Hal Minyard 1948 Southern California Midget Racing Association champion

Hal Minyard

1948 Southern California Midget Racing Association Champion

The Southern California Midget Racing Association (SCMRA) formed early 1948 with 'Speed' Boardman as the club president while racer Jerry Curry served as the business manager.  Jim Rae, Offenhauser Engineering employee Al Long, driver Hal Minyard and car owner Willie Childers were board members.

This club appealed to racers whose equipment, typically powered by Ford V8-60 engines, was not quite fast enough to challenge the United Racing Association or American Automobile Association regulars, might best be characterized as the Southern California midget “minor league.”  The club scheduled races at 5-H Speedway and considered bookings at the Firestone Boulevard Motordrome (aka Don-Mar Speedway) and DeAnza Speedway in Riverside, but races at those two venues apparently never came to fruition.    

Boardman, from Burbank, was active in 1945 and 1946 with the United Midget Association, and won a midget race at the small Lincoln Park Stadium track in 1946. In September 1947 while racing at Balboa Stadium in San Diego with the URA “Red Circuit” for non-Offenhauser powered midgets, Boardman flipped in successive weeks and both times wound up in the same hospital room.   

Harold E ‘Hal’ Minyard born in 1925 in South Gate California, started his racing career in soap box derby cars, then before the war worked on and tested “junior midget cars” powered by modified washing machine engines. Hal enlisted in the United States Army in 1943 and after his military service, he raced during 1946 and 1947 with the United Racing Association (URA) in select “Red Circuit” races in a Ford V8-60 powered midget owned by Vern Boone. 

The SCMA (the group frequently dropped the “R”) scheduled their first race at the 5-H Ranch Speedway in Roscoe (today known as Sun Valley) at the corner of Sunland Boulevard and San Fernando Road north of North Hollywood. After World War 2 ended, real estate investor Paul Holland purchased the property and with his wife and three children developed it into a full-service equine facility.  The 5-H Ranch started by offering horse boarding and training then Holland added a lighted rodeo arena with bleacher seating for 7000 that also hosted open-air community dances. 

In late 1946 Holland added a restaurant and cocktail lounge to the 5-H Ranch complex then in early 1947 opened the “Pony Express Saddle Shop” that sold tack and western clothing.  During the winter of 1947-1948 the 5-H Ranch added a banked 1/5-mile dirt track with a 4000 seat grandstands. The track known variously as the “5-H Ranch Speedway” or simply the “5-H Speedway” opened in January 1948 with a 25-lap hot rod roadster race presented by American Sports Cars Inc.

The inaugural 5-H Ranch automobile race featured entries from the 1947 American Sports Cars Inc.  series champion Chuck Burness and runner-up George Seeger,  “Hook” Klein (the pride of Pacoima), Bob Bayer and local Roscoe racer Bill LaRoy who drove a “four-barrel Plymouth.”  Burness won the feature as he edged Bill Stevens and Grant Lambert in a time of 8 minutes 29.38 seconds for the 25 laps before a reported crowd of 4000 fans.

The inaugural SCMA midget auto race scheduled for March 14 1948 rained out and rescheduled for the following Sunday afternoon March 21^st.  Speed Boardman won the three-lap trophy dash over Carl Brown, then Seeger won the 15-lap semi-main event over Jack Jordan. Chuck Burness became a 5-H Ranch Speedway won the 25-lap main event over Joe Dehart and ‘Inky’ Ingram in a time of 7 minutes and 35.64 seconds.

The following Sunday in the second SCMA midget race at 5-H, Carl Brown won the trophy dash and the feature while ‘Speed’ Boardman won the semi-main race.  In the April 11 program Jerry Curry set a new three-lap record of 53.55 seconds to edge out Hal Minyard in the trophy dash but the results of the feature were missed in the newspaper reports.  

5-H Speedway official Bob Machado announced that beginning on May 4 the SCMA midgets would race on Friday nights. Before the next midget racing event on April 25, the track brought in an 8-inch layer of clay and placed it over the previous gravel base. 

The 1948 SCMA season formally opened on Friday night April 30 at 5-H with a 25-lap main event which Minyard won over Jackie Jordan and Jerry Curry. During the feature, Fred Hanson ran over the back of Chuck Burness’ car, his midget flipped and landed upside down on top of Kent Emmerling’s car.

Taken to Glendale Community Hospital in serious condition with a “brain injury,” Hanson survived but apparently never raced with the SCMA midgets again, while Emmerling miraculously escaped injury.  Jerry Curry won the May 7th trophy dash and the feature. In an unusual promotion, the drivers switched cars for the Australian Pursuit race, and Joe DeHart won that race in Curry’s midget.

On May 14^th at 5-H, Tommy Beverlin set a new track record in the trophy dash as he completed the three laps in 51.84 seconds. Joe DeHart captured the win in the 20-lap in six minutes and 45.52 seconds.  In late May on back-to-back Friday nights at 5-H Speedway, both the semi-main winners went on to score the feature victory -  Warren Sorenson on May 21^st and Hal Minyard on the 28^th.  As June 1948 opened, Curry, Minyard, and DeHart were the top three in the SCMA points.

Before 2700 fans DeHart won the shortened feature on June 18^th suspended after Beverlin hit the wall on the 16^th lap with Minyard scored in third place. The following week, Minyard won the trophy dash and the feature and just missed a clean sweep as he finished second to Jackie Jordan in the semi-main.  On July 3^rd at 5-H, Minyard finished second to Speed Boardman in the trophy dash then won the 25-lap main event ahead of Boardman.

The weekend of July 17 and 18 1948 proved to be a very successful one for Hal Minyard. On Friday night, Minyard topped Jordan and Boardman to win the 25-lap feature at 5-H Speedway. On Saturday night, the SCMA racers christened the new El Monte Speedway, a ¼-mile dirt oval on South Durfee Road which opened the week before with California Roadster Association (CRA) hot rod roadster racing.  

A reported crowd of 3011 fans watched Boardman beat Minyard to the line in the three-lap trophy dash, then Hal turned the tables on Boardman and won the 30-lap feature after he started in the eighth position for his fifth consecutive SCMA feature victory.

On Friday night July 24^th Jackie Jordan broke Minyard’s win streak as he just edged out Hal in the 25-lap race that finished in 8 minutes and 8 seconds, but Minyard returned to victory lane the following day at El Monte again after he started eighth. On Monday night August 2, the SCMA racers visited another new venue - Talbert Stadium in Huntington Beach at which the promoter broke with the URA.  Few of the 2200 fans were surprised when Minyard took the win in the 30-lapper after he started the feature in sixth position.   

Beverlin took the SCMA feature win at El Monte Speedway on August 8, as Minyard won the trophy dash. Five days later on Friday night August 13, Minyard cruised to victory in 50 laps over the decomposed granite at Huntington Beach in fourteen minutes to add to his commanding points lead. Minyard capped his successful 1948 SCMA championship campaign with a victory at El Monte on Sunday November 21, 1948.   

In 1949, Hal returned to run with the URA “Red Circuit” and he finished third in the 1958 URA season standings in the Bob Bogan-owned midget and he won the Kearney Bowl midget championship in 1960. During the nineteen sixties, Hal occasionally raced midgets but focused on sprint cars and won the California Racing Association title with ten feature wins in 1964 with Leonard Surdam and 1965 he scored four feature wins with three different car owners. In defending his title in 1966, Hal scored one win and finished seventh in overall CRA driver points.

Hal Minyard had a great racing career as a driver but his greatest racing accomplishment was his partnership in creating the “McHal” racing helmet in the early nineteen fifties which used state-of-the-art materials and a design lower across the front the sides and the back of the helmet which provided more protection for the driver. Due to the materials used, Minyard and his partner John McMurray could heat up the helmet in an oven and tailor it to fit the driver’s head for the best protection.

Hal got his only shot as a driver at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1966 at age 39 in the rear-engine 252-cubic inch Offenhauser powered 1964 Troutman-Barnes chassis owned by Louis Senter with sponsorship from Senter’s Ansen Automotive Engineering. JC Agajanian commissioned this one-of-one car for Parnelli Jones but Jones rejected it favor of the “old Calhoun” Watson chassis for the 1964 Indianapolis 500-mile race then crashed the Troutman-Barnes car at Trenton in July 1964.  

The Senter-led team struggled with engine issues all month and the white #49 car was in line to make a qualifying run on the final day of time trials when the clock ran out.  The following week at the Milwaukee Mile, Hal drove the rear-engine 252-cubic inch Offenhauser powered 1963 Vollstedt chassis #6 owned by Richard Compton of Portland Oregon.

Hal got the Milwaukee ride because the car owner had a dispute with his previous driver Art Pollard. Pollard and the red and white #49 car were bumped from the 33-car Indianapolis starting field by Ronnie Duman’s Eisert-Ford.  

Days later, car owner Compton swore out a theft complaint against Pollard.  Art was convicted in Marion County court in August, after he told the court that he had taken the equipment as “security” for the $4,450 owed him by Compton.

Hal missed the Milwaukee starting field on time, then crashed into the turn four inside guardrail during the consolation race. Though he was uninjured, the crash ended Minyard’s USAC championship driving career as Bruce Jacobi replaced him the following week in the race at Langhorne Pennsylvania.  

In May 1967 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, many drivers wore McHal helmets, but the final 33-car starting field contained only one driver with a McHal helmet – AJ Foyt, who led 27 laps and dodged a last lap crash on the front straightaway to win his third Indianapolis ‘500’ title.

Hal's last racing appearance came during the 1978 season  and Minyard retired in 1999 after 25 years of service as an employee of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He was  inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2007, and passed away in Speedway Indiana on March 4, 2010 at age 85.