The last half of the 1948 season at the Carpinteria Thunderbowl - chapter four

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl

Part four - second half of the 1948 season

Author’s note – This  fourth installment of our 12-part article reviews the 12-year history of one of Southern California’s least-documented auto racing venues – the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.

The Fourth of July fell on a Sunday in 1948 and for the holiday, a 50-lap feature event capped the Carpinteria Thunderbowl URA “Blue Circuit” midget racing program. The evening featured “lots of spills and thrills” as Bob Shimp lost control and hit the north wall during his heat race, while the machines of Johnny McFadden, Carl Brown, and Monty Kline all suffered broken axles and lost wheels during the night’s races. 

In winning the feature race over Johnny Garrett, Rod Simms, who earlier won the trophy dash, established a new track record for 10 miles as he took the checkered flag in 10 minutes and 18.1 seconds.

Gordon Reid won the July 11 feature, but the track’s first fatality overshadowed this result.  During a reported three-car “exhibition race,” James Joseph “Jimmy” McMahon died in an incident in the north turn. McMahon’s self-owned #161 midget suddenly swerved out of control, hit the wall, flipped and came to rest atop the crash wall upside down on the tail tank.

The track physician, Dr. Joseph E Whitlow of Ventura, pronounced McMahon dead at the accident scene and stated later to reporters that Jimmy died “almost instantly.” Track co-promoter Pete Truhitte, noted in a later newspaper interview with the Oxnard Press-Courier sportswriter Hal Totten that McMahon’s accident marked the first time that the track ambulance had been out of the infield that season.

McMahon’s death brought a close to a sad chapter of Australian midget auto racing.  A child movie star is his home country, as a young adult Jimmy McMahon raced motorcycles before he used his engineering skills and built his own pre-war midgets (called a speedcar in Australia) and engines.  In May 1947, Jimmy and his friend Dinny Patterson, the 1939 Australian speedcar champion, left Australia to race in the United States.

They traveled to the States with one-legged American racer Cal Niday, who spent the summer racing “down under.” Tragically, days after the pair’s arrival on United States soil, Patterson, 36 died after a time trial accident in his first race in the United States, the season opening race on the ¼ mile dirt track inside Balboa Stadium held May 30, 1947.  

The out-of-control midget Dinny drove crashed through the wooden outer fence and slammed into a concrete pillar. Newspapers reported that Dinny, admitted in fair condition to the nearby Quintard Hospital, suffered a broken collarbone, nose, and ribs but Patterson died on Tuesday, June 3rd.  Following instructions in a cable received from his wife Anita in Australia, officials cremated Dinny’s body and returned his ashes home.

An eight-cylinder engine of McMahon’s own creation powered the Kurtis-Kraft chassis that Jimmy drove that fateful July night in 1948 at Carpinteria. The engine used four Triumph 3T motorcycle vertical twin-cylinder barrels with the pushrods connected to a Ford V8-60 crankshaft located inside a fabricated sheet metal engine block. The innovative engine used three chain-operated camshafts – the inner chain controlled the intake valves and the two outer chains operated the exhaust valves

The oil pump and magneto drive mounted to the front of the chain case of the block, topped by a hand fabricated Intake manifold outfitted with a pair of Stromberg Model 97 carburetors.  Beyond these basics there are no details of the internal operation and the displacement of the one-of-a-kind McMahon midget engine.  

Jimmy’s wife, Betty, in the stands at Carpinteria that night, reportedly planned to take his body home to Sydney Australia, but on July 20 he was interred in the Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood.   

After Jimmy’s fatal crash, his one of a kind engine disappeared for many years. Found in a scrap yard, eventually it made its way into the hands of historian “Speedy Bill” Smith who restored it for display in the Museum of American Speed in Lincoln Nebraska, a tribute to a fallen racer.  

As part of the July 18^th Carpinteria racing program, two restored Ford Model T racers made exhibition runs while Johnny Garrett won the 30-lap feature in the Charlie Shaw owned Offenhauser. Days after the July 18 program, Pete Truhitte a barber who lived in Carpinteria, and ran a motel, told the Oxnard Press-Courier newspaper that he and co-promoter Harwood changed the midget racing program to Saturday nights effective immediately through the planned season conclusion on October 2, 1948.

On Saturday July 24 heat races victories went to Johnny Garrett, Joe DeHart, Jackie Jordan, and Don Cameron, and “King” Karl Young won the trophy dash.  During the 15-lap semi-main the cars of Jordan, DeHart, Bob Thomas and Johnny McFadden tangled and blocked the track, which brought out  the red flag to stop the race.

 

Once action resumed, Jordan, Bob Garrett, and Carl Brown finished in a virtual dead heat with Jordan awarded the semi-main win by inches.  In the feature, Bill Taylor grabbed the lead, fought off repeated challenges from Johnny Garrett and Bob Barker and held on for the win trailed by Barker and Garrett with “King” Karl fourth.

We do not have any details on the July 31^st racing program at Carpinteria beyond that Allen Heath won the feature in the AJ Walker owned #111.  Heath, with his first name often misspelled “Allan“ and described in the press as “the colorful playboy from the Northwest,” battled Troy Ruttman for supremacy at the beachfront Culver City Speedway. After Allen’s August 3^rd victory at Culver City, he and Ruttman were tied with three victories apiece.

In early August, Bob Harwood the Carpinteria co-promoter with Pete Truhitte, gave up the promotion of the Bakersfield Thunderbowl in Oildale that he ran with partners Dick Springston and Bob Murphy.  The change occurred within days following the death of local midget racer Jesse Romero at the Oildale oval.  Murphy, the third promoter at Bakersfield in three seasons, continued to promote Murphy’s Thunderbowl near Tulare.

Romero a 45-year-old father of three, died in an accident which began on the second lap of the July 30 consolation race. Jesse’s midget struck something in the infield, and out of control, bounced off Ed Spellman’s car then overturned.  Marty Mazeman, unable to avoid Jesse’s overturned car, struck it and it caught fire. Romero suffered a fractured skull and passed away on the way to the hospital.  

The new Bakersfield track promoters, brothers Bob and Howard Hawk, local contractors and racers, immediately re-named the track Bakersfield Speedway and presented a benefit race for Romero’s family as their first event. The night’s proceeds aided Jesse’s family - his wife, two sons and a daughter as he reportedly died without insurance  

Harwood and Truhitte apparently were struggling financially at Carpinteria. In late summer 1948, the midget racing scene in Southern California featured two sanctioning bodies, the American Automobile Association (AAA) and United Racing Association (URA), with three different promoters at the largest seating capacity, and thus highest purse, race tracks.

The URA held the exclusive sanctioning rights with promoter Gene Doyle at the popular Gilmore Stadium, which averaged 10,000 fans for its weekly midget racing program. At the massive Los Angeles Coliseum, promoter Bill White held an exclusive sanction agreement with the AAA, as did Alex Thompson and Bert Freidlob, the co-promoters of the Rose Bowl board track, which averaged 8,000 fans on race nights.

Southern California midget race drivers were in a tough spot, as they were forced to choose, and remain loyal to, one sanctioning body. To help offset the penalty for the URA drivers shut out of races at the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl, some URA track promoters offered added bonuses - $100 to the feature winner and $50 to the semi-main winner, which was a lot of money for drivers that averaged $400 a week in prize earnings which of course were spilt with their car owner. 

Carpinteria, as a small venue, only paid URA $1,000 for a program or 40% if the gates receipts exceeded $2,500 (over 2000 fans) from which the racers were paid.  On a typical night with 4500 fans which meant $2,250 in sanctioning fees for the URA.  This was a far cry from the average $4500 purse paid Gilmore Stadium.  

   

Bill Taylor won the August 7^th Carpinteria feature in the blue-and-white Ernie Casale Offenhauser midget, and on August 14 the winner was Danny Oakes who also scored four 1949 Gilmore Stadium midget features. The 1948 Carpinteria Thunderbowl season suddenly ended   after the September 4^th 50-lap feature which Rodger Ward won at the wheel of the Lyle Greenman Offenhauser #35 midget. 

  

1949 at the Carpinteria Thunderbowl would see many changes in track operations as the season progressed.    

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.