was a two-hour auto thrill show presented by Frank R. Winkley’s “All American Thrill Drivers.” Winkley’s group, described as the East’s largest thrill show, stopped in Carpinteria as part of its West Coast tour on Sunday afternoon October 26.
Jimmie Jones described as “the World Champion stunt man” jumped a stock sedan ramp-to-ramp over a transcontinental bus lengthwise and “Crash” Cook, the “King of the Daredevils” performed end-over-end and side-over-side rollovers. The show promoter Winkley then crashed a car head-on into a pyramid of steel barrels. Other acts featured Dick Jones who performed “T-Bone” and “Dive Bomb” crashes and “Tex” Burke who jumped a car over exploding dynamite.
The 1947 season saw more than 300 midget races staged across Southern California, but Carpinteria was a small venue compared to the larger facilities, such as Gilmore Stadium, the Rose Bowl and the Coliseum. 1948 would see changes in promoters and programs at the Thunderbowl.
The author is looking for any private vintage photographs of the Carpinteria Thunderbowl that readers may have. Please reach out to kevracerhistory@aol.com. We can’t pay for use, we’re just looking to share images for those who never saw the track.
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