Carpinteria Thunderbowl Part 11 - 1957 – a competing race track

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 6^th 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 10^th 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 24^th 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 1^st 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 26^th, Chuck Gibson won the Carpinteria jalopy feature over Lee Andrews, and Frank “Captain” Kidd won the September 9^th feature. In the Thunderbowl season finale on September 23^rd, 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.      

    

  

Carpinteria Thunderbowl Part Ten the 1956 season

Carpinteria Thunderbowl

Part Ten 

the 1956 season

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.

Rufus “Parnelli” Jones, the runner-up in the 1955 Tri-Counties Racing Association (TCRA) championship, won the first event of the 1956 jalopy racing season at Carpinteria Thunderbowl on opening night Monday May 7, albeit the three-lap helmet dash. Lee Andrews, Dick Jump, Paul Lang and Frank Kephart won the preliminary heat races that followed, and defending TCRA champion Buford Lane won the semi-main event.

Marvin Porter, a 32-year old friend of Parnelli Jones’ became the star of the night, as he won the trophy dash, his heat race and the 30-lap feature race in his #14 Chrysler jalopy, an unusual entry against a field comprised mainly of Fords.

Porter, an Army Air Force veteran, would later graduate to the NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Racing) Pacific Coast Late Model series and won the 1959 NASCAR National Short Track championship in the last season for the series which used points earned in races held on tracks a half-mile or shorter.  Porter would later win the 1960 NASCAR Pacific Coast Late Model title with three wins, and became a partner in Parnelli Jones Enterprises.

Paul Lang won the 30-lap features on May 14 and May 21, and then scored again on May 28 for three straight wins, in a special 50-lap holiday feature, trailed by Dave Revard, Sonny Mars, and Buford Lane. On the evening of June 11, Lang beat Jones and Pete Gallagher to the checkered flag in the 30-lap feature to win his fourth race in six 1956 starts at the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.  Lee Hammock of Santa Barbara won the trophy dash over fast qualifier Lee Andrews, as well as his heat race and the June 11^th semi-main event. 

On June 25, Andrews won his first Thunderbowl feature event of the season ahead of Lang after Pete Gallagher crashed out of the lead on the 18th lap of the 30-lap feature and flipped. On July 2, Ventura motorcycle policeman Chuck Gibson set a new track record for jalopies at Carpinteria in time trials with an incredible 17-second flat lap, which eclipsed the old record held by Lee Hammock at 17.28 seconds. 

Competitors and fans alike were curious as Gibson’s previous best qualifying time was 17.29 seconds set on June 25^th.  Gibson was not the only Ventura Police officer who appeared at Carpinteria weekly, as Sergeant Robert Krupp moonlighted as the track’s starter.

The 30-year old Gibson previously had raced his own cars at Carpinteria, but for 1956 he drove the #5 cream-and-red 1934 Ford owned by Joe Savatier who ran British Motor Car Service in Ventura. Savatier, a long-time automobile mechanic and race car owner and builder in the Ventura area, fielded a stock car at several 1954 NASCAR West Coast races for Tony Nelson.

Savatier’s jalopy was a regular front runner at Carpinteria with previous drivers Nelson, Bob Stanclift, Joe James and most recently Jim Jennings, but the new record raised eyebrows. Other competitors complained to the Tri-Counties Racing Association officials, and claimed an allegedly illegal intake manifold, so Gibson’s new record held in abeyance pending an inspection.

The driver Gibson and car owner Savatier both denied knowledge of any illegality, and the subsequent inspection of Savatier’s car set off a flurry of protests and counter-protests, and on Saturday July 7^th, Thunderbowl officials cancelled jalopy racing “until further notice,” with advertisements in both the Oxnard Press Courier and the Ventura County Star-Free Press newspapers. The officiating controversy led to track owner Jim Slaybaugh to take over as the track operator from Cliff Allen of Oxnard.

After a turbulent week of reorganization, racing resumed on July 16^th and on July 23^rd Lee Andrews set the quick time in time trials of 17.47 seconds, with heat race wins to Jump, Don Barlow, Gallagher and Bud Kelch. Jump won the semi-main and Mary Jo Erickson, wife of multiple Carpinteria feature winner Rip, won the special powder puff race and Bob Garrett won the night’s 30-lap feature event.

The following week, Chuck Gibson set fast time at 18.02 seconds, and Larry Albertson, Ray Foss, Buford Lane and Don Barlow scored heat race victories. Bob McFarland won the special mechanic’s race, while Mickey McDonald won the semi-main and Gallagher was first under the checkered flag in the feature race.

Paul Lang, in an interview with Hal Totten of the Oxnard Press-Courier revealed that contrary to the public belief that the jalopies were junk, he spent an average of 16 hours a week to maintain his yellow-and-black #10 1934 Ford coupe. Lang stated that in addition to engine tuning, he swapped in a new axles every four races and a rebuilt transmission nearly every other week, though he raced at the Thunderbowl locked in second gear with a top speed of 60 miles per hour on the short Carpinteria straightaways.   Even with multiple feature wins, sponsorship and free parts, Paul noted he was only $50 ahead so far in the 1956 season, as a main event win at the Thunderbowl paid just over $45. 

 

On August 7^th the Oxnard Press Courier newspaper published an unintentionally humorous article about the previous night’s Carpinteria race. The newspaper reported that Buford Lane won the feature in “slightly over eight minutes,” and Vern Scanlon won the semi-main in “about four minutes.”  The short article stated that “the exact times and amount knocked off the old records were not available today.” The same day’s Ventura County Star-Free Press report did not mention any new records, but noted that Irene Kephart (wife of Frank) won the powder puff race.

The following week on August 13^th, Lee Andrews set quick time at 17.65 seconds and won the trophy dash. Bob Waldren, Bob Garrett Chuck Wood and Paul Lang scored heat race victories and Pete Gallagher won the semi-main. Don Dunmyer won the special race held that week - a “backwards race,” in which the cars ran around the track clockwise and the race started with the checkered flag and finished with the green flag.

On Friday August 17^th, the Ventura County Star-Free Press reported that Thunderbowl owner and promoter Jim Slaybaugh closed on his purchase of Lane Speedway, a ¼-mile dirt oval described as “located in Los Angeles County between Palmdale and Lancaster.” The article related that Slaybaugh planned to race jalopies at the Speedway, built in 1955 with seating for 1800 fans, on Sunday afternoons.  The author has been unable to locate any records of Lane Speedway – do any of our readers have any information? 

September 24 marked the final race of the 1956 Carpinteria Thunderbowl season, highlighted by the return of Parnelli Jones, who timed in fastest with a best lap of 17.75 seconds and then won the trophy dash.  During the 1956 season, Jones graduated to NASCAR Pacific Coast stock cars as he drove for Torrance Ford dealer and future racing team partner Vel Miletich. Jones finished second in the NASCAR Grand National race held in August at Bay Meadows in San Mateo, and three weeks earlier raced in the ‘Southern 500’ held at Darlington South Carolina where he crashed and finished 50^th in a 70-car field.  

In the Carpinteria season finale, Bill Cherry, Cecil Moss, Pete Gallagher and Lee Andrews scored heat race wins and Ray Chapin won the semi-main event.   On the 16^th lap of the feature, Ventura’s Dave Revard, winner of his first feature race just three weeks earlier, escaped uninjured in a grinding crash.

Revard’s car collided with the out-of-control machine of Buford Lane which had blown a rear tire. Paul Lang then struck Revard’s car, which launched it over the crash wall, where it landed upside down and burst into flames. Once the race restarted, Lee Andrews scored the season’s final win.

Photo from the Oxnard Press-Courier of the top two drivers in TCRA 1956 points.

The final 1956 Tri-Counties Racing Association (TCRA)  points tally awarded the season championship for the second year in a row to Buford Lane with 1995 points to runner-up Paul Lang with 1880 points. Lee Andrews took third place with 1785 points, Revard wound up fourth with 1650 markers and Chuck Gibson rounded out the top points with 1340 points. 

Less than a week after the racing finale, on September 30, a Los Angeles pilot who took off from the nearby Parsons Airpark reported to the Ventura County Sherriff that his plane had been shot at as he flew near the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.

Vincent Purden reported that the bullet struck his plane’s generator, but he landed safely at the Santa Barbara airport.  Avocado rancher Louis Parsons built and operated his Airpark with a 2000-foot dirt runaway with five small hangars through the mid-nineteen sixties. 

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl Part nine – 1952-1955 The Tri-Counties Racing Association & Parnelli Jones

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl

Part nine – 1952-1955  

The Tri-Counties Racing Association 

& 

Parnelli Jones 

Parnelli Jones in 1963

photo appears courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies 

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection  

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.

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl opened for the 1952 season with the California Jalopy Association (CJA) on Monday night April 14 with an eight-race program with thirty cars and drivers, many of whom spent the winter months racing at the Culver City Stadium clay track.

“Rip” Erickson came into Carpinteria as the points leader with several feature wins to his credit, along with defending two-time champion Fred Russell and Danny Letner.  Those top CJA racers were supplemented by Ventura County drivers that included Tony Nelson, Bob Ellsworth, Al Goelz, Lee Andrews and Eddie Deal.

It appears that the feature race length became 100 laps for several of the Monday night races; Paul Norman the current CJA points leader, won the June 2 event by a full lap over Ellsworth and Ken Ebert from Lompoc.   Eighteen cars started the feature but only five cars finished, the result of four separate accidents.

Two weeks later, it was announced that the CJA and the promoters of the Thunderbowl, Tony Coldeway and Bud Hines Junior, parted ways, with future races co-sanctioned by the Tri-Counties Racing Association (TCRA) and the Pacific Racing Association (PRA).  That decision meant that Paul Norman, the CJA points leader and winner of six of the nine 1952 Carpinteria features, would not return.

The absence of the CJA regulars opened the way to victory lane for the local drivers, as Tony Nelson of Oxnard won the June 23^rd feature trailed by Ellsworth and Buford Lane. The big holiday weekend 100-lap race with fireworks scheduled for July 5 had to be postponed to July 7th due to foggy conditions.

Local driver and Navy veteran Sonny Mars won the July 14^th feature, and Rip Erickson crashed on Sunday July 20^th at Culver City and broke his leg which put the Carpinteria favorite on the sidelines for the rest of the season.  

With “Rip” out of action, Tony Nelson out-dueled Mars on July 21 to win the 30-lap “Navy Night” feature. A week later, Mars won his heat race then followed it up with a main event win over Nelson. During the their heat race, drivers Bill Cherry and Paul Lang got into a wheel-banging feud that ended with Lang’s car upside down and Cherry’s car in the wall and neither able to continue.   

In early August the Thunderbowl went to the birds in a matter of speaking, as in back-to-back weeks the track hosted avian competitions along with the jalopies.   On August 11, “Hercules” a four-year old golden eagle was paired against “Major” a four-year old pelican in a scheduled ten-minute race. 

The event turned out to be a flop, as the eagle slipped his leash and left the pelican waiting at the starting gate. In the jalopy race, Nelson won over Bob Heffington.  This unusual promotion was followed the next week by scheduled  race between a pair of ostriches, “Whirlaway” and “Man O’ War” ridden by a pair of brave jalopy drivers selected by fan voting.     

Ventura resident Bob Ellsworth won the Labor Day 100-lap feature although he ran out of gas on the last lap. With a substantial lead he inherited after Lee Andrews and Buford Lane suffered blown tires, Ellsworth coasted across the finish line ahead of rookie driver Bill Torgeson. 

Over the final three weeks of the season, Nelson and Ellsworth battled for the TCRA title as they traded feature victories. At the conclusion of the Thunderbowl’s final 1952 race on October 13, Tony Nelson prevailed in the special 60-lap feature and won the title by nine points over Bob Ellsworth. 

  

Over the winter of 1952-1953, track owner James Slaybaugh took over promotional duties and requested that the Tri-Counties Racing Association assume the sole sanctioning duties at the Thunderbowl. In a truly unusual twist, Slaybaugh was not just the track owner and promoter, he also raced a jalopy in the weekly Carpinteria programs. 

In its annual meeting held on March 9 1952, the TCRA Board accepted Slaybaugh’s proposal and the organization elected retired driver Pat Deardorf as the club president. Deardorf named John Shaw as the starter, Don Larson the pit manager and Jack Moore to be in charge of timing and scoring at the Carpeinteria Thunderbowl.   

The TCRA set the opening day as April 20 with an open test date on April 12, but the opening night was rained out as was the scheduled make-up date of April 27^th.   The May 5^th opening brought “near perfect weather” and a “full house” according to the next day’s Ventura County Star-Free Press account. Rip Erickson recovered from last year’s broken leg  nearly scored a clean sweep, as he won the trophy dash and the feature but narrowly lost his heat race by a fender to Paul Lang.

Erickson repeated with a feature victory the following week in a racing program that included a trophy dash, three heat races, the semi-main event and the thirty-lap feature, all completed in an hour and 35 minutes. Over the following weeks, Erickson, the Santa Barbara speedster stretched his victory skein to five races before he split with his car owner. The split did not seem to effect Erickson who won 9 of 11 races by July 21 and successfully passed a post-race technical inspection by TCRA officials.

Rip’s streak of success ended August 4 after he sold his Ford to fellow competitor Bob Heffington and he ran into delays building his new Chevrolet entry.   Erickson led Paul Lang by only 12 points when he returned to action on August 31 as he drove one of only three Chevrolets in the program.  On September 7^th, Rip returned to victory lane at Carpinteria, as he inherited the win when the leaders tangled on lap 45 of the 50-lap feature.

As the 1953 season entered its final weeks, Lang closed the gap on Erickson with a win on September 14 but Erickson salvaged a second place finish to cling to a 14 point lead. In the final points-paying race, Buford Lane won the feature while neither Erickson nor Lang scored any points, so Rip was the 1953 Tri-County Racing Association champion with 85 tallies to Lang’s 71 while Lane was third with 59 points.

For 1954, Jim Slaybaugh and the Tri-Counties Racing Association (TCRA) moved the racing schedule at the Carpinteria Thunderbowl to Friday nights. Rip Erickson continued he winning ways on opening night May 14. Two weeks later Bill Heffington of Santa Barbara drove Erickson’s former machine and won the ‘Poor Man’s Indianapolis” 50-lap feature. At age 65, Slaybaugh continued to race his jalopy and in early June, he took part in a special “old timers” match race against the fathers of Lee Andrews and Rip Erickson.

The July 16th program saw a drivers’ revolt after Jim Slaybaugh announced that he was shifting the program to Monday nights. The drivers immediately protested and refused to race.  Jim Shepherd led the drivers who claimed that their contract with the Thunderbowl specified Friday night race dates and that the drivers were not consulted before the announcement.   

After peace was restored, Lee Andrews won the feature but then a protest was filed, but after his car was torn down it was found to be legal. During August, Slaybaugh introduced motorcycle races on alternate Saturday nights, and as the jalopy season ended on September 10, Andrews from Ventura won the TCRA 1954 championship by 20 points over Buford Lane.

In 1955, another future Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Parnelli Jones arrived  the Carpinteria Thunderbowl. 

 For the 1955 season at the Carpinteria Thunderbowl, track owner and promoter Jim Slaybaugh continued the track’s sanction with the Tri-Counties Racing Association and the jalopy racing schedule shifted back to Monday nights set to open on May 2.

The season opened in a predictable way as Rip Erickson won his heat race, the Australian Pursuit race and the 30-lap feature then he followed it up with another feature win on May 9th, as the Thunderbowl pits were jammed with 35 cars.  Erickson made it three in row on May 16^th as he passed leader Bob Ellsworth on lap 28 of the 30-lap feature. 

 

The runner-up in the May 16^th trophy dash was a 21-year old racer from Torrance named “Parnellie” Jones, who first raced a jalopy as a 17-year old in 1950 at Carrell Speedway in Gardena. Little would fans present that night at Carpinteria know that Parnelli Jones (he would soon drop the “e”) would became the 1960 United States Auto Club (USAC) Midwest sprint car champion, then share Rookie of The Year honors in the Indianapolis ‘500’ with Bobby Marshman and repeat as the USAC sprint car titlist in 1961. 

In 1955, no one could predict that in 1962 Parnelli would be the first man break the magical 150 miles per hour (MPH) barrier at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and win the 1963 Indianapolis ‘500.’

On May 16, 1956 Parnelli followed up his solid finish in the trophy dash with a solid second-place feature finish behind four-time winner Erickson after the original runner-up Fred Tomlinson was disqualified when his car owner refused to allow the car to be inspected.

56 jalopies were on hand for the annual 50-lap “Poor Man’s Indianapolis” on May 30 although after time trials and the preliminary races, only 18 cars started the feature on the 1/5-mile oval.  Rip Erickson won his fifth Carpinteria feature in a row and the lion’s share of the $500 guaranteed purse from the Santa Barbara Merchants Association. It wasn’t easy however as Rip started dead last but he took the lead on the 30^th lap and led the rest of the way as Heffington finished second and Jones third. 

Surprisingly, after that win, Rip announced that he would not race at Carpinteria any more in 1955, as “the prize money didn’t pay his way” from his home in Culver City. Erickson’s absence on June 6^th opened the door for Chuck Gibson of Ventura to win the feature.

The following week June 13, Parnelli Jones won the trophy dash as he beat fast qualifier Frank Kephart with a new track record of 17.28 seconds. In what the Ventura County Star-Free Press described as “one of the wildest seen at the bowl this year,” early leader Glen Wallen lost a wheel and hit the wall then second place “R. Spencer” (a nom de guerre for a local schoolteacher, Spencer Blickenstaff) ran into Wallen’s stalled machine.  New race leader Sonny Mars flipped twice on lap 13, then Ellsworth held the lead until his tire blew on lap 25.  Buford Lane led the final five laps and took the checkered flag ahead of Parnelli and Kephart. 

On August 1 Parnelli took part in a match race against famous local lady race Hila Paulson. Before the event, Jones told reporters “No girl is going to walk off and leave me too far behind if I can help it.” However, as reported in the Ventura County Star-Free Press, Hila used some “very unladylike tactics” to beat Parnelli as she “shoved Jones’ car into the wall coming around the final turn and came out in front.”

At some point Rip Erickson returned to Carpinteria and on August 15 he was leading the feature when he tangled with the lap car of Ventura’s Jim Jennings and dropped to fourth place. At the end of the evening, Buford Lane led the TCRA points with 69, Parnelli jones was second with 47, while Erickson was fourth with 31 markers.   

In the season’s penultimate race on September 29, after he won his heat race Parnelli breezed to an easy win in the 30-lap feature over Pete Gallagher of Ventura. Parnelli wound up second with 61 points as Buford Lane, the club president and 1955 champion scored 89 points and received his trophy at the Tri-Counties Racing Association banquet on October 22 at the American Legion Hall in Ventura. 

 

Parnelli closed out his successful 1955 season as he debuted at Gardena Stadium on Christmas Day before 960 fans. He nearly swept the program – he won the trophy dash, his heat race, the handicap dash and finished second in the feature behind Oscar Tolstein after he started dead last.  

  

      

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl Part eight – 1950 & 1951 Jalopies take over

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl

Part eight – 1950 & 1951

Jalopies take over

Author’s note – This series of 12 articles highlights the brief 12-year history of one of Southern California’s least-documented auto racing venues – the Carpinteria Thunderbowl.

As 1950 opened, Granite Construction crews created excitement in the Carpinteria area as they worked to build a divided highway for a section of Highway 101 located near the Thunderbowl. The Thunderbowl ran a wintertime series of jalopy races with the pre-war cars on Sunday afternoons through the months of January, February and March.

Before the 1950 racing season at the Thunderbowl, sanctioned by the California Jalopy Association (CJA) officially opened on April 17, the touring Joie Chitwood Thrill Show paid a visit to Carpinteria on Saturday night April 8. The two-hour program featured 22 stuntmen and two clowns, Graham Jobe and Larry Ladd, with 27 stunts performed by a “$150,000 fleet of 1950 Ford convertibles and sedans.” 

The Carpinteria Thunderbowl featured three major facility improvements for the 1950 season. An 8-foot high wooden fence now surrounded the entire facility while the track itself had a new wooden crash wall, while spectators appreciated the new parking lot access road.  

The season opener at Carpinteria on April 17 featured entries from both the 1949 CJA champion Bob Stanclift (sometimes misspelled Stancliff) from Long Beach and the CJA 1949 runner-up, Paul Norman of El Monte, but neither driver figured in the outcome of the inaugural 1950 30-lap feature. 

Eight cars collided and tore down 15 feet of the new crash wall during the main event, and “Tiger” Nick Valenta passed Warren “Chubby” Sorenson in the final turn on the last lap to take the win, then Bojack Johnson also squeezed past Sorenson to grab a second place finish.   The author of the Ventura County Star-Free Press article race report published the following day noted that the track “was in exceptionally good shape at the start of the program.”

 It appears track promoter C. N. “Charlie” Cake and the United Racing Association (URA) President Roy Morrison temporarily patched up their legal differences, as the URA “Red Circuit” (non-Offenhauser) midgets were scheduled for Friday night April 21^st. As a promotion for the midget races, during intermission on April 17^th Charlie Cake staged a match race between midgets driven by Jack Tate and Clay Robbins, which Tate won by a ¼ lap.

The first URA scheduled event April 21^st with featured entries from Tate, Robbins and Jackie Jordan rained out after 100 fans had passed through the turnstiles. It is unclear whether the URA sanctioned the rescheduled date, held on April 28^th, as this race does not appear in URA records.   

The Ventura County Star-Free Press reported that Jack Tate, George Smart and Floyd Perry captured heat race wins, although Perry crashed in the first turn after he took the checkered flag when his steering jammed, possibly damage left over from the earlier tangle between he and Marty Cline in the trophy dash.  Rather than a 30-lap feature, 1950’s first midget racing program featured twin 20-lap features won by Jack Tate and George Smart respectively.

During intermission, Charlie Cake told the crowd of 1,200 spectators that the midget races were cancelled for the next three weeks but that the jalopies would continue to run weekly on Monday nights.  The cancellation suggested more problems for the URA, as the popularity of midget racing in general and the URA further eroded in 1950, as the West Coast’s top midget racers defected to the American Automobile Association (AAA).

By contrast to midget racing’s fading popularity, the public’s interest in jalopy racing skyrocketed throughout the Los Angeles basin and at Carpinteria in the early nineteen fifties. 

On May 29, 1950 perhaps the largest crowd ever at the Thunderbowl watched the track’s “Poor Man’s Indianapolis” program a promotional idea that Cake copied from famed West Coast promoter Bill “Hollywood” White. Bob Stanclift won the 50-lap feature over Fred Russell and Paul Norman.  

White’s “Poor Man’s Indianapolis” race on May 30 at Carrell Speedway in Gardena Speedway featured a starting field of 66 jalopies, scheduled to race 500 laps on the half-mile dirt track, in contrast to the weekly Carrell jalopy races which were typically held on the shorter infield “Figure 8” track.

Fred Steinbronner won the Carrell title as he took the lead from the pole-sitter Howard Shirley on the 462^nd lap and held on to win. With a reported paid attendance of 14,780 fans, the grind took four hours and eighteen minutes to complete and only 29 of the original 66 starters finished.

Jalopy races continued at Carpinteria through the month of June – future United States Auto Club midget owner and driver Don Weaver won the feature on June 5^th, then Al Moran from Los Angeles won the feature on June 12 in a photo finish over Stanclift. Bojack Johnson won on June 19 before 3000 screaming fans reportedly the largest weekly crowd seen at the Thunderbowl all season.

On Saturday June 24, The Joie Chitwood Thrill Show returned with its newest star, Dick Cobb, who performed the featured “Dive Bomber Crash” advertised as “one of the most dangerous stunts ever devised for man and motor.” For the stunt, Cobb drove a 1950 Ford Sedan up an elevated ramp, then launched 70 feet through the air and crashed head-on into two parked cars.

“Chubby” Sorenson won the June 26^th jalopy feature, a program marred by two crashes in the 15-lap semi-main event that eliminated seven of the thirteen starters. Mark Smoot won the special 50-lap race held on July 3, 1950, advertised as a celebration of the Carpinteria Thunderbowl’s third anniversary, even though the track’s first event ran on August 3, 1947.  Don Iddings won the feature on the evening of July 17^th on a track that was dark at both ends, after three light standards were knocked down during accidents in the preliminary races.

On August 5^th, 1950, the Carpinteria 1/5-mile once again hosted the ‘hot rod roadsters’ for a 30-lap feature before 1,750 fans. Walt James won in a photo-finish over Johnny Miller and George Seeger. The jalopies returned on August 7 as Iddings scored a repeat win then “Rip” Erickson scored his first win on the 15^th. Don Iddings led most of the feature on August 21^st, but his motor lost power late in the race and sometime midget racer Jack Tate grabbed the win.

Ventura’s Pat Deardorf broke through for his first win on August 28th.  Newspaper advertisements indicate that racing at the Carpinteria Thunderbowl continued through September and October, but the author has been unable to locate race records for the latter part of the 1950 season or for much of the 1951 season. The California Jalopy Association crowned Fred Russell as the 1950 season champion with 18 main event wins, with his final 1950 win scored on December 31 at the Culver City Stadium. 

The 1951 jalopy racing season opened at Carpinteria on Monday April 23 and continued weekly through October with Russell and “Rip” Erickson of Santa Barbara joined by a new slate of drivers that included local drivers Bob Ellsworth of Ventura and Tony Nelson of Oxnard joined by “Dapper” Danny Letner,  Buford Lane, Paul Lang and Lloyd Woolever.

During the May 21^st program, one of the jalopies ran down flagman Mike Gallio, the owner of the Big L Garage in Ventura. Thrown 20 feet by the impact, Gallio was treated and released from Ventura’s Foster Memorial Hospital with only cuts and bruises.  At the end of the 1951 season, Russell repeated as the California Jalopy Association champion although Letner scored the most feature wins throughout the 1951 season in his 1934 Ford.  

Open wheel cars returned to the Carpinteria 1/5-mile track on July 4, 1951 for a doubleheader program with fireworks sanctioned by the Three-Quarter Midget Racing Association (TQMRA).  The group, led by Jerry Wright of Norwalk, promised thirty cars and drivers that included 1950 TQMRA champion Paul Sankey, ‘Speed’ Boardman, and Harvey Fleuerhem.   

On Wednesday, August 1 the Thunderbowl hosted a “Moto Polo” match between the San Francisco “Pirates” and the Hollywood “Wolves”. This entertainment program combined “daredevil drivers in rollover cars with a 6-foot rubber ball for a blend of football, hockey and polo.” Devised by the Goodman family of Bakersfield, the “rollover” cars were 1935 and 1936 stripped Ford chassis fitted with skeletal roll cages.

With the first “Moto Polo” match played at the Kern County Fairgrounds in April 1950; the new sport was featured as a cover story in the March 1951 issue of Mechanix Illustrated magazine. The goal for each three-man teams as they drove the “rollover cars” on a regulation football field was to drive the 200-pound ball into the goal during the games which were played in four 15-minute quarters monitored by a referee in a jeep.    

In addition to the teams in Hollywood and San Francisco (that called Belmont Speedway home) the league included teams from Kern County (“The Red Devils”), Los Angeles (the “Shamrocks” based at Culver City Stadium), Sacramento (the “Speedbusters” that played at Capitol Speedway), “Thunderbirds” based at Oakland Stadium and the Stockton “Skyrockets” from the Stockton 99 Stadium. Early “Moto Polo” matches were televised in Los Angeles on KLAC for sixteen consecutive weeks.   

Touring “Moto Polo” matches were held at race tracks in Santa Rosa, Salinas, Santa Maria, Marysville, Lancaster and Modesto among other cities. After a surge of interest in 1951, the “Moto Polo” league steadily shrank and appeared to close in 1955.

The 500 CC motorcycle powered TQMRA midgets returned to Carpinteria on Sunday November 10 for a special Armistice Day “road race” that utilized part of the oval and the infield with both right and left-hand turns

On Sunday afternoon November 18^th the Thunderbowl hosted a different kind of horsepower - a high-point horse show and gymkhana. The program featured ten events that included horsemanship competitions for multiple classes in both Western and English riding style, a cloverleaf race and a rescue race.     

The final 1951 event at the Thunderbowl provided a glimpse into the future as the Pacific Racing Association (PRA) presented late model hardtop races on Sunday afternoon November 25.  The PRA founded in 1948, had co-sanctioned the previous week’s ‘State Championship Hardtop Races’ at the Bakersfield Stadium.

Join us again for our next installment as we  continue to trace the Carpinteria Thunderbowl’s history through the early years of the 1950’s.