Midget Racer Bob Harner in 1948 and beyond

To place this article in the proper context, the author suggests that if you have not already, read the three previous articles regarding Bob Harner’s racing career entitled  ‘before World War 2’  'in 1945 & 1946’ and ‘in 1947’ before reading this final installment.

During the height of the midget auto racing’s popularity in the United States, on Sunday night June 13, 1948 Bob Harnar (alternately spelled Harner), the midget auto racer from Akron Ohio was scheduled to appear at the opening race for the Manchester Motordrome’s second season.

 

 Bob Harnar in a Ford V8-60 powered midget - assumed to be pre-war era

Photograph courtesy of JD Cormack

 

 Built at a cost of $70,000 (nearly $3/4 million today) by brothers George and Walter Hart and their partner, Robert Early, the Londonderry New Hampshire track slightly shorter than a ¼ mile in length, opened in July of 1947 and featured seating for 10,000 fans. After the short 1947 racing season, Walter Hart was killed in an automobile accident and his widow succeeded him in the track partnership.  

That June night in 1948 the races at Londonderry were to be sanctioned by the new Bay State Midget Racing Association (BSMRA), and advertisements promised appearances by such local stars as Joe Sostilio, Frankie Simonetti, and Buddy Tatro. Besides Harner and Jimmy Florian, his teammate in the Pollock Racing Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser-powered midgets, another “guest driver from the Midwest” included Bill Spear (Spier), who was advertised as driving the only rubber suspended car in the county.

Apparently the scheduled race did not come off, as the local newspaper described in an article the following week “racing was delayed at the Manchester Motordrome because of a misunderstanding between the promoters and the Bay State Racing Association. This misunderstanding has been eliminated and both parties have agreed to abide by a newly- drawn contract. As evidence of good faith, the Bay State Association has announced that 24 drivers and cars will participate in the opening Sunday (June 20).”

The following week saw the opening of a new midget track, Hudson Speedway, less than ten miles away from Manchester. The two tracks spent the rest of the 1948 season locked in a scheduling battle with one another and the BSMRA, the AAA, and the United Car Owners Association (UCOA), and as expected, all parties lost. The Motordrome reportedly ran midget races as late as 1962, and today the site features a velodrome and a BMX bicycle track.

Joe Sostilio from Massachusetts, the defending 1947 BSMRA champion, became entangled later in 1948 in a bizarre criminal case after the June 25 crash at the ¼-mile paved Mohawk Stadium in Lunenberg Massachusetts that killed 22-year old driver Steve Bishop.  Even though newspaper reports the day following the accident did not mention Sostilio’s name in connection with the fateful second race nor was there contact between the cars of Bishop and Sostilio, a grand jury indicted Sostilio in August 18 1948 on two counts of assault and one count of manslaughter. The indictment stated that Sostilio "did in a wanton and reckless manner operate a motor vehicle in a race with other motor vehicles, and as a result of said wanton reckless operation caused mortal injuries to one Stephen D. Bishop, said injury resulting in his death." 

Free on bail, awaiting trial Sostilio continued to race, and then in February 1949 a Worchester jury rejected his defense of the incident being “an unavoidable accident” and convicted Sostilio on all three counts.  Judge Charles Fairhurst gave Sostilio a three-month jail sentence but stayed the sentence pending appeal. Sostilio’s conviction was affirmed by the Massachusetts Supreme Court in December 1949, but it is unclear to this historian whether Sostilio ever served the sentence.  The ill-fated Mohawk Stadium which had opened just two weeks before the Bishop fatality closed sometime during 1949 and after several years of being the target for vandals was demolished and replaced by a drive-in movie theatre in 1955.

Joe “Rosie” Sostilio passed his rookie driving test at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May 1953 in the Belanger-owned Chrysler 331 cubic inch “Hemi” V8-powered Kurtis 500A but failed to qualify. In 1954 Sostilio was the assigned driver for Ed Walsh’s Bardahl -sponsored Kurtis, but was replaced at the last moment in final day ‘500’ time trials by veteran Art Cross. Sostilio who finished his quarter-century racing career in 1958, passed away in July 2000 in St Petersburg Florida.

Bob Harner also won a heat race and the class B race during the early part of the 1948 season at the Lonsdale Sports Arena a 1/3-mile high-banked paved oval located on the banks of the Blackstone River two miles north of Pawtucket, Rhode Island which operated from 1947 to 1956.

A consistent winner at both Lonsdale and Manchester race tracks during this period was Johnny Thomson who won 32 midget features in 1948 on his way to claiming the 1948 UCOA title. Thomson later won the 1952 Eastern American Automobile Association (AAA) midget title winner and then graduated to the AAA Eastern sprint cars where he won the 1954 and 1958 championships. Thomson raced in eight Indianapolis 500-mile races and won seven AAA championship car races before he lost his life in a sprint car accident on the first lap of a 25-lap feature on September 24 1960 at the Allentown (Pennsylvania) Fairgrounds.

 

Bob Harnar in the post-war Pollock Kurtis Kraft Offenhauser midget

photograph courtesy of JD Cormack

On Tuesday night June 15 1948, “all the New England Stars” along with Harnar, Florian, and Spears appeared at the ¼-mile Westboro Stadium in Massachusetts. Racing began at Westboro Stadium in 1947 and continued there until the track closed in 1985.  After the property was sold off and the track demolished it became the site of the ‘Speedway Plaza’ shopping center.

On July 16, 1948, Harner returned to race in familiar surroundings in the AAA sanctioned 50-lap ‘Mid-season Championship’ at Ebensburg Pennsylvania, and raced with Bobby Orr, Jack Kabat, and one-legged California racer Cal Niday. Former ‘big car’ racer Mike Little was aiming for his sixth straight feature win at Ebensburg, but was beaten to the checkered flag by Kabat.

On October 31, 1948 Bob Harner was entered in the midget races at the Conococheague Speedway near Hagerstown Maryland, a track with a particularly colorful early history.   Construction of the track on Route 40 six miles west of Hagerstown adjacent to the Conococheague Amusement Park began in April 1947 by a group led by farmer-contractor Stanley Schetrompf. When it was completed, the covered grandstand, advertised as the largest in Western Maryland, was 375 feet long and seated over 3,000 fans with additional uncovered bleachers for another other 2,000 fans.  The ½-mile banked clay race track facility was built at a reported total cost of S60.000.  

The grand opening motorcycle races set for August 8 1948 were delayed by rain first to the 15th then again by rain until August 22 1948. Almost immediately, Sherriff Joseph Baker acting at the behest of the Washington County Ministerial Association ordered no racing on Sundays in accordance with Maryland “Blue Laws” which since Colonial times prohibited hunting and retail sales or entertainment activities on Sundays. In September 1948 the track dropped its AAA sanction, citing low car counts and went with Central States Racing Association (CSRA) sanction and continued to race on Sundays, but during the CSRA midget races on September 12 1948, tragedy struck and Pennsylvania driver Earle Fattman was killed.

While the State Police investigation assigned no blame for the tragedy, Sherriff Baker took the opportunity to renew his call for no Sunday racing, but given the fact that Harner and the CSRA midgets ran there on October 31, it was clear that the promoters ignored the “Blue Laws.”  In November 1948, citing poor attendance Calvin “Mike” Shank and Ed Goetz took over active management from   Schetrompf despite the fact that the track sat on Schetrompf’s farm.

Racing resumed at Conococheague over the 1949 Memorial Day weekend and then on June 10  1949 the Washington County grand jury indicted seven men associated with the Speedway for “Sabbath breaking” along with the employees of the local movie theater. All seven men were promptly arrested by Sherriff’s deputies and released after they posted the required $7.45 bond.  

A jury trial on June 24th found six Conococheague Speedway employees and officials guilty of “Sabbath breaking,” yet all the movie theatre employees were acquitted.  A seventh track employee was granted a new trial because Judge Joseph Mish ruled that the state “inadvertently failed to show that he was among those working at the Conococheague Speedway on Sunday, May 29, 1949.”  Judge Mish then imposed the maximum fine of five dollars and court costs on each of those convicted, and thereafter no Sunday racing occurred at Conococheague Speedway.

After the United States Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of “Blue Laws” in 1962,   it was not until 1987 that Maryland legislators finally  repealed most of the ancient “Blue Laws,” although  Maryland still permits Sunday automobile sales in only Charles, Prince George's, Montgomery, and Howard counties. Conococheague Speedway is known these days as Hagerstown Speedway and since 1982 has honored Schetrompf’s memory by staging the “Stanley Schetrompf Founders Day Classic,” a 50-lap feature for late model stock cars. 

While much of his 1948 season results remain unknown, Bob Harner is credited with a second place finish in the 1948 AAA Michigan Ohio Valley Circuit midget championship behind Ralph Pratt. The 1949 season for Harnar is even more of a mystery with only one mention was found after extensive research.  On July 20, 1949 Harnar was one of many midget racers entered in a race at Williams Grove Speedway which was cancelled due to the failure of the track’s 300,000 watt lighting system following a rainstorm.

Bob Harnar’s single career AAA championship car appearance came on September 10 1950 at the Michigan State Fairgrounds dirt one-mile track where he unsuccessfully tried to qualify Ralph Miller’s ‘Vulcan Tool Special.’  Ralph S. Miller from Dayton in Ohio started his racing career as young man in ‘stock’ cars, then worked in Harold Hosterman's shop and helped build tooling and patterns for the famous ‘HAL’ engines and components.  

 

Walt Geiss in the Vulcan Tool Special in 1952

Photograph courtesy of Rick Patterson

Starting in January 1946, Ralph Miller, a tool maker by trade built his own “rear-drive double tubular  chassis” powered by a 4-cylinder supercharged intercooled racing engine for which Miller “made every part” according to an April 1948 article in the Dayton Daily News.  The car which Miller built with the assistance of driver Carlyle “Duke” Dinsmore debuted at the Illinois State Fairgrounds mile at DuQuoin September 1948 with 1941 Indianapolis 500-mile race co-winner Floyd Davis behind the wheel. The ‘Ralph Miller Special’ started last in the 18-car starting field and finished the 100-lap race in ninth position after Davis was relieved at lap 70 by Dinsmore.  

The team then moved on two days later to the “Atlanta 100” at Lakewood Speedway where Davis went the full 100-lap distance and finished seventh out of twelve finishers.  The following month, back at the 1948 season-ending race at DuQuoin, Dinsmore qualified 17th in the Ralph Miller creation but failed to finish the race in which Ted Horn lost his life.    

 

Cy Marshall at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1950 in the Vulcan Tool Special

Photograph courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection in the

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies

Over the next eight years, through the 1956 AAA season, the Ralph Miller machine made sixteen entries in championship events, with drivers that included Harnar, Cy Marshall, Frank Armi, and Cal Niday, none of whom were able to get the ‘Vulcan Tool Special’ (Ralph’s employer at the time)  into the starting field. Only Colorado native Keith Andrews was able to qualify the “Syer-Hal Special” for a race;  Keith finished second in the 1953 Pikes Peak “Race to the Clouds,” with a run that was only 2-1/2 seconds slower than Louie Unser.  

After Van Johnson failed to qualify the ‘Vulcan Tool Special’ for the 1956 DuQuoin race and finished fourth in the consolation race, the car stopped competing on the AAA circuit.  In 1957, Ralph Miller was granted United States patent number 2817322 for his supercharged engine which was designed to run on “diesel, dual fuel, or gasoline and operated so as to limit or reduce the engine’s thermal load” by using early intake valve closure to reduce heat build-up in the combustion chamber. Miller retired from the Dayton Reliable Tool Company and passed away in 1992 at age 87, found through research by Rick Patterson. The Ralph Miller car is currently in a private collection in the Midwest.

Many diesel engine manufacturers have developed and patented new engine designs based on Miller’s principles. In 1995, Mazda introduced a 2.3 liter (140 cubic inches) V-6 engine option on its Millenia S model that used “Miller Cycle” technology with an intercooler, early intake valve timing and low-pressure supercharging to achieve 210 horsepower and 28 miles to the gallon. The primary advantage of the Mazda engine was it reduced exhaust temperatures by 11% which lowered nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions.

After his active racing career ended, Bob Harnar entered the contracting business and reportedly served as an official at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  In 1952, Bob Harnar, now 36 years old, appeared in an indoor race at the Toledo Sports Arena together with a roster of “former champion drivers” that included Harnar’s contemporaries Jack Kabat, Carl Forberg, Gays Biro, and Ralph Pratt. Later on June 19, 1952 many of those same “former champions” appeared in a 50-lap feature program staged at Bedford’s Sportsmans Park.

  Ten years later, on January 10 1962, Harner had his final moment in the racing spotlight when he and a group of “old time racers” that included Gays Biro, Ralph Pratt, Jim Florian, Al Silver, and Herb Swan appeared in a special indoor race presented as a part of motorcycle and ¾ midget racing program on a 1/10-mile track inside the Cleveland Arena.  Bob Harnar passed away at age 68 in 1984 in Fairlawn Ohio.  

While Bob Harnar did not win any major races or championships, or race at our sport’s mecca, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, hopefully this series of articles about Harnar’s career has given the reader insight into the life and travels of a midget automobile racer in the sport’s halcyon days in the years before and after World War 2.

Midget racer Bob Harner in 1945 & 1946

 

By 1945, midget racer Bob Harner (or Harnar) and his wife Martha were the parents of three daughters – Marcia, born in 1938, Nancy, born in 1941, and Linda, born in 1944.  A son, Robert Junior, was born later in September 1946 which completed their family.

The author’s research did not locate any records of Bob Harner's (or Harnar) service in any branch of the United States military during World War 2.  The author suspects this might have been on religious reasons, since at various times during his pre-war racing career, Harner was described in newspaper articles as the “the Flying Amishman” or “the Mormon star from Akron.”

On August 17 1945, Colonel John Monroe Johnson, the Director of the Office of Defense Transportation lifted the wartime ban on automobile racing, just two days after Japan surrendered.  Harner obviously wasted little time in the resumption of his racing career, as in a nationwide Associated Press article dated September 6, 1945 from Buffalo New York, Bob Harner was described as “a member of a religious sect which does not believe in shaving.” 

Harner, who was in town for a race that evening revealed that he had removed his beard and he was quoted: "My beard interfered with driving. Trouble was the wind would roar through it and half the time I couldn't see where I was headed."

As we trace Bob Harner’s travels during the abbreviated 1945 and the 1946 racing schedule, consider that these were the days before the creation of the interstate highway system and race teams riding in a semi-tractor ‘toterhome’ towing an enclosed 40-foot long stacker trailer filled with spare race cars and parts.  In 1946, racers towed their midget race car loaded on a single-axle open trailer behind their passenger cars over unlit two-lane backroads, often speeding in order to reach their next racing destination in hopes of catching a few hours of sleep before they had to work on their car in the track parking lot.      

On October 21 1945 Harner raced the #97 Ford V8-60 powered midget at Fort Miami Speedway located on the grounds of the Lucas County Fairgrounds in Maumee Ohio, ten miles southwest of Toledo.  The former horse racing facility had hosted automobile racing as far back as 1905, as it did on July 30 of that year when hometown star Berna Eli “Barney” Oldfield and the Peerless Green Dragon met Dayton, Ohio’s Earl Kiser and the Winton Bullet for a series of match races held on the mile dirt track. The first 3-lap match race was called a draw, but unfortunately the “Bullet” suffered a cracked front axle during the race and had to retire for the afternoon.  

A ¼-mile infield dirt track located in the infield of the Lucas County Fairgrounds mile track had been built and hosted midget racing dating back to 1939, but on this day, the long race was held on the big one-mile track.  33 midget cars posted qualifying times for the 100-mile ‘National Championship’ midget race promoted by Gerald Good, and Perry Grim posted the day’s quick time at 41.87 seconds.  Fourteen of the cars entered were Offenhauser powered, and in a scenario familiar to modern midget racing fans, one engine was dominant, as seven of the top ten qualifiers drove Offenhauser-powered mounts.  

In addition to Harner and Grimm, the entry list included Bill Boyd, Gays Biro, Myron Fohr, Al Bonnell, Henry Banks, Tony Bettenhausen and one-armed driver Wes Saegesser. The feature was won by Bettenhausen, followed by Boyd and Grimm with the first eight finishers all in Offenhauser-powered machines. Bob Harner’s results are unknown as he was not among the top ten finishers. 

The first reported race of Bob Harnar’s busy 1946 racing season came at the Rubber Bowl in Akron on May 7 against a field that included Hawaii’s Wally Stokes, Michigan’s Johnny Wohlfeil, and Ralph Pratt from Nebraska.

We next found Harner racing in the northwestern New York city of Lockport, home of the Niagara County Fairgrounds.  This facility had hosted big car racing on the half mile dirt oval since 1927, but the midgets raced on June 6 1946 on the ¼ mile track built inside the ½-mile track.  In his book Sunday Driver, writer and broadcaster Brock Yates recalls his grandfather taking him to his first race at this, his hometown track, at age 12 in 1946- could Yates have attended the June 6th race?

Midget, big car and stock car races at the ‘Lockport Fairgrounds’ were later promoted by veteran racing promoter Walter C. Stebbins’ ‘Stebbins Speedways’ organization Allan Brown’s excellent reference book The History of America's Speedways: Past and Present states that racing ended at Lockport on the ½ -mile track in 1949 and on the ¼-mile oval in 1950, but not before Lockport became the site of the first URC (United Racing Club) sanctioned sprint car race in 1948. The race track at Lockport is long gone, with only the line of trees that once lined the outside of the east end of the ½-mile track to bear testament to its existence.

 

 

Three days later, on Sunday June 9 1946,  Harner was near his home in northeastern Ohio racing in another Don Zeiter promotion at the “new” Bainbridge Speedway, a one-mile dirt track about 30 miles southeast of Cleveland.  13,161 fans watched as the midget of Carl “Bud” Hamilton from Columbus Ohio hooked the second turn inner guardrail on the second lap of the 100-lap feature. Hamilton’s car hooked a guardrail post, then flipped and “Bud” was ejected onto the track surface, and two following midget cars ran over him.

Hamilton survived the accident, but suffered a fractured skull, two broken legs, and a punctured lung. During the crash, a wheel off Hamilton’s car broke off and hit Harner’s passing car which caused Harner to hit the outer guardrail and spin to a stop. Bob was able to restart but his car later retired with unspecified mechanical failure.  Duane Carter won the 100 lapper in one hour eighteen minutes in a race marred by high attrition as only four cars finished.

 

The Bainbridge Fairgrounds, near the Geauga Lake Amusement Park, hosted automobile racing from 1946 to 1951 on the one-mile dirt track originally built in 1927 for horse racing. The Bainbridge track hosted a July 13 1947 15-car AAA (American Automobile Association) championship race, won by Ted Horn by a lap over Bill Holland when the race was flagged at 90 laps due to rain.  In 1951, Bainbridge Speedway hosted a NASCAR 100-lap stock car race won by Truman “Fonty” Flock and open-wheel veteran Dick Rathmann finished in second place.  During the 1950's, a smaller 1000-meter track, known as the Grandview Race Track, was built in the infield for harness horse racing. The Bainbridge Fairgrounds closed in 1969 and the site was developed for commercial use, and is now the site of a Home Depot store.

Two weeks later, on Sunday June 23 1946, Harner was entered to race at the New Kensington Fairgrounds in western Pennsylvania. Promoted by racer Don Meyer, the nine race program, topped by a 25 lap feature race on the ¼-mile dirt oval, also featured entries from Howard Ripple of Pittsburgh, local driver Art Holbrook, Earl Hopkins, and Jimmy Florian.

‘Big Car’ racing began on the original New Kensington half-mile track located on Tarentum Bridge Road, not far from the south bank of the Allegheny River, as early as 1927 and continued until 1931, according to the late historian Don Radbruch. In September 1938, a semi-banked ¼-mile track opened in the infield and midgets ran there until Memorial Day 1941. After the war, the ¼-mile track reopened and midget racing resumed until 1949, and then the track was closed until 1952 when it reopened for two seasons of jalopy racing. The Fairgrounds property later became the site of a drive-in movie theatre but now is the site of several fast food restaurants and commercial buildings.

Bob Harner spent the 1946 Fourth of July holiday racing close to home, first in the “gala preholiday program and midseason championship” held at the Rubber Bowl in Akron on July 3 1946.  In addition to the nine-race program that included a maiden race, a 50-lap ‘Class A’ feature and 40-lap ‘Class B’ feature, radio and movie stars George Burns and Gracie Allen appeared live.

Harner raced at the Fort Miami Speedway on July 5 1946 and finished in 10th place in a controversial program. Twenty-two cars started the 100-lap feature but the dust on the track was so bad that racing was immediately halted and the track was wet down, which resulted in a two-hour delay. When racing resumed, the field was short five drivers who elected not to race due the track conditions.

Roy Duby dominated the race but was forced to pit for a new rear tire on lap 96, but Duby believed he had a comfortable three-lap lead over Tony Bettenhausen in second place. However when the checkered flag dropped moments later, the race win went to Bettenhausen who had apparently unlapped himself during Duby’s stop and crossed the line 35 seconds ahead of Duby. Duby and his crew vehemently protested, but after a scoring check, officials confirmed that Duby’s lead was only two laps when he pitted, and Bettenhausen’s win was upheld.

 

Midget racer Roy Duby

Roy Duby from Fenton Michigan was an Upper Midwest post-war midget racing star, but Duby’s greatest fame came later in hydroplane boat racing. Around 1950, Duby gave up on midget racing and began working as a crew chief (and occasionally driver) for a succession of hydroplane boat racing teams based out of the Detroit Yacht Club, including teams owned by Detroit bakery magnate Jack Schafer, the Schoenith family of electrical contractors, machinery re-seller George Simon, and big band leader Guy Lombardo.

Roy Duby’s career with the unlimited inboard boats spanned the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. In a Detroit River test run in 1952, Schafer’s giant twin-engine Allison-powered hydroplane ‘Such Crust III’ flipped and Duby suffered a broken back. Three years later, as the crew chief for Lombardo’s blue and gold ‘Tempo VII’ the boat won five races over the latter half of the season and was crowned the National High Point Champion. 

On April 17, 1962, Duby became the fastest man in a piston-engine propeller-driven hydroplane as he averaged 200.419 MPH in a pair of straight-line runs in the ‘US 1’ hydroplane on Guntersville Lake in Alabama. Duby retired from competitive boat racing in 1968, but later served as a coach for rookie hydroplane (and future Indianapolis 500) driver David ‘Salt’ Walther in 1970.  Duby's record still stands today.

The Fort Miami Speedway facility later hosted two NASCAR hardtop races in 1951 and 1952 both of which were won by Julius “Tim” Flock. Auto racing ceased when the track facility was remodeled in 1958 and known as “Maumee Downs,” featured horse racing until 1961. The grandstand and track were torn down in 1965 to make way for Lucas County Stadium, which served as the home of the Toledo Mud Hens minor league baseball club until 2002.

With the departure of the Mud Hens, the stadium is part of the Lucas County Recreation Center Complex and is used for amateur games. There still is automobile racing held on the 128-acre grounds as the Northwestern Ohio Quarter Midget Racing Association (NWOQMA) has hosted races on 1/20th mile track since 1962. Current United States Auto Club (USAC) Silver Crown and midget racer Austin Nemire started his racing career at the Lucas County track.  

Steubenville Speedway, a ¼ mile dirt track located in an area known as Butte’s Field in the eastern Ohio town that borders the Ohio River hosted Bob Harner’s next recorded race. Originally an air field built in 1922 on property owned by Frank Butte, “the Field” also hosted circuses and horse shows. An illegal dog racing track was built on the grounds during the early 1930’s and operated for a couple of years before it was shut down by the authorities.

Proponents tried to reopen the Butte's Field dog racing track in 1939, but a bill to legalize pari-mutuel betting on greyhound racing failed to pass the Ohio House. The unused dog track hosted the occasional traveling auto thrill show, such as the ‘Jimmy Lynch Death Dodgers’ before promoter Don Zeitler brought weekly midget car racing in 1941.

The initial date for the first post-war midget race at the Butte’s Field track, promoted by Zeiter Speedways, Thursday night July 11 1946, was rained out during time trials and was rescheduled for a week later.  Besides Harner, other drivers entered for the eight-race program included Roy Sherman from Los Angeles, Jack Kabat from Cleveland, 1940 Ohio Midget champion Wild Bill Boyd, and Bill Spears. The little track, later called Butte Speedway, hosted weekly motorcycle races in 1948 then stock cars in 1951.

The Butte’s Field area north of the corner Sunset and Hollywood Boulevards, was re-developed in the late 1950’s and is now the Hollywood housing subdivision and shopping center. Steubenville’s St. John’s Community Arena hosted indoor three-quarter midget and motorcycle racing on a 1/8-mile track laid out on the concrete floor during the mid-nineteen sixties.   

Unfortunately the author was not able to find any other records for Bob Harner during the 1946 season. In later racing promotions, Bob was billed as the 1946 Virginia Circuit champion but the author cannot verify that claim, or even find the existence of such a circuit. Can any of our readers help solve the mystery? 

A note to our readers:

This article does not purport to be a complete record of Bob Harner’s (or Harnar) midget racing career during 1946, as the author used newspaper articles to trace Harner’s travels, which obviously left the picture of Harner's career incomplete. 

Unfortunately, Harner's results in many of the races we know about are lost to time.  Stories in the local newspaper a few days in advance of a local race were used as an inexpensive way for the promoter to increase fan interest and attendance.

The results of races are often lacking, unless something extraordinary occurred, as local small town sportswriters seldom covered races. Promoters frequently did not issue post-race results, as their thinking was that publicity after the fact did nothing to improve the paid attendance. 

 

 

 

 

Midget racer Bob Harner before World War 2.

Photograph of Bob Harner provided by JD Cormack

JD Cormack recently shared two vintage photographs with the author of nineteen forties and fifties midget racer Bob Harner .  While Harner (his actual family surname was spelled Harnar)  did not have a Hall of Fame midget racing career, research into his racing career demonstrated how popular midget racing was during the post-World War 2 period, as Harner raced at a number of long-lost and little-known tracks all across our country. In a series of short articles, we will trace Harner’s travels to these various tracks and trace the history of the individual tracks.

Bob Harner was born in Akron Ohio in 1916, raced locally in the Northeastern Ohio area during 1942 and newspaper articles credited Harner with winning the 1941 West Virginia 'Class B' midget championship.

Harner appeared on the half-mile dirt at the Mansfield Fairgrounds located on Springmill Street in a pair of shows promoted by famed thrill show promoter B. Ward Beam. Beam had originally run a flight school near his hometown of Celina Ohio in 1917 but later went bust with a failed airplane manufacturing company.

By 1923, Beam had formed ‘Ward Beam's International Congress of Daredevils,’ a barnstorming thrill show that featured the ‘T-Bone crash’ and the lengthwise transcontinental bus jump. In addition to his thrill show bookings, at various times Beam also promoted races at Roby Speedway in Hammond Indiana near Chicago and the deadly half-mile board track at Bridgeville Pennsylvania.

On Sunday afternoon May 3rd 1942,  26-year old Bob Harner’s name was among those on the entry list for an open competition midget racing program which was paired with “Lucky” Lee Lott’s Hell Drivers thrill show at Mansfield. 

While we have no results for Harner in the May 3^rd race, the day’s 15-lap feature race was captured by Toledo’s Al Menominee on what was described as a “dust-bound” track, despite a week’s worth of track preparation and the sprinkling of the track surface the night before the race. The racing program was interrupted several times during the afternoon as young boys swarmed the track, but the reported crowd of 10,000 went home awestruck after they witnessed Lucky Lott’s transcontinental bus jump with a stock automobile.

Fortunately, we found more information about Harner’s next reported race a month later at Akron’s Rubber Bowl stadium, a venue which had hosted midget car racing since in June 1941. Built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) crews during 1939, the 30,000 seat horseshoe-shaped stadium’s primary tenant was the University of Akron ‘Zips’ football team.

Veteran Cleveland racing promoter Don Zeiter leased the Rubber Bowl Stadium, located adjacent to the Akron Fulton Airport, Goodyear Airdock, and Derby Downs (the home of the All-American Soap Box Derby) from the City of Akron fore weekly midget races in exchange for a minimum rental fee or a percentage of the nightly profits, whichever was greater.  Zeiter’s crews built and maintained a one-fifth-mile cinder oval track with elevated turns with an inside wooden rail to keep the racers off the football field.

On Thursday night June 4, 1942, with 3,500 paying fans in the stands, Bob Harner who lived on the south side of Akron with his wife and two daughters, finished third in the 25-lap preliminary “Class B” feature before Dennis ‘Duke’ Nalon outdueled local Steubenville driver ‘Wild’ Bill Boyd and Duane Carter for the victory in 25-lap “Class A” feature.

After going silent for World War 2, midget car racing resumed at the Rubber Bowl on April 26 1946.  The number generated during the 1946 racing season at the Rubber Bowl demonstrates how popular midget racing was immediately following the War. The 1946 Rubber Bowl season featured 24 races and paid attendance totaled 260,607. The City of Akron received $31,409.00 as the city's portion of the profits per the agreement with promoter Zeiter, which is equivalent to over $370,000 in 2015.    

Midget racing at the Rubber Bowl continued through 1959 despite two tragedies. On the night of May 24 1947 during the fourth race of the evening, the midget racer of Jack Walkup of nearby Stow, Ohio brushed the outer wooden wall.  The right rear wheel of Walkup’s machine broke off, and as 10,000 horrified fans watched, the wheel bounced into the stands and struck 26-year old George V. Chupek on the left side of the head.

Chupek an unmarried tire factory employee and former paratrooper who had survived five campaigns in the European theater during World War II was killed instantly, but miraculously his date for the evening, Mary Ellison, seated in the box seat next to Chupek escaped miraculously unharmed.  

Chupek’s surviving family members later filed suit against the City of Akron, but the suit was eventually dismissed by the Summit County Court of Appeals in February 1951, which stated in part that the city, acting as a landlord was not liable for failure to make the premises safe.

Just over a year after the Chupek tragedy, on Thursday night May 27 1948, veteran Detroit driver George Witzman was warming up Jim White’s Offenhauser powered midget before the evening’s racing program when the car’s steering assembly apparently froze. The car crashed through the wooden outer fence and overturned with the worst result, as Witzman was transported to the Akron City Hospital where he died six hours later. His car owner who ran the Fort Miami Speedway and Witzman’s fellow competitors staged a memorial race at the Fort Miami Speedway on June 4 to benefit Witzman’s widow and five children.

In early 1949, promoter Don Zeiter sold his 'Zeiter Midget Speedways' operation to Earl Clay and retired to his farm in Northern Michigan.  Harold Zeiter bid on the operation of the Rubber Bowl midget races in 1949, but lost out to a syndicate led by Rubber Bowl manager Charles Burns. Burns' team which included Ed Palmer and sports promoter Bill Griffith bid promised the City a minimum of $450 per event or 15% of the gross profits after taxes whichever was greater. 

Harold Zeiter's bid promised 18 1/2% of the gross profits after taxes but a lower minimum, which the City shied away from, as attendance at the Rubber Bowl midget races was dropping due to the general decline in the popularity of midget racing and the opening of new larger local tracks built exclusively for racing; both took a heavy toll on spectator turn-out for races held at the Rubber Bowl. From a high in 1946  of 260,607, in 1947 paid attendance for the season dropped to 202,753, and in 1948 season attendance fell further to 112,155.  

Rubber Bowl racing promoters later added hot rod roadsters and stock cars to the ARDC (American Racing Drivers Club) midget racing programs with little success before racing at the Rubber Bowl ceased at the end of the 1959 season.

The Rubber Bowl remained the home to football and the occasional concert (including the Rolling Stones and Jefferson Airplane in 1972) until the final Akron Zips football game at the Rubber Bowl was held on November 13, 2008. After the Zips moved their home games to a new on-campus stadium, the Rubber Bowl has fallen into disrepair as it passed through the hands of various owners, each with plans to renovate the stadium, none of which ever came to fruition. The latest scheduled event at the Rubber Bowl, a hip-hop concert in May 2015, was relocated due to the dilapidated condition of the Rubber Bowl.  

On the afternoon of June 7, 1942, Bob Harnar, billed as the "Flying Amishman from Akron," raced on the Ashland Fairgrounds 3/8-mile dirt track which was located inside the harness racing track in Ashland, Ohio. This special program was rescheduled after a rain out on Memorial Day. Harnar, advertised as the "1941 West Virginia Class B dirt track champion," signed up during the extra week to race against  drivers nicknamed the "Indianapolis Big Three" - Dennis 'Duke' Nalon, Paul Russo, and Mel Hanson, who was billed as the "Firecracker Kid from Los Angeles."   Since the Indianapolis Motor Speedway had suspended racing for the duration on December 29 1941, these three drivers were not busy at their typical venue on Memorial Day 1942.  The seven-race program was scheduled to be topped by a 15-lap feature, but the results from that day are lost to history.
    

Bob Harner’s next race, and his last race until after World War 2, was on Sunday July 26 1942 again at the Mansfield Fairgrounds half-mile track, in a race that Ward Beam billed as “Positively your Last Chance to see races until after the War.” Although the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7 1941 and the United States Congress declared war on Japan the following day, life on the domestic front did not change overnight. For example, gasoline rationing did not go into effect in 17 Eastern states until May 15 1942, and rationing only went nationwide on December 1 1942.    

In order to conserve rubber, the Office of Defense Transportation General Order 14 part 501 had initially commanded that all auto racing must cease at midnight on July 10, 1942, but the date was later moved to midnight on July 31, 1942.  Harner and the Central States Racing Association drivers participated in the “One Half Mile Midget Championship” show with 22 cars entered for eight races in a program supplemented by the ‘International Congress of Daredevils’ thrill show which climaxed with a rocket car bus jump by Captain Dick Rogers.

In addition to being the last local race until after the war, this also marked the final auto race held at the Mansfield Fairgrounds on Springmill Street. The Richland County Fair was relocated to its present site, 3-1/2 miles northwest in 1956, and the Fair Board sold the site to its current occupant, Taylor Metal Products Company.  

In future chapters, we will follow intrepid midget racer Bob Harner as he resumed touring and racing across the country after World War Two.