The early history of lap prizes for the Indianapolis 500-mile race Part One

 

The early history of lap prizes for the Indianapolis 500-mile race

Most television viewers of the 2020 Indianapolis 500-mile race were probably unaware that 2020 marked an important anniversary at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, as the 1920 race introduced the award of $100 per lap to the leader. 

The 2020 Indianapolis 500 Official Program included a brief article that touched on the history of the lap prize fund, but the author felt that racing historians might appreciate a more detailed history of the fund’s early struggles. 

1920 - The beginning

   

The 28-man Citizens of Indianapolis Lap Prize Committee, its membership equally divided among active and honorary members, began the first fund-raising effort in late March 1920. George M. Dickson, the President of the National Motor Vehicle Company, chaired the Citizen’s Lap Prize Committee, created by “Indianapolis Businessmen and Manufacturers to express appreciation of the value to Indianapolis of the annual International Sweepstakes, the world’s greatest race.”

Dickson started with National as its sales manager in 1907, rose to become the General Manager then became the company's President 1917.  George’s history with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and racing in general dated back to 1910, when as a member of the Manufacturers Contest Association, he wrote an article entitled “Speedways Develop Automobiles” which was published in newspapers across the nation.

Dickson later helped author the brochure that celebrated the victory by the National driven by Joe Dawson and Don Herr in the 1912 Indianapolis 500-mile race. In 1916, Dickson served as the starter of the International 300-mile Sweepstakes, the last race before the two-year Indianapolis race suspension due to America’s involvement in World War One.   

The first fund-raising effort was not without controversy. In early April 1920, committee member and local automobile dealer R. V. Law suggested in a meeting that in addition to the $100 lap prizes, certificates be awarded.

A debate broke out over how the committee could pay for the certificates until Theodore Myers, the General Manager of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, volunteered the Speedway to furnish the certificates,  so that all the money collected by the fund could be awarded to the competitors. The Speedway also provided the score card insert for the race day program which listed the names of the Citizen’s Lap Prize Committee members and the fund donors.

Initially, Dickson envisioned that donors would be assigned individual laps in the order that their donations were received, but eventually, the committee agreed that a drawing should be held to more fairly determine the order. 

On April 24 1920 A. H. Adams, the field manager for the committee, reported that with $7,000 already collected, the Indianapolis Merchants’ Association had officially endorsed the lap prize fund. 

Drivers Louis Chevrolet and Ralph DePalma both contributed to the lap prize fund before it closed on May 17, 1920, with the final donation, which meant the fund reached it's $20,000 goal, came from Indianapolis Motor Speedway co-founder James Allison’s Allison Experimental Company. The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, the custodian of the fund, held the drawing for the sponsorship lap order at a luncheon on May 19 1920.  

The eighth annual International 500-mile Sweepstakes victory banquet, held on the evening of June 1 1920 in the Riley Ballroom at the plush Claypool Hotel, located at the corner of Illinois and Washington Streets in downtown Indianapolis. 

Barney Oldfield “the Master Driver,” served as the emcee, with five-time ‘500’ competitor with World War One flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker as the keynote speaker, but most attendees were there to collect their part of the total $93,550 race purse.

John Reynolds, secretary of the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, awarded the lap prizes to Joe Boyer, who received $9,300, while Ralph DePalma collected $7,900.  The race winner, Gaston Chevrolet, picked up $1,400, Frenchman Rene Thomas received a $1,200 check, while Jean Chassagne and Art Klein each won $100.

The positive publicity created by the lap prize fund at Indianapolis led to a similar effort later in the year in Los Angeles, led by A. M. Young, for the 200-lap Thanksgiving Day race held at the high-speed 1-1/4 mile Los Angeles Motor Speedway board track in Beverley Hills.  Donors to the $5,000 Los Angles fund included the Beverley Hills Hotel, actors Wallace Reid and Tom Mix, retired racer Barney Oldfield, race car builder Harry A. Miller and the Gilmore Oil Company.

Jimmy Murphy got a check for $250 as he led the first lap of the Beverly Hills race, while Roscoe Sarles collected the balance of the fund as he led each of the race’s remaining 199 laps. Unfortunately, the Thanksgiving 1920 Beverly Hills race is remembered more because of the triple fatality.

The #6 Frontenac, driven by the reigning Indianapolis 500-mile race champion Gaston Chevrolet, tangled with the #9 Duesenberg driven by Eddie O'Donnell as they passed the slower car of Joe Thomas. Gaston, just 28 years old,  perished instantly in the accident, while 33-year old O’Donnell and his riding mechanic Lyall B. Jolls (given surname Headen) passed away the following day. The only survivor, John Bresnahan, Chevrolet’s mechanic, thrown from the car, slid down the banking to safety.

1921 - the ninth running

For 1921, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce pared the Citizen’s Committee down to ten members, and the donors from 1920 put on a “roll of honor” which gave them the opportunity to renew for 1921 before any new donors were approached. 

A. H. Adams served as the committee chairman with members that included Dickson and representatives of Indianapolis Power & Light, the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company and the Willard Storage Battery Company.  

On May 3, 1921, Adams reported that subscriptions to the lap prize fund passed the half-way mark, but with the United States economy in a recession, progress on fund-raising apparently stalled after Adams’ announcement. To remedy that situation, the Committee and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway scheduled the first “Drivers’ Day” on Saturday May 21 with all the money collected earmarked to complete the lap prize fund.

On May 21^st, race fans that paid 50 cents admission each watched as Seth Cline (Klein) the Speedway’s “official announcer” introduce   the drivers entered for the ‘500.’ Klein, who ran a radiator service shop at 820 North Meridian Street, later became the 500-mile race assistant starter in 1923 and the chief starter from 1935 through 1954.  

5,294 fans saw Ralph DePalma and Tommy Milton stage a short “dash,” followed by Howdy Wilcox, Jean Chassagne, and Bennett Hill in a three-way “brush.”  

The program also included appearances by Arthur Chevrolet, 1911 ‘500’ winner Ray Harroun, Barney Oldfield, and “the fastest car in world,” the twin-engine sixteen-cylinder Duesenberg that Tommy Milton drove in April 1920 to the 156.046 mile per hour (MPH) land speed record on the Daytona Beach sands. The Indianapolis Star reported that a crew towed the record-setting Duesenberg past the grandstands but the car did not make a lap. 

Unfortunately, after expenses “Driver’s Day” only collected  $2,382 which brought the lap prize fund total to $16,700. When the fund-raising closed five days later on Thursday May 26^th, the fund’s account contained only $17,150. 

Because of the shortfall, the fund paid the leader of each lap $100 up to lap 150, after which the fund paid $100 to the leader of alternating laps over the final 50 laps or 125 miles.  

Ralph DePalma led 108 laps in the '500' before his French Ballot broke a connecting rod, which handed the lead and the victory to Tommy Milton in a Frontenac, designed by his friend Cornelius "CW" Van Ranst and built by the Chevrolet brothers.  

At the Victory banquet, DePalma received $10,650 in lap prizes, while Milton won $6,300 and Joe Boyer, the leader at lap 2, and Roscoe Sarles, the leader at lap 6, each won $100. The firms and individuals that donated $100 each and the one $50 donor, the WB Burford Printing Company, were all identified in an article in the May 31 1921 edition of the Indianapolis Star newspaper.

1922 

After the 1921 lap prize fund shortfall, the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce reduced the total lap prize fund to $10,000, to pay the leader $50 per lap during the 1922 International 500-mile Sweepstakes. 

The 1922 Committee members included Wallace O. Lee, the Vice-President of the Indianapolis Power & Light Company, Spanish-American War veteran Captain Harry M. Franklin and Carl H. Wallerich, an Indianapolis Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge dealer.

Born in Iowa in 1883, Carl came to Indianapolis in 1900 and in 1903 joined the new Overland Automobile Company (which later became Willys-Overland). Wallerich served as a “Clerk of the Course” and managed various aspects of track operations during the 1912 International 500-mile Sweepstakes.  

Several companies reportedly donated the same $100 amount as in previous years and claimed two laps. Committee chairman A.H. Adams announced on April 7 1922 that the fund already contained “about $3,000.” The Committee held its first meeting on Saturday May 13 and in his report Adams described the fund as “about half subscribed.” 

The Citizen’s Committee staged another “Drivers’ Day” on Saturday May 20 1922 but it appears that in the recession economy, the lap prize fund again fell short of the goal with a total of $8,375 collected. 

The race winner, Jimmy Murphy, led 153 laps from the pole position and received a payment of $6,300. Harry Hartz led 42 laps and received $1,825 and a $100 radio set, while Peter DePaolo led three laps and got $100, and Leon Duray led two laps and got $50, according to the report in the Indianapolis Star.      

1923

For 1923 the prize was back to a $100 a lap and on May 17 the Citizen’s Committee new chairman, Harold Hampton, kicked off the $20,000 lap prize fund subscription period with the “Drivers’ Day” at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway scheduled for Friday May 25^th.

In his Indianapolis Star column “Speedway Appetizers” on Thursday May 24^th William Sturm claimed that “businessmen have contributed $10,000.”  The newspaper advertisement for the 1923 “Drivers’ Day” promised thrills with “exhibition races,” and suggested attendance as a civic duty to support the fund. 

     

Once again, the 1923 lap prize fundraising fell short of the goal of $20,000, so the prizes were only awarded for the first 125 laps. The fund distributed $12,100 among five drivers, per the United Press International report. The race’s first two-time winner, Tommy Milton, led 128 laps and banked $8,500 in lap prizes, a small amount as many of his leading laps came late in the race including the final 50 laps.

Milton’s HCS Motor Company teammate, Howdy Wilcox, led 51 laps and received $2,000. Third place finisher Jimmy Murphy, the 1922 race winner, led eleven laps early in the race and got $1,100.  Russell “Cliff” Durant, earned $400 for four laps led, although Cliff scarcely needed the money since he was a multi-millionaire and owned eight of the cars entered in the 1923 race.  Harry Hartz, the second place finisher in a Durant entry, led twice for a total of six laps, but only got paid $100 for leading one of those laps.

1924

The May 14 1924 edition of the Indianapolis Star reported that the committee members were selected at a noontime Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Harold Hampton, the Chamber of Commerce athletic committee chairman, announced that for 1924, the prize would be $50 a lap and the article stated that Hampton “expressed belief that contributions this year would make this easily possible.”

Solicitations began immediately and after a follow-up meeting two days later, the Committee chairman, insurance agent Austin J. Edwards, told the Indianapolis Star  that the AAA and the local Yellow Cab Company each stepped up to sponsor two laps, while the Indiana Bell Telephone Company, the accounting firm Ernst & Ernst, and the Indianapolis Indians baseball club each sponsored one lap.

On Monday May 19, the Indianapolis Star printed an appeal from A. L. Block, the President of the prestigious L. Strauss & Company department store, which read in part “Indianapolis people cannot do too much toward helping the daring drivers whose feats have made the city internationally known.”  Block’s statement closed by saying that “my greatest hope is that each lap will have its award that the drivers may not think us ungrateful for their efforts.”       

Indianapolis Star sports editor W. Blaine Patton reported in his “Observed from the Speedway Pits” column in the May 21^st edition of the that the Standard Oil Company of Indiana, Polk Sanitary Milk Company, the L. S. Ayres & Company department store chain, Nordyke & Marmon and the Indianapolis Star newspaper all donated $100 to the fund.     

The Speedway held the annual “Drivers’ Day” on Tuesday afternoon May 27 1924 with 3,500 reported attendees which added $1,600 to the fund after expenses. The Indianapolis News reported that race car builder Harry A. Miller wrote a check for $200, which brought the fund total up to $5,900. Apparently, the 1924 fund topped out at $6,250 which paid the leader of each the race’s first 125 laps.

Austin J. Edwards the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce’s representative, distributed the lap prizes at the 1924 ‘500’ victory banquet, which was held in the Rainbow ballroom at the Casino Gardens clubhouse. Formerly known as the Indianapolis Canoe Club, the building still stands two miles east of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on the west bank of the White River. 

Earl Cooper, the second place finisher, received $3,400, and third place finisher Jimmy Murphy received $2,800, while co-winner Joe Boyer (with L.L. Corum) got $50 as he led the first lap from his fourth place starting position.   

We will examine the fundraising and distribution for years 1925 and beyond in future installments.     

For fans interested in viewing the individual 500-mile race programs covers, the National Indy 500 Collector Club has an excellent website at  https://www.ni500cc.com

The history of auto racing in Haskell Texas

 

The history of auto racing in Haskell Texas

In the nineteen twenties, cotton farming was the major industry in the central Texas county of Haskell, named in honor of the Texas Revolution hero Charles Ready Haskell who died at the Alamo.       

Haskell County held fairs intermittently at various locations within the county, but that all changed in 1924. On May 22 1924, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published news from the city of Haskell, the county seat, that on that very morning, 25 men began construction of permanent buildings and a race track with a 4000-seat grandstand on 68 acres near the city’s business district recently purchased by the Haskell County Fair Association.

The finished 5/8-mile oval dirt race track featured 6-to-1 sloped turns (9.5% banking) “to hold the swiftly moving cars safe on their course,” according to an August 1924 article in the Fort Worth Record-Telegram.

The Haskell County Fair opened its three-day run at the new location on Thursday October 2 1924, with American Automobile Association (AAA) sanctioned automobile races set for Friday.  Before the scheduled event at Haskell, the AAA racers appeared in Abilene Texas on September 26^th, Amarillo on September 27^th and Wichita Falls on September 29^th.  The Fort Worth Record-Telegram newspaper listed drivers Phil “Red” Schafer “well-known auto ace,” and Dick Calhoun from Cleveland Oklahoma as entries for the Texas swing promoted by oil transport magnate D. H. Jeffries, the AAA area representative.  

Three accidents marred the September 26^th West Texas Fair race at Abilene, one of which killed a spectator. During the day’s fourth race, a wheel came off Lee Bammel’s machine, “hopped over the fence,” as described in the Fort Worth Record-Telegram report and struck farmer T. W. “Tom” Carlisle who stood on the running board of his father-in-law’s car watching the races.  Carlisle, 28 years old and married with three children, died later at the West Texas Baptist Sanitarium in Abilene from a fractured skull. 

“Red” Shafer, the July Abilene race winner, won the first 10-mile race in his Duesenberg after early leader Dick Calhoun’s ‘Cresswell Special’ broke a connecting rod and retired for the day.  Shafer, a native of Des Moines who lived in Fort Worth, won the day’s featured event, the fifteen-mile handicap race over Harry Milburn. Shafer took the lead during the eleventh mile after he overcame the one-minute starting handicap.   

Before the races on October 3, officials treated the new Haskell track surface with a reported 360 barrels of crude oil (over 15,000 gallons) to prevent dust. The afternoon program, attended by 5,000 fans, boasted seven races and a total purse of $1,100 but a sparse field of cars  Notably absent was the highly advertised “Red” Shafer and his Duesenberg racer as he raced that day in the inaugural AAA “Raisin Day Classic“ National Championship race on the 1-mile board track in Fresno California.  

Calhoun’s troubles continued at Haskell, as his car caught fire during a practice run before time trials, but with the fire extinguished and repairs effected, the ‘Cresswell Special’ set quick time as Calhoun completed two laps in 77 seconds (58 miles per hour) and won the silver loving cup.  

J. E. Larrick of Wichita Falls won the first five-mile race for the eight fastest qualifiers, then Calhoun won the ten-mile race. During the non-qualifiers race, the right rear wheel of H.V. Link’s machine collapsed and he “came perilously near to ending in a junk heap,” according to the Fort Worth Record-Telegram report.  In the day’s featured fifteen-mile handicap race, Calhoun edged Jimmie Reeder’s Chrysler Special and German emigre Johnny Mais in his “16-valve” Dodge. For his day’s work at Haskell, Calhoun won $375.

1925

Nearly a year passed before the AAA racers returned to Haskell County. On September 25, 1925 D. H. Jeffries announced that “Red” Shafer, Ralph DePalma, Frank Lockhart and Dick Calhoun were among the twenty-five drivers entered the October 2nd races.  Shafer and Calhoun were well-known to Texas race fans, as well as DePalma, the 1915 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner, while young Frank Lockhart, a relative unknown, had experienced some success behind the wheel of Harry Miller’s 183-cubic inch dirt car.

The Haskell County Fair opened its three-day run on Thursday October 1, with the races held on Friday afternoon. Among the honored guests at the races were R.Q, Lee of the West Texas Chamber of Commerce accompanied by his wife and Hardy Grissom the president of the Haskell County Fair Association.

In time trials, five drivers broke Calhoun’s year-old track record of 77 seconds, led by John Gerber (misidentified as “Goerber” and “Garber” by some sources). Gerber completed his two qualifying laps in 72 seconds with an average speed of 62 miles per hour (MPH) while Calhoun could not defend his record as his car experienced engine trouble. 

Gerber, the original ‘outlaw’ racer from Meriden Kansas, won the day’s first 10-mile race for the eight fastest qualifiers in his Chevrolet-powered “bobtail” over Shafer, then George Souders won the second race and Harry Milburn won the day’s third race, each of which were 5 miles in length. W. R Hayes won the day’s third five-mile race, then he captured the day’s featured 15-mile event and its $250 purse. J.E. Larrick finished second and George Souders (misidentified as “Souder” in some reports) originally from Lafayette Indiana but then living Abilene finished in third place and won $75.  

1926

As in 1925, the Haskell County Fair races were part of a series of Texas fair races along with races in Abilene and Amarillo.  Peter DePaolo the 1925 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner, received top billing and was joined by Elbert “Babe” Stapp, Dick Calhoun, George Souders, Fred Fame, Roy Meacham and Chester “Chet” Gardner. Frank Lockhart originally signed to appear, but after his brilliant Indianapolis 500-mile race victory, he chose to concentrate on the AAA National Championship trail, much to D. H. Jeffries’ annoyance. 

The September 22nd West Texas Fair races in Abilene were marred by the death of Freeman Minyett, a welder by trade, who suffered a fractured skull when his Frontenac-powered racer overturned.    The other racers, including Chet Gardner, the feature race winner, donated their portion of the purse to Minyett’s widowed mother.

The three-day Haskell County Fair opened on September 30^th, with the races scheduled for October 1 and 2^nd.  On the opening day of races, Fred Frame, in a Miller Special, won the first 7-1/2-mile race while Souders, who would win the 1927 Indianapolis 500-mile race, in a similar machine in third. 

Roy Meacham won the second 7-1/2-mile preliminary race, then finished second in five-mile dash behind Roy Gardner of Denver. Fred Frame won the 15-mile finale to claim $250, as Meacham in second place won $140, while Souders finished third and won $90.     

We do not have the results from the second day of races in Haskell, but during the day’s third race, Meacham of Pawhuska Oklahoma died instantly from a broken neck after his Chevrolet racer veered out of control and plunged over the embankment.  Meacham, a World War one veteran, had been a motorcycle officer in Tulsa and Pawhuska before he started racing motorcycles then graduated to racing cars in the three months before his death.  

1927

1927 saw the introduction of motorcycle racing on the Haskell 5/8-mile track on July fourth.  The fourth annual Haskell County Fair held from October 6 through 8, 1927 featured two days of automobile racing on the 7^th and 8^th. Again, results of the races are nonexistent but during the second day’s featured fifty-lap race, H.S. Fortner’s car crashed into the disabled machine of Joe Miller and overturned several times.  An ambulance rushed Fortner to the Stamford Hospital, 15 miles south of Haskell.  

Fortner who hailed from Okmulgee in east central Oklahoma reportedly passed away the following day, with the news of his death distributed widely on the Associated Press wire service. On October 12, many Texas newspapers, including the Austin American, reported that Fortner had not only not died, but was in fact “rapidly recovering.” After his recovery, Fortner relocated to the Houston area and raced briefly during the 1928 season before he started a sewing machine sales firm. 

1928

Motorcycles returned for the July 4^th races, and attracted a large field of riders and 5,000 spectators. Perrett Austin “E. A.” Kathcart from Waco established a new track record as he rode two laps on his Harley-Davidson in 77 1/5 seconds then went on to win the day’s five-mile and eight-mile events.

The AAA Contest Board granted sanction #2085 to Henry Alexander (of the Fair Board) for two days of automobile racing on October 4^th and 6^th 1928. In qualifying on the 6^th, Vic Felt, a standout driver from Colorado in his Marathon Special, lowered the track record for two laps to 68 3/5 seconds. Felt won the first event, a 7-1/2-mile (12-lap) dash over Tulsa’s John Bolling, but Bolling swept the other two races on the program, the 2-1/2 and 5-mile races in a program marred by numerous accidents but thankfully no injuries.

After 1928, horse races on the 5/8-mile track replaced automobile races during the Haskell County Fair but auto racing would return to the fairgrounds track eight years later. In the intervening years, large oil deposits were discovered in Haskell County which transformed the local economy.

1936   

The four-day Central West Texas Fair in Haskell hosted automobile racing on the first two days of the fair October 21 and 22, promoted by Eugene Tonn (the local Farm Bureau agent) and sanctioned by the Southwestern Automobile Racing Association and part of the six-race series to determine the 1936 Southwestern dirt track champion.

The Haskell race on the 21^st counted towards the title, along with races at Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Meridian Mississippi. Morris Musick, one of the five racing Musick brothers from Dallas, won the feature in a 17-car program that also featured entries from Joie Chitwood, Leonard Musick, and Augustus “Cotton” Grable, the “Blond Blizzard from Texas.”

1937 

Haskell hosted a two-day meet on July 3^rd and 4^th 1937 again promoted by Tonn, as each program featured time trials and five races - three eight-lap heat races, one five-lap handicap and the 20-lap feature. “Wild” Bill Morris of Lincoln Nebraska had great success on July 3^rd, but could not race on the 4^th as his “DO Hal” racer had reportedly “thrown a connecting rod.”

On July the fourth, 2,000 fans watched Herschel Buchanan set quick time with a 33.4 second lap. Red Hodges won the first heat race over Buchanan, but Herschel came back to win the day’s feature race over “Tex” West of Junction City Kansas.

Automobiles raced again at Haskell on October 23 1937 on the last day of the Central West Texas Fair with a scheduled field of fourteen cars. “Wild” Bill Morris led qualifying with a 38-second lap and won his heat race, then captured the feature event over Leon Fondoble and Buddy Rusch.  

1938

In 1938, the 5/8-mile dirt oval in Haskell then known either as “Fair Park Speedway” or “Haskell Speedway” hosted a two-day racing program held over the Fourth of July holiday, promoted by Oklahoma-based Joe Ziobro with the sanction provided by the Southwestern Auto Racing Association. 

On Sunday July third, Joe Termin of Dallas Texas dominated in his blue double overhead camshaft “DO Hal” powered machine, which used a conversion cylinder head built by Harold “Hal” Hosterman for the four-cylinder Ford model B engine.  Termin set quick time and new lap record of 33.3 seconds in qualifying, won his preliminary six-lap heat race and the twelve-lap feature as he finished ahead of Johnny Holland and Gene Fredrick.

William “Red” Hodges of Dallas won the second “slow” heat race despite that his car limped around the last two laps of the race on a flat tire. Lex Newbill of McKinney Texas won the day’s four-lap consolation race.  

Promoter Joe Ziobro promised the 1,200 fans a better show for Monday the fourth of July, with three new cars scheduled to arrive from Oklahoma City that included Waldo Parnett and Posey Reeves together with a possible visit by Texas Governor James Allred.

1,000 fans turned out on July fourth and saw Termin qualify second fastest.  As Termin entered the first turn on the third lap of the preliminary heat race, the right rear tire on his “DO Hal” racer failed, and the out-of-control machine went through the wooden fence and disappeared over the embankment. Termin, a 35-year old auto mechanic married less than a year, suffered fatal injuries when the car rolled over him. According to fellow racing historian Bob Lawrence, Termin’s death was the first fatality in Ziobro’s twelve years of racing promotions  

Herschel Buchanan, the 31-year old driver from Shreveport Louisiana, won the six-lap heat race which was completed under the caution flag after Termin’s crash. Oscar Coleman won the second heat race which was marred by a crash by rookie driver Arthur Rhodes in the same place as Termin’s earlier fatality, but Rhodes escaped unhurt.  “Red” Hodges captured the third heat race, then Buchanan, who years later became a two-time champion in International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) late model stock cars, won the Haskell 12-lap feature event ahead of Hodges in a time of six minutes and nine seconds.  

There were no races presented as part of the two-day 1938 West Central Texas Fair, and reportedly there were “stock car” races held in Haskell on the 5/8-mile track in August, September and October 1939 but the author has been unable to uncover any details.

There was a second Haskell Speedway which began operation in 1966 located approximately 4 miles west of the town of Haskell on farm land owned by T C Redwine and promoted by Redwine and CW McKelvain. The first two seasons the track hosted stock car races on Sunday afternoons, but for 1968 and 1969 presented races on Saturday nights.  The track apparently closed after the 1969 season.

The author has been unable to find information about the exact locations of the either the Fairgrounds 5/8-mile or the later “Haskell Speedway,” and welcomes any leads from our readers.   

The Pete Kreis story Part one - background and his rookie year- 1925

 

The Pete Kreis story

Part one 

 Background and his rookie year- 1925  

Young Pete Kreis posed in his Duesenberg

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection 

Albert Jacob “Pete” Kreis is an intriguing figure to automobile racing historians; described as a “Southern gentleman sportsman” at the time, he competed purely for the love of sport.  After three seasons of board track racing, for the last six years of his career, Pete only drove in one race a year – the Indianapolis 500-mile race. Although he never won a race, Kreis’ career intersected with many of the great names of racing from the mid-nineteen twenties until his death in 1934  

Born into a generationally wealthy and prominent Knoxville Tennessee family on January 19 1900, Kreis grew up as a child of privilege. His grandfather, Harman Kreis, emigrated from Switzerland and fought in the American Civil War as a Union cavalryman since East Tennessee tended to be pro-union. After the war, Harmon worked as a timekeeper at the Knoxville Marble Company before he went into the quarry business for himself.

Harmon Kreis developed several quarries, and with a partner founded the Appalachian Marble Quarry Company which innovated by floating huge blocks of marble from their quarries on rafts down the Tennessee River to the mills in Knoxville known then as “Marble City.” Harmon later served two years as the reformist Sherriff of Knox County and died in 1937 at age 91.

Pete’s father, entrepreneur John Alva Kreis, owned one of the area's biggest dairy farms, the Riverside Dairy and Hatchery grew to become a farm with 215 registered Holsteins, 35 employees and 12 delivery trucks. The Riverside Hatchery housed 600,000 chicks and had an egg capacity of 300,000 per month.  As a young man Pete helped out on the farm; first he drove a horse-drawn delivery wagon, and later the farms’ first delivery truck.   

John Kreis also owned the eponymous national engineering and contracting company which specialized in large railroad, levee and bridge jobs, with customers that included the Southern, L&N and Missouri Pacific railroads. Pete would later work with his father and older brother in construction.   

Pete, who adopted his nickname as young man, attended Central High School in Knoxville and followed in the footsteps of grandfather and father to become a champion skeet shooter and won many tournaments around Knoxville. Some historians suggest that Kreis began racing on dirt tracks at local county fairs but nearly a hundred years later the author found no records of Kreis’ early automobile racing career, but he liked to drive fast.  

On February 22 1924, Pete had an accident while on a test drive which killed his passenger, 23-year old car salesman Carroll McCall. The roadster Kreis drove, reportedly “at a lively clip” according to witnesses, missed a curve and struck a bridge abutment, rolled over and pinned Kreis and McCall in the wreckage. Rescuers found McCall dead and the steering wheel had to be removed to free Kreis who went to the hospital with cuts and a shoulder injury.

Kreis and his father attended the inaugural race at the new wooden Charlotte Speedway oval in October 1924 won by Tommy Milton. Pete’s American Automobile Association (AAA) championship racing debut came at the new Culver City 1-1/4 mile high-banked (50 degrees) board track, a few weeks before Christmas in 1924 as a paying member of the four-car Duesenberg racing team.  In practice runs Bennett Hill and Harry Hartz ran laps at the astonishing speed of 134 miles per hour (MPH) in their supercharged Miller racers. 

While his three Duesenberg teammates – Wade Morton, Peter DePaolo, and Phil Shafer – all started the race, rookie Kreis is listed in AAA records as one of two drivers who did not qualify for the 16-car starting field.  More than 70,000 spectators saw Hill win the 250-mile race over Hartz in just one hour and 58 minutes with the phenomenal average speed of nearly 127 MPH.

Kreis returned to Culver City two months later, again as part of the Duesenberg team, behind the wheel of the #35 supercharged Duesenberg 122-cubic inch eight-cylinder machine. Kreis started at the rear of the twenty-car field and finished in fifth place behind winner Tommy Milton, who shaved 5-1/2 seconds off Hill’s December winning time.

This bizarre event started on February 22 but officials stopped the race after 25 laps due to treacherous oily track conditions created by the three-car crash of Frank Elliott, Dr. William Shattuc and Stuart Wilkinson. Stuart received severe back injuries which caused the end of his short automobile racing career. 

When the AAA officials completely restarted the race on Sunday March 1, drivers Elliott and Shattuc were in the field with their repaired cars, along with Kreis, whose car carried a new crankshaft but Wilkinson still hospitalized did not restart.  Kreis ran as high as fourth place in the race until he stopped on lap 120 for a tire change but Pete recovered to place fifth among the nine finishers due to the high attrition rate,.

Kreis did not appear on the entry list for the April 19 Culver City 25- and 50-mile sprint races which included ten veteran drivers as Harry Hartz established a new speed record for 50 miles of over 135 MPH. Pete skipped the next race on the 1-mile Fresno Speedway board track, and raced next on Monday May 11 on another 1-1/4-mile board track, the Charlotte Speedway in Pineville North Carolina, about ten miles south of the City of Charlotte North Carolina.   

The Charlotte Speedway featured 40-degree baked turns built with an estimated 4 million board feet of lumber by the Prince Construction Company of Oakland California.  Remarkably, the Charlotte Speedway which cost an estimated $450,000, received its charter from the State in May 1924 and hosted its first race AAA championship race in October, less than six months later.   

The promoters of the 1925 Confederate Memorial Day $25,000 250-mile race arranged with the Southern Railroad system to offer promotional Pullman fare packages from Raleigh, Durham and Goldsboro in North Carolina as well as from Selma Alabama and Chattanooga Tennessee. Reserved seats in the two grandstands sold for $3.50 or $5.00 each, while 8-seat boxes sold for $8 each. 

The racers in the Fresno race all arrived via special freight train, which included Bennett Hill, Earl Cooper, Frank Elliott, Harry Hartz, Leon Duray, Peter DePaolo, and last year’s Charlotte winner, Tommy Milton. Those stars were joined by eight others drivers that included Wade Morton, Earl Devore, Phil Shafer and Kreis.

An estimated crowd of 50,000 fans saw Tommy Milton jump into the lead in his Miller and hold on to the lead for the first 100 miles ahead of Cooper and Duray. Over the next 60 miles, the machines of challengers Hill, Elliott and Duray all retired and Harry Hartz moved into third place while Milton led the pack with an average speed of 122.7 MPH. 

As the leaders neared the 200-mile mark, Milton’s Miller engine developed a miss, and Cooper surged into the lead on the 156^th lap. On lap 174, the ignition on Kreis’ Duesenberg failed and he retired to be placed tenth.  Cooper held on to win over Hartz, Milton and Comer, with the highest placed Duesenberg driven by DePaolo in fifth. Cooper banked $10,000 for the win, while Hartz received a check for $5000 and Milton, $2750. The teams packed up to ship their cars by rail to Indianapolis, with the cars expected to arrive in the Hoosier capital by May 15^th. 

The Duesenberg brothers entered three cars and drivers for the 1925 International 500 Mile Sweepstakes at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Pete Kreis drove the #35 with the other cars assigned to Peter DePaolo and LL Corum – the fourth Duesenberg entry did not have a driver assigned initially, but on May 12, Fred Duesenberg named Frenchman Antoine Mourre, who finished ninth in his rookie ‘500’ appearance in 1924 behind the wheel of his own Miller.  

On May 26^th, 1925 Kreis qualified his #35 supercharged Duesenberg ninth fastest with an average speed of 106.338 MPH for his four-lap ten-mile run, while the team leader DePaolo briefly held the track record at 113.083 MPH Leon Duray’s run of 113.196 MPH edged DePaolo off the pole.  Mourre qualified for the middle of the sixth row, but as Decoration Day neared pronounced himself displeased with the handling of the #23 machine, withdrew, replaced by Wade Morton. 

With only a 22-car starting field in 1925, there were a number of driver substitutions before race day, as in addition to Mourre, there were six other drivers that chose to withdraw their original mounts.  Bennett Hill started the confusion when he withdrew his Miller front drive (one of two built for the late Jimmy Murphy) in favor of a conventional rear drive Miller originally qualified by Ray Cariens.

Dave Lewis replaced Cliff Durant, the son of General Motors founder William Crapo Durant as the driver of the second Miller front drive machine while Milton Jones replaced H.J. Skelly after he withdrew from the Frontenac-Ford.  Ira Vail replaced Reginald Johnson in a Miller and L.L. Corum, the 1924 ‘500’ co-winner stepped out the Duesenberg he qualified in favor of Phil “Red” Shafer. 

DePaolo dominated the early and late stages of the 1925 500-race, as he led 115 laps that included the final 27 circuits while Kreis is credited with an eighth place in the third-highest placed Duesenberg. The common denominator between DePaolo and Kreis was the essential driver of the day - Norm Batten.

Augie and Fred Duesenberg tabbed Norm who had debuted the previous season with the Duesenberg team at 31 years old at Syracuse, as the team’s designated relief driver at Indianapolis.   Batten relieved eventual race winner DePaolo for 22 laps mid-race, then jumped into the #35 machine in relief of Kreis on lap 136 and drove to the finish.   

The AAA championship cars and stars traveled next to Altoona Pennsylvania to compete in the 250-mile ‘Spring Classic’ at the fast high-banked board track which had already claimed the lives of two prominent racers – Howdy Wilcox I in the inaugural race in the fall of 1923, and  Joe Boyer the 1924 Indianapolis co-winner the previous fall. Kreis started 12^th in the 18-car field and finished sixth behind winner Peter DePaolo. 

Kreis’ next appearance came on July 11 1925 at the 1-1/8 mile 48 degree banked original ‘Baltimore-Washington Speedway’ board track in Laurel Maryland in the #35 Duesenberg. Another quickly built facility, the track’s parent corporation was formed in February 1925.

During the inaugural July 1925 race at Laurel, Kreis’ car spun on the wooden banking without incident and Pete continued on until something failed in the Duesenberg engine on lap 50.  With his own car eliminated, Kreis relieved Duesenberg teammate Phil Shafer until the #9 machine also experienced engine trouble and retired. 25-year old Bob McDonogh took the checkered flag, 3.68 seconds ahead of DePaolo, but Peter protested the finish. 

A check of the scoring records overnight found that the scorers missed one of DePaolo’s laps and the AAA officials declared Peter DePaolo as the race winner, for his fourth straight win, as he had won a July 4^th non-points race held on the 1-1/4 mile dirt Rockingham Park Speedway in Salem, New Hampshire.

The $600,000 facility, built on 360 acres, only hosted two races before the corporation went bankrupt.

A subsequent track operator staged occasional “outlaw” (non-AAA) races sanctioned by the National Motor Racing Association at the facility through 1926 until filing for bankruptcy the following year. After another failed resuscitation attempt crews dissembled the board track facility in 1928.

A ½-mile paved track built in 1965 in nearby Beltsville Maryland operated for the first year as the ‘Baltimore-Washington Speedway’ and hosted a National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) Grand National late model stock car race won by Ned Jarrett. The following year the operators changed than track name to Beltsville Speedway, and it operated under various sanctions until 1978. 

23-year old Boston investment heir Harold L “Vic” Spooner, who drove several practice laps at the Laurel oval, appeared as the only representative of the Duesenberg team at the 250-mile “Autumn Classic” held September 7th at Altoona Speedway in Tyrone Pennsylvania. 

Bob McDonogh won the Altoona race in Tommy Milton’s Miller which ran non-stop without a caution. After the race, Bob became the godfather of a nine-and-half pound baby boy born in the infield hospital prior to the race.  Spooner drove the car that his family purchased from Wade Morton to an eight place finish 17 laps behind the winner.

Meanwhile the regular Duesenberg AAA team drivers – Peter DePaolo, Tommy Milton and Kreis - were in Monza Italy for the 1925 Italian Grand Prix.  Milton and Kreis were teammates in 122 cubic inch Duesenbergs while DePaolo drove an Alfa Romeo P2.

In Italy, the officials set the starting field by car numbers, and all three of the American drivers started in the middle of the 25-car starting field that included 1913 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner Jules Goux.  

Kreis recorded the race’s fastest lap of 3 minutes 38 seconds on the opening 6.2–mile long lap but crashed on the second lap and placed last. Milton finished fourth in the marathon five and a half-hour long 496-mile race, and edged out DePaolo by a minute and a half at the finish.

The 1925 AAA championship cars and stars returned to action at the newly-built Rockingham Park Speedway board track in Salem New Hampshire in early October.  During practice runs on the 1-1/4 mile bowl on October 12, held in conjunction with the track’s grand opening, Peter DePaolo ran a lap at 128 MPH, a speed which other drivers including Spooner then took to the track to beat.  Due to the informal nature of the practice session, a group of race car mechanics gathered close to the track surface in a “dugout” to observe the action.

As Spooner’s car ran on the high side of the banking, above the machine of William “Doc” Shattuc, a steering knuckle pin broke on the Duesenberg’s front axle. The car wobbled then shot down the track as Dan Shaw, the car’s mechanic, inexplicably ran from the “dugout” towards the track. Spooner’s out of control Duesenberg pounded the inside rail and flipped high into the air.

The Duesenberg catapulted through the air with Spooner thrown out, and the careening car struck Shaw before it came to rest in flames which spread to the track surface. Officials pronounced the 24-year old Shaw dead at the scene while Spooner suffered a fractured skull. The young Bostonian survived but never raced again.

In Rockingham practice on October 14^th, Harry Hartz ran a lap timed at 135 MPH, then in qualifying on October 15^th DePaolo smashed all previous speed records as he circled the 1-1/4 board track in 32 3/5 seconds, for an astonishing lap speed of 138 MPH. Remarkable since it would be 26 years before a car reached such a lap speed at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Milton, in his Duesenberg, timed in seventh fastest while Kreis qualified in thirteenth place. 

Rain initially postponed the inaugural Rockingham board track race scheduled for Saturday October 17^th until Monday the 19^th, but on Monday rain won again and organizers set the make-up date for October 31^st, as the AAA had a race already scheduled in Laurel Maryland on October 26^th.  

In the second race held during the 1925 season at the Baltimore-Washington Speedway, Kreis’ Duesenberg fell out with unspecified mechanical troubles after just 31 of the 222 laps as McDonogh won his second straight race, this time behind the wheel of Tommy Milton’s second Miller numbered 14 but not without trouble. Bob held a two-lap lead with twenty-five laps to go when the engine began to sour.  The Miller engine sputtered and backfired through the final laps as DePaolo closed but Bob held on and won the race by 24 seconds.

Back in Salem New Hampshire on October 31st, pole-sitter DePaolo raced into lead and led for the first ten laps until fellow front-row starter Bennett Hill surged into the lead which he held for the next 87 laps, until the clutch in his Miller failed. Hill’s retirement handed the lead to Earl Cooper.

Cooper’s Miller ‘Junior 8’ held the point for twenty laps, before DePaolo recaptured the lead and Peter led the remaining 83 laps and won by a lap over Ralph Hepburn, the pilot of the Miller owned by Cooper.  Earl Cooper finished a lap behind his own car in third place, and Pete Kreis’ Duesenberg in 11^th, the last car running, flagged with 160 laps completed.  

On November 11, Tommy Milton won the AAA championship circuit’s second visit to the Charlotte board track as engine failure eliminated front-runners DePaolo and Hill. Kreis closed out his 1925 season as he qualified twelfth and finished tenth, with 160 of the 200 laps completed.

With eight race appearances and a single top five finish scored in his first race at Culver City, Pete Kreis finished 14^th in the 1925 AAA driver standings, behind fellow rookies Ralph Hepburn in ninth and Norm Batten who finished eleventh overall in AAA points with just three 1925 race appearances.

In our next chapter, we will look at Pete Kreis’ 1926 AAA racing season.      

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.

The history of Alamo Downs the short-lived Texas pre-war midget racing venue

The history of Alamo Downs  

the short-lived Texas pre-war

midget auto racing venue

Wes Saegesser 

On September 1 1933, the State of Texas legalized pari-mutuel wagering on thoroughbred racing. Shortly thereafter,  businessman Raymond Russell built the Alamo Downs one-mile horse racing facility on Culebra Road northwest of downtown San Antonio.  Alamo Downs opened its first racing meet on April 23 1934 with 14,000 fans in attendance which included Texas Governor Miriam A. Ferguson.

Horse racing at Alamo Downs ended on September 24 1937 after the Texas legislature again outlawed pari-mutuel thoroughbred wagering after several scandals. There were still horses boarded and trained on the Alamo Downs property but the facility sat largely unused until late 1940.

Famed automobile racing promoters O.D Lavely and his son Ray, through their company,  Lavely Racing Promotions Enterprises, signed a five-year lease in August 1940 to present midget racing at Alamo Downs. Lavely Promotions built the 1/5-mile banked oiled clay dirt track which measured 40 feet wide through the corners and 30 feet wide on the straightaways in front of the existing grandstands.  

The track construction included an innovative 36-inch high outer crash wall and an inner “hub rail.” Rather than locate the pit area in the infield, officials located the work area for the race cars underneath the grandstands in the paddock area.   

The Texas Oklahoma Racing Association (TORA) which sanctioned the Alamo Downs races, also presented races at the 1/5-mile Fair Park Speedway on the grounds of the Texas State Fairgrounds in Dallas, the Lavely’s 1/5-mile Houston Speedbowl and the ¼-mile Gold Mine Race Bowl in Dallas. TORA race tracks included Jefferson-Davis Speedway in Fort Worth, the original dirt Pan-American Speedway in San Antonio and the Panhandle-South Plains Speedway in Lubbock. TORA also raced in Texas at the Reaser Park track in Victoria as well as the Lions Field Speedway, a track which the author has been unable to locate.   

Admission to the first midget race at Alamo Downs on Sunday afternoon October 6 cost race fans 40 cents plus tax with free parking. Due to the late season opening, many midget drivers from the Midwest came to San Antonio to race against that local drivers that included Al Slaughter, Dick Word and the one-armed wonder, Wes Saegesser.

Other Texas entries came from Doster ‘Doc’ Cossey (AJ Foyt’s first racing hero), the 1939 Texas midget racing champion Mel Wainwright and Elmer “Rabbit” Musick, the youngest of five racing brothers from the Dallas area - his brothers were named Ben, Morris, Lyn and Leland.

 Al Slaughter won the very first Alamo Downs race, the 2-lap helmet dash over Abilene’s Cleo Glaze who set quick time in time trials at 17.31 seconds. Dale Burt, Word and Wainwright each won one of the eight-lap heat races, and Cossey won the second 10-lap semi-main event from eighth starting position.

During that second semi-main race, Denver driver Warren Hamilton took what the San Antonio Light article described as “a spectacular spill” on the first lap after he tangled with the car of JD Parks and Hamilton's car rolled over into the infield.

Slaughter took the race lead into the first turn of the 25-lap feature pursued by ‘Doc’ Cossey. ‘Doc’ pressed Slaughter hard until his car fell out on the ninth lap with electrical trouble, and Slaughter easily won by a half a lap over Glaze.     

The following Sunday, October the 13^th, the 1/5-mile track was much faster.  Jim Ward set quick time at 16.75 seconds, for a new lap record, while ‘Doc’ Cossey won the two-lap Helmet Dash in  34.88 seconds, then Al Slaughter won his eight-lap heat race with a new record time of 2 minutes, 19.26 seconds.

Cossey captured the 25-lap feature win over Ward in a record time of seven minutes, 37.76 seconds to score his second feature win in four nights, to go along with his Thursday night win at the Houston Speedbowl. Cossey’s Alamo Downs win on the 13^th marked his tenth midget feature win of the 1940 season.

Late in feature on the 13^th, three of the top cars driven by Dick Word, Lou Turberville and Earl Simmons tangled in front of the grandstands after Word’s car blew its water hose, and Word and Turberville both suffered facial cuts in the accident.  

Cossey became the first Alamo Downs repeat winner as he won on October 20^th in a program that extended the heat races to ten laps in length, and stretched the feature to 30 laps.  

The field on October 27^th featured new entries from Charlie Miller, the 1940 American Automobile Association (AAA) eastern midget series champion and the AAA Eastern midget runner-up George Fonder.

Al Slaughter scored his second Alamo win in the 14-car “Fall Championship” 30-lap race on October 27th, as he again went wire-to-wire to beat the $3000 'Jackson Special,' an Offenhauser powered car driven by Dallas’ “King of the Midgets” William Ben ‘Red’ Hodges.  

On November 3^rd, Slaughter won his heat race then powered to his third Alamo feature win over the helmet dash winner Miller. Car counts at Alamo Downs continued to increase such that on the 3^rd, the 10-lap Class ‘B’ feature featured an eighteen-car starting field.

On November 17th, Kansas City’s Vito Calia captured his 8-lap heat race in a new record time of 2 minutes 16.84 seconds, then finished  close second place behind Jim Ward in the first semi-main. Slaughter took the point for the first three laps of the 25-lap feature until Calia took over the lead and went on to set a new track record as he won with a time of seven minutes and 7.43 seconds.

Rain cancelled the races scheduled for November 25^th and before the next race on December 1, ‘Doc’ Cossey bought a new Elto outboard-powered midget and installed Mel Wainwright as the driver.  

Many of the Alamo Downs racers took part in the Thanksgiving night 100-lap “Southern Grand Prix” race in Houston won by ‘Red’ Hodges, and as a result only 20 cars signed in at Alamo Downs on December 1. To compound the low car count, only about 1400 fans showed up to watch the program won by ‘Red’ Hodges in the Jackson Offenhauser powered midget. 

The afternoon of December 8^th marked the final scheduled race at Alamo Downs for the 1940 season as the Lavely clan planned to head to the Pacific Coast to sign up more drivers for the 1941 Alamo Downs season set to open in February.  The 50-lap Class A championship race topped the December 8th program supplemented by the 15-lap Class B championship race.

The midget track on the other side of San Antonio on Seguin Highway also scheduled a race on that Sunday afternoon which diluted the field of entries at Alamo Downs to just 25 cars. ‘Red’ Hodges captured the 50-lap Class A feature but fell short of winning the 1940 track championship by six points, as Slaughter passed “Rabbit” Musik on the last lap to claim second place and secure enough points to win the championship. 

The Lavely’s ambitious plans for the 1941 Alamo Downs midget racing season never materialized and there is no evidence of another race held there. In January 1942 a fire swept through a stable on the Alamo Downs grounds and killed five race horses, then in September 1947 another fire partially destroyed the wood, concrete and steel paddock and grandstand. The area once occupied by the Alamo Downs track is now part of the Alamo Downs Business Park.