The Carpinteria Thunderbowl
Part one - Creation and first month of racing
Author’s note – This begins our series of 12 articles that highlight the brief 12-year history of one of Southern California’s least-documented auto racing venues – the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.
The popularity of midget automobile racing in the United States exploded after the end of World War 2, and with the opening of the 1947 racing season there were a total of sixteen tracks located in the Southern California geographic area where midget automobiles regularly raced.
With midget race sanctions divided between two competing organizations, the American Automobile Association (AAA) and the United Racing Association (URA), there were at least eight midget races staged each week in the Los Angeles area, with a race program every night of the week plus another on Sunday afternoon.
Construction of a new 1/5-mile oval dirt racing facility designed for midget auto racing, known as the Carpinteria Thunderbowl, broke ground in March 1947 on a bluff west of highway 101 that overlooks the Pacific Ocean, approximately one mile east of the coastal community of Carpinteria, in Santa Barbara County roughly midway between the cities of Santa Barbara and Ventura.
Carpinteria (pronounced phonetically Carp-in-ter-e-a) takes its name, as do many California communities, from a Spanish phrase. The history of the area relates that soldiers with the Gaspar de Portola Expedition in August 1769 watched as members of the native Chumash tribe built tomols (wooden plank canoes), so the soldiers called the area “el taller de Carpinteria” which translated into English means "the Carpenter Shop."
Eastern settlers began to migrate to the area after the end of the Civil War, and the streets for the town were platted in 1887, although Carpinteria was not officially incorporated as a city until 1965. Agriculture dominated the local economy with lemons and avocados as the major cash crops, with the economy supplemented by tourists drawn to what the local Chamber of Commerce advertised as “the World’s Safest Beach.”
Early passenger automobile traffic between Ventura and Santa Barbara used a crushed stone service road which the Southern Pacific Company built alongside its Coast Line railroad tracks. The road featured wooden causeways built over the areas susceptible to flooding from the ocean tides. The State of California built the permanent coastal road in 1913 – designated State Highway 1 which later added the US Highway 101 designation.
The owners of the new race track were James “Jim” F. Slaybaugh and his wife, Pearl, who lived on Solimar Beach in Ventura Township. Jim, born in 1889 in Oklahoma, started his racing career on a bicycle while he was a student at the Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical College (today known as the Oklahoma State University) before he and his family moved to California in 1913.
By 1915, Slaybaugh was a Harley-Davidson sales agent in downtown Santa Barbara with a showroom located at 21 West Ortega Street, and he raced motorcycles locally. In 1921, he suffered a broken collarbone in a spill at a race in Santa Maria, and in 1934 (at age 45) he raced in a team event held on the Ventura Junior High School running track.
The new Carpinteria Thunderbowl, which advertised that its grandstands could seat up to 6,000 race fans, scheduled its inaugural event for the URA “Blue Circuit” midgets on Monday night, August 4, 1947. The “Blue Circuit” was the more elite of the two circuits sanctioned by the URA, and featured mostly Offenhauser-powered machines.
This is a copy of a 1947 program,
as it lists Harwood and Murphy as the promoters
The URA also sanctioned the “Red Circuit,” which was reserved for non-Offenhauser powered midgets, commonly powered by Ford V8-60 and motorcycle engines. The URA events at Carpinteria were promoted by partners Jack Harwood and Bob Murphy. Murphy also promoted the midget racing venue south of Tulare which was known as “Murphy’s Thunderbowl.”
On that cool August night, 5,000 eager fans braved cool and cloudy conditions and each paid $1.25 for general admission with a reserved seat available for an additional 50 cents. Time trials started at 7 PM and 5-foot 4-inch tall Walt “the Little Giant” Faulkner, the 1941 United Midget Association “night speedway” champion, emerged as the evening’s fastest qualifier with the fastest lap at 15.47 seconds which edged out mustachioed Mack Hellings’ lap of 15.52 seconds.
In the three-lap trophy dash that kicked off the night’s racing program, Hellings turned the tables and topped Faulkner. Heat race wins went to Bob Barker who drove a Ford V8-60 against the Offenhauser entries, Ted Tracy in the Art Hall owned #98, Johnny Garrett and Art George, who also won the 15-lap semi-main event.
As the crowd awaited the start of the scheduled 30-lap main event, fog rolled in, which cut visibility on the backstretch, according to the article published the next day in the Ventura County Free Press-Star newspaper. Perry Grimm, who had finished second in his heat race, drove the #27 Vic Edelbrock- owned midget to victory with a time of 8 minutes and 14.5 seconds. Faulkner finished second and Hellings third. Bob Barker finished fourth and veteran pre-war racer Jackie Sayers rounded out the top five finishers.
Grimm’s victory was no surprise, as Perry was riding a wave of success, as he won the 1946 Thanksgiving Night “Hollywood Grand Prix” along with eight other races during the 1946 season at midget racing’s crown jewel facility, the Gilmore Stadium. In 1947, Grimm continued his torrid run of success, and prior to his victory in the inaugural Carpinteria race, he had won seven features at San Bernadino’s Orange Show Stadium Speedway in 1947 which included a string of five Thursday night wins in a row that began on July 10.
For the second URA midget race at Carpinteria, held one week later on August 11 1947, 5,000 fans watched as Perry Grimm set the night’s quick time of 15.32 seconds over Johnny Garrett’s best lap which was just 2/100 of second slower. As the racing program began, Johnny won the 3-lap trophy dash after Grimm spun out on the second lap.
Heat race wins went to former United States Air Corps P-38 fighter plane instructor Rodger Ward, Doug Groves, Texan Bill Homeier and Huntington Beach resident Gib Lilly. Ward, behind the wheel of a Ford V8-60 powered machine, topped Hal Minyard and Homeier in the 15-lap semi-main event after front-runners Bob Barker and Walt Faulkner collided and were eliminated.
The fifth place finisher in the semi-main was Chuck Stevenson, described by press reports as a local resident. This was almost accurate, as during the previous year, 1946, Stevenson and his family lived with a relative, Harry Vind and Harry’s wife Sadie, on their avocado and lemon ranch on nearby Casitas Road while Chuck worked in a local machine shop.
Johnny Garrett’s Offenhauser-powered midget started eighth in the feature line-up. Over the course of the 30-lap feature, Johnny maneuvered through the field and won in a time of 8 minutes and 21.39 seconds ahead of Jackie Sayers’ similar machine. Johnny Mantz finished third in a car powered by a Ford V-8 ‘60’ engine, with the previous week’s winner Grimm in fourth place. Bill Homeier finished the feature in fifth place in a midget powered by a rare Sower(s) double-overhead camshaft engine built in Burbank by machinist Ray Sowers in partnership with Francis Crew.
4,000 fans passed through the turnstiles for the third weekly Monday night midget racing program on August 18 1947, and they watched as Johnny Garrett, whose son, Billy, would follow him into the sport, scored his second consecutive main event victory.
Garrett nearly scored a “clean sweep,” as Gib Lilly set the quick time, then Johnny won the trophy dash, his heat race and captured the feature race. Johnny finished the 30-lap distance in a new record time of 8 minutes and 8.37 seconds. Jackie Sayers finished second in the feature with Australian driver James Joseph “Jimmy” McMahon, a former child movie star, in third place after he earlier won the 15-lap semi-main race.
At the Carpinteria Thunderbowl’s fourth weekly race on August 25, Johnny Garrett set the evening’s quick time, as he reset the track’s one-lap record at 14.83 seconds, then he won the trophy dash over Jackie Sayers. Following the heat races, the near-capacity crowd of 5,500 fans watched in horror as on the sixth lap of the semi-main event, Eddie Anderson’s car lost its right front wheel and cartwheeled end-over-end down the straightaway.
Anderson who wore a lap belt, survived the scary crash with just a bump on his forehead, but in the interest of time, officials called the race complete with Bud Chaney (or Cheney) in the lead. Garrett’s bid to win three feature races in a row fell short as he finished second behind Johnny Mantz’ Ford V8-60 powered machine with Bill Homeier in third place. Mantz set a new record time of 8 minutes and 8/10 of a second to cover the thirty-lap distance.
In part two of the Carpinteria Thunderbowl, we will continue the history of the track through 1947.
The author is looking for any private vintage photographs of the Carpinteria Thunderbowl that readers may have access to – 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment