The rise and fall of the Pacific Coast Speedways Association

The rise and fall 

of the 

Pacific Coast Speedways Association

In the glory days of midget auto racing in the Los Angeles basin in the late nineteen forties, there were two major sanctioning bodies that battled  - the United Racing Association, a regional midget-only group, and the American Automobile Association the powerful national organization that sanctioned all types of auto racing. The two organizations' battle sometimes put race track promoters in the middle, so they took action. 

In a meeting held at the posh Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel on Saturday January 19 1946, a group of nine men met and formed the Pacific Coast Speedways Association (PCSA), a nonprofit group of managers and owners of auto racing tracks to “help coordinate the sport on the Coast” according to the Los Angeles Times article.

The PCSA had three stated goals – coordinate racing dates, publicize the sport, and act as a liaison between the promoters and the midget driver association.  To fund group operations, each track pledged to contribute 1% of their gross receipts to the Association.    

The members unanimously elected Tom Haynes of San Diego as president, Bob Ware of Long Beach as vice-president and Dave Crosley and Long Beach as the group’s treasurer. The group named Bob Moore as their business manager.

In addition to those three promoters, attendees included Ross Page, promoter of races at Santa Maria and San Jose, Bill Loadvine from Culver City,  Harold Mathewson of Fresno, James LaFave and Frank Guthrie from San Diego. Promoters from tracks in Fresno, Stockton, Sacramento and Oakland did not attend the January 19^th meeting but instead provided proxies.      

The founding members

William E “Bill” Loadvine born in 1913 the son of oil wildcatter and real estate investor E W Loadvine, worked as a child actor at the Mack Sennett Studios in the silent movie era. Loadvine recalled that his meeting 1922 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Jimmy Murphy as a young man ignited his life-long interest in automobile racing.

Loadvine related that he raced on the Muroc Dry Lake in the early 1930’s and worked as a mechanic for “big car” drivers Ernie Triplett and Al Gordon.  According to Bill, injuries that he sustained in a crash in 1934 ended both his planned entry in the 1934 Indianapolis ‘500’ and his driving career. Bill began to work in racing promotion at various tracks, which he said included the Legion Ascot Speedway. 

After the end of World War Two, Loadvine purchased the former Culver City Legion race track, located at the western edge of Culver City near the northeast corner of the intersection of Lincoln and Washington Boulevards. The 1/4-mile dirt track was originally built in 1932 for the Culver City Kennel Club for greyhound racing.  The track operators surreptitiously allowed wagering which led to occasional police raids, but the track closed for good during 1939 after the new California Attorney General Earl Warren promised increased state enforcement.

The flat quarter-mile track briefly operated as a motorcycle and midget auto racing venue during 1941 known as the Culver City Legion Stadium co-managed by WH “Reg” Regelin and financier RC Wade with sponsorship from the local American Legion Post #46 and sanctioned by the United Midget Car Association.  

Robert K “Bob” Ware, a native of Arkansas had an impressive history in auto racing. He drove his first race car at the age of 16, and became one of the pioneers in midget auto racing with the United Midget Association (UMA). He finished fifth in the 1935 Turkey Night Grand Prix and was one of a group of thirteen drivers arrested at the infamous Victor McLaglen Stadium raid on July 30 1936 for violations of the Los Angeles city fire code.  Ware retired from driving after a serious crash at the Orange Empire Speedway in Colton California on July 4 1940.

In addition to his co-management of the Bonelli Stadium in Saugus Ware partnered in a Long Beach insurance agency with David “Dave” Crosley who co-managed the Bonelli Stadium race track owned by William Bonelli. Crosley, midget racing fan moved into race management in 1945.

Ware and Crosley proposed construction of a $125,000 stadium with parking for 7000 cars and a 16,000 seat concrete and steel grandstand for football, rodeos, and midget auto racing in Harbor City. When that plan fell through, the pair promoted a Labor Day 1946 midget and big car race, the first post-war race at the nearby “new” Gardena Bowl at 182^nd and Vermont Avenue built on land owned by Judge Frank Carrell. A crowd of 12,000 fans watched as Johnny McDowell won the midget feature ahead of Danny “Poison” Oakes after the early leader “Bullet” Joe Garson blew a tire.   

Ross Page lived in Santa Maria and had a colorful legal history. In 1940 and 1941, as the operator of the Melody Club, Page had several scrapes with local law enforcement regarding gambling and operating a lottery on the night club premises. In 1943 Page bought a supercharged 183-cubic inch Miller powered Indianapolis car from Leon Duray.

The February 5 1943 article in the Santa Maria Times demonstrates the inability of writers in that era to check and substantiate claims by their subjects. The article stated that the race car that Page purchased from Leon Duray is “the holder of the current Indianapolis Motor Speedway record of 130 2/5 miles per hour.” That statement blended several components of truth to craft a falsehood.

At the time, the standing lap record at the Speedway of 130.757 MPH set by Jimmy Snyder in the Joel Thorne owned 180-cubic inch Sparks “Little Six” powered car. The car Page bought built by Duray in 1938 never set on the pole position or set track records. As an owner/driver, Leon Duray, whose real name was George Stewart, set the track record in Indianapolis in 1928 of 122.39 MPH in his Miller front-drive car that stood for 11 years.

The Santa Maria Times article went on to indicate that Page himself would drive the car at Indianapolis when racing resumed, and noted that Page last drove at Indianapolis in 1936 in the Martz Special. The author has been unable to uncover any record to support the claim that Ross Page ever drove or was a riding mechanic at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  The Larry Martz owned Hudson-powered car driven by George Bailey did not qualify in 1936, and in previous appearances in 1933 and 1934 was driven by Gene Haustein with Ed Beaudine as the riding mechanic. 

In September 1945, Page promoted a midget auto race on the ½-mile dirt track at the Santa Maria Fairgrounds in partnership with Dr. Lloyd Clemons won by Gordon Cleveland after favorite Johnnie Parsons crashed in time trials. 

For 1946, Page became the promoter of the San Jose Speedway on Tully Road, and that same year the “Ross Page Special” the proto-roadster built by Frank Kurtis and powered by the Duray supercharged 183-cubic inch Miller engine, first appeared in the Indianapolis ‘500.’

Tom Haynes and his partner, Frank Guthrie began promoting races at the San Diego City Stadium, later known as Balboa Stadium, in 1939 with the United Midget Association. In 1940 the pair took over the management of the Orange Empire Speedway in Colton and the Atlantic Speedway in East Los Angeles. In 1946, they refocused their efforts on San Diego. 

     

Harold “Hal” Mathewson from Fresno was a motorcycle hill climber an amateur member of the Indian motorcycle factory team and in 1938 was crowned the class B Pacific Coast champion. In 1937 as the president of the Fresno motorcycle club, Harold got his first taste of promotion while as he continued to compete. Hal’s events continued through 1942, as like auto racing, motorcycle racing events continued up until midnight on July 31 1942.   

Months after the Second World War ended, Hal and a partner Frank Ennis promoted a combined motorcycle and midget auto racing program on September 29 1945 at the Tulare-Kings County Fairgrounds. At the time of the Pacific Coast Speedways Association meeting in January 1946, Mathewson planned to build a new midget auto racing facility in Bassett, east of El Monte California. When that fell through he promoted midget races at the Huntington Beach Speedway.

The PCSA in 1946

In a meeting in Los Angeles on February 19 1946, the PCSA announced the sanctioning of four midget racing meetings - Stockton Fairgrounds promoted by Frank Crowley would open on April 7, the same date that Ware and Crosley were set to open Bonelli Stadium.

Ross Page would open the racing season at San Jose on May 5^th and Haynes and Guthrie were set to open Balboa Stadium in San Diego on May 30. The Association received applications from track in Alhambra, Bassett, Bakersfield, Long Beach and Santa Fe Springs, but indicated it would not issue sanctions to those planned tracks until permits were issued for construction.

On March 15, 1946, the PCSA issued a sanction to the new track under construction in Oildale near Bakersfield by James Banducci and Carl Lindsay. Originally known as the ”B and L Speedbowl” it featured eight-foot high banked turns and grandstands seating for 6500 fans built on the west side of the track.  With the approval from the PCSA to open on May 4 1946, Roy Morrison, President of the United Racing Association, then issued his group’s sanction for Saturday night racing at Oildale in the 1946 season.  

In late April 1946 the Fresno Airport Speedway, rebuilt after the war with 3000 additional seats to allow for a total of 9500 fans, announced its affiliation with the PCSA. With Fresno’s scheduled opening on Sunday night May 5, the PCSA now had tracks in Sacramento, San Jose, Bakersfield, Fresno, Saugus and San Diego.

The 1948 Crisis

By 1948, the URA and the American Automobile Association (AAA) were in fierce competition for tracks and cars, and the Pacific Coast Speedways Association put themselves in the middle of the dispute. In the second week of January, the PCSA convened a three-day conference for the managers and operators of their 13 affiliated tracks at the storied Hollywood Roosevelt hotel to plan a unified racing schedule for the upcoming season. 

Attendees included charter PCSA members Haynes and Guthrie, and Mathewson with his new partner at Fresno, Huntington Beach and San Bernardino, Ernie Lauck. New PCSA members included Dick Russell, promoter of the Last Frontier Sportsdrome in Las Vegas (which had opened in late 1947), Stewart Metz, promoter at Orange Show Speedway, Bob Murphy, who ran the Tulare, Bakersfield (Oildale track) and Carpinteria “Thunderbowls,” Stan Moore and Billy Hunnefield, operators of Hughes Stadium in Sacramento, the Stockton 99 Speedway and Modesto 99 Stadium and Burt Chalmers the Culver City Stadium publicity director.

Also attending the January meetings were representatives from Carrell Speedway and Gene Doyle from Gilmore Stadium but those two tracks were not yet members of the association. The promoters listened to a presentation from representatives of the URA and when the meeting concluded on Wednesday January 7 the group agreed to continue to operate under a URA blanket sanction.  

Between four and six of the tracks would operate as “open tracks” which would allow Offenhauser and non-Offenhauser engines to compete, while the balance of the PCSA tracks would be part of the “Red” or non-Offenhauser circuit.  Haynes was re-elected PCSA president, Lauck, the vice-president, with Guthrie as the secretary and Metz as the group’s treasurer.      

Two days later, “Hollywood” Bill White, the promoter of midget auto races at the Los Angeles Coliseum announced that his events would be held under AAA sanction. At the announcement, AAA Western Region supervisor Gordon Betz took the opportunity to criticize the PCSA group and told Jack Curnow of the Los Angeles Times that the AAA was first invited to speak to the promoter’s group during the conference, then the invitation had been withdrawn. According to Betz, “the deal was cut and dried before the meeting opened.”    

Despite the blanket sanction agreement, there were still machinations behind the scenes, as the URA board balked at the concept of “open competition,” the board said that tracks were to be designated as either “Red” or “Blue” circuit tracks which did not align with the PCSA-URA agreement. 

On January 28^th Burt Chalmers, the PCSA spokesman, announced that Gilmore Stadium had joined the Association and thus would be a URA track in 1947.  Haynes detailed that five PCSA tracks - Gilmore, Culver City, San Bernardino, Fresno and San Diego - would be “open” to cars with either Offenhauser or pushrod engines. The remaining PCSA tracks - Tulare, Carpinteria, San Jose, Stockton, Las Vegas, Sacramento, Bonelli Stadium, Modesto and Huntington Beach – would ban Offenhauser powered midgets. 

Haynes the PCSA President than gave the URA board an ultimatum – they had seven days to either accept or reject the PCSA proposal. The PCSA’s inclusion of San Diego as an “open” track triggered an immediate outcry from URA ‘Red” circuit car owners and drivers, because Balboa Stadium in San Diego had traditionally been a stronghold for the non-Offenhauser URA circuit, and the change “would put them out of business.”  The URA board agreed with the non-Offenhauser car owners and drivers and refused to accept the PCSA proposal.  

With a race scheduled at Las Vegas on Sunday February 29, on Monday February 9 1948 Haynes and the PCSA began to sign up car owners and drivers in preparation for sanctioning their own races. The Los Angeles Times auto racing writer, Jack Curnow, reported that 36 car owners and 35 drivers signed up that first day. The list of car owners included AJ Walker, the 1947 URA “Blue Circuit” car owner champion, Ray Gardner, the Krause brothers and the Famaghetti brothers. Curnow reported that drivers that signed with the PCSA included the rising star Troy Ruttman and veterans Lyle Dickey and Johnny Garrett. 

Former racer Roscoe Turner the new URA President, called for an emergency board meeting on February 11 to reconsider the PCSA proposal specifically regarding Balboa Stadium. The URA Board still refused to consider San Diego as an “open” track and in response the PCSA group broke off negotiations.

On Valentine’s Day 1948 the PCSA announced that Gilmore, Culver City, San Diego, and San Bernardino would operate under AAA sanction in 1948.  Betz could barely contain his glee as many former URA drivers and cars that included Lyle Dickey, Gordon Reid and Peewee Distarce, signed in at the pit gate at the Los Angeles Coliseum for the season-opener the following night.  

Alas, the AAA alliance did not hold, as Betz could not guarantee 24 cars for every program, and after low car counts at Culver City in early April, just before the 1948 season opened in earnest, the PCSA announced that all 14 PCSA tracks would be “open” to Offenhauser and non-Offenhauser cars under URA sanction.

With all the races classified as “open,” Roscoe Turner and the URA had no problem meeting the 24-car minimum, particularly at the “Big Four” LA-area tracks - Culver City (Tuesday nights), Balboa (Wednesday nights), Gilmore (Thursday nights) and San Bernardino which ran a Friday night schedule.

This crisis was the last action by the Pacific Coast Speedways Association – in 1949, midget racing began to decline, the American Auto Association pulled out of the Southern California midget racing picture and the United Racing Association controlled its own destiny as far as schedule and the PCSA promoters’ group faded into obscurity.

For the 1949 season, the regular scheduled URA “Blue” circuit stops were Gilmore on Thursday nights, followed by San Bernardino on Friday nights and Culver City on Saturday nights. Huntington Beach on Tuesday nights, Balboa in San Diego on Wednesday nights and Fresno on Sunday nights became the regular stops on the 1949 URA “Red” circuit which banned Offenhauser engines.  

As the decade of the nineteen fifties continued midget car counts dropped so much that the URA ceased to count separate “Red circuit” or “Blue circuit” points and crowned a combined champion.      

Tommy Alden Wise – racer

Tommy Alden Wise – racer

Today we review the life and career of Tommy Alden Wise a California competitor in the dangerous pre-and post-World War Two period of automobile racing. Tommy never won a championship or the Indianapolis 500, but his life serves as a strak reminder how far safety has come in our sport.  

Born in the southern Arizona mining town of Lowell Arizona on September 5 1908, Tommy and his family, that included two younger sisters Frances and Murial, relocated to Los Angeles after the death of his father in 1929.

It is unclear when Tommy started his racing career but an October 1932 Los Angeles Times newspaper article described 24-year old Tommy as one of the “well-known drivers” scheduled to appear at the “new” Culver City Speedway, located one block south of the intersection of Washington and West Adams Boulevards northeast of downtown Culver City. Other drivers scheduled to appear included Herb Kelly, Jack Gardner, Ted Harvey and Howard Gunn. 

  

This 5/8-mile dirt track shared its name with another track, used primarily for motorcycle racing, adjacent to the Culver City Kennel Club dog track, located at the west end of Washington Boulevard at Lincoln Boulevard near Venice.

The oiled-dirt Culver City track, owned by R E “Dick” Weatherly Sr. and managed by his son, opened on Sunday August 21 1932 as an outlaw (not an AAA - American Automobile Association sanctioned) track that operated under the auspices of the California Auto Racing Association (CARA).  

The crowd was still filing in when tragedy struck during time trials and young Oliver Burton lost his life. As Burton entered a turn, a pin apparently fell out of the steering linkage of the “Hoover Special” and it veered out of control.

Burton’s car smashed through the wooden fence, rolled over three times and came to rest with Oliver pinned under the wreckage. Once extricated, the mortally wounded 20-year old driver died as the ambulance sped towards the Culver City Community Hospital. The crowd of 2500 fans watched as Clarence “Tex” Peterson won his heat race and the 20-lap main event, chased to the finish line by Herb Balmer in the “Covina Special.”

Two weeks later, on September 4, Peterson himself was critically injured in a crash at Culver City Speedway that provided a stark reminder of the dangers of auto racing.  On the 15^th lap of the day’s feature event, “Tex” came upon a slower car as the pair entered turn one.  As “Tex” moved to lap the slower car, the steering on his car failed and crashed through the fence.

According to the next day’s article in the Los Angeles Times, the ambulance first took Peterson to an unnamed hospital where he was treated and released. “Tex” returned to the speedway grounds but a short time later he collapsed and he was taken to the Queen of Angels hospital and admitted with a fractured skull. Loren “Red” Clark won the feature race completed after Peterson’s accident.    

Newspaper advertisements called the October 23 1932 Culver City event “one of the greatest gatherings of racing drivers ever assembled in the West,” with an entry list, that in addition to Tommy Wise, included Balmer, Peterson, Earl Mansell, Chris Vest, Al Reinke, and L M “Red” Clark in a  scheduled 40-lap main event.  

Tommy Newton won the two-lap dash, ten-lap dash, and the 25-lap main event (reduced from 40 laps) over Clark and Jack Gardner. Art Hungerford and Bob Hahn each won a five-lap consolation race.

In late February 1933 Tommy appeared at the Tri-City Speedway (also known as San Bernardino Speedway) a half-mile dirt track located near the Tri-City airport east of Colton in San Bernardino County. Wise finished third in the 25-lap feature race behind Foster Hall and Floyd Douglas in a Sunday afternoon combined automobile and motorcycle racing show promoted by Sid Wood and sanctioned by the CARA.

On May 7 1933 during qualifying at Culver City Speedway, Tommy’s car overturned in the north turn and rolled over him. Wise suffered unspecified internal injuries “which are expected to prove fatal” according to The Pasadena Post, and the following day he was transferred from the Culver City Hospital to the Hollywood Hospital. Earl Mansell won the May 7^th 50-lap feature ahead of “Red” Clark after front-runners Frank Wearne and Floyd Roberts both retired with mechanical failures.

After his accident, there is no record of Tommy’s racing activities for several years, but Tommy married Clarice Haney in Los Angeles March 25 1935 and together they had a daughter Joanna born in 1937. Sadly, Clarice died in January 1939 and left Tommy a widower with his young daughter to raise.

Tommy took part in the rapidly growing sport of midget auto racing in an afternoon race at the grand opening of the “dustless” San Bernardino County Sports Stadium on Easter Sunday 1939. The ¼-mile track, located not far from the Tri-City Speedway and built at reported cost of $35,000, featured 10-foot high 43-degree banked corners. The track promoter hosted two free practice days before the event which gave the drivers a chance to familiarize themselves with the track and the free entry increased local fan interest.  

The seven–race program boasted entries from Gib Lilly, Bill Zaring and Clyde Goss as they raced cars powered by a variety of Continental outboard motors, Ford V8-60s, and George Wright’s “Cragar Junior” engine. Tommy Wise piloted the #18 midget but did not transfer to start the 40-lap feature which a crowd estimated to be between 3000 and 4000 fans watched and saw “Speed” Baker take the checkered flag just as his midget car burst in the flames.

Tommy and crew before a "big car" race at Southern Ascot Speedway 

Sunday May 21 1939 saw Tommy Wise in action at “Southern Ascot Speedway” in Southgate California for the 75-lap “Indianapolis Cup” “big car” race. This track located at the intersection of Atlantic and Tweedy Boulevards was the third of four Southern California race tracks to carry the “Ascot” name. The original, a one-mile former horse track on Slauson Avenue in Los Angeles ran from 1904 to 1919, was followed in 1924 by the notorious 5/8-mile high-banked oiled-dirt Legion Ascot Speedway near Alhambra that claimed 24 lives before it closed in 1936.

The half-mile dirt “Southern Ascot,” located in a gritty neighborhood, opened in 1937 as the “Southgate Speedway” an “outlaw” track primarily remembered for the long railroad trestle bridge over the Los Angeles River visible beyond the track’s backstretch. Historic racer Barney Oldfield acted as the referee for the May 21^st afternoon program that also featured a 25-lap “Grand National Sweepstakes” for cross-country motorcycles led by “Suicide” Dockstiler proclaimed the “King of the Midwestern tracks.” 

Tommy and his riding mechanic pose at Southern Ascot Speedway

Bud Rose, the “Pasadena Bad Boy,” whose birth name was Harry Eisele, won the 3-lap helmet dash and the five-lap dash and was pressured early in the feature by Southgate standout “Shorty” Ellyson until “Shorty’s” car suffered engine trouble on lap 26. From there Rose, who later doubled for Clark Gable in films, was in control and took the checkered flag in 35 minutes and 36 seconds ahead of Bed Sennett with Tommy Wise in third place.   

Tommy finished fifth in the “Eighth Annual Fast Car Race,” which was the final auto race held on the Coconino County Fairgrounds (Arizona) ½-mile dirt track on August 20 1939. Tommy finished behind winner Bud Rose, Wally Schock, Earl Mansell, and Ken Palmer in the 25-lap feature sponsored by the Mark A. Moore American Legion Post #3.  After the race was over, the teams made the perilous 450-mile tow home to Los Angeles to start the Southern Ascot night racing season on Wednesday August 30 1939, with the race won by Bud Rose.

For 1940, there were changes at Ascot Speedway as in February Charlie Curryer signed a one-year lease and took over promotion and sanction of the facility with his American Racing Association (ARA).  Bud Rose started the season behind the wheel of a new 255-cubic inch Miller powered “big car” and easily won the 40-lap season-opener at the renovated facility.

Tommy in action in the Southern Ascot "Irish Derby" race  March 17 1940

The next “big car” race at Ascot in 1940 was the 35-lap ‘Irish Derby’ held on St. Patrick’s Day Sunday March 17^th and featured some unusual twists. First was the inverted start for the feature so the fastest qualifiers started at the rear of starting field. The other unusual twist dealt with the cars themselves – instead of numbers, the cars carried names on their tail tanks. Tommy Wise’s car owner I.W. Holland, owner of the Holland Auto Parts, chose to name his car “Juliana” after the Dutch Princess.

 Sennett set fast time and a new track record at 27.50 seconds and Negro driver Rajo Jack (birth name Dewey Gatson), Bud Rose and Ray Bray each won their 5-lap heat races. Unlike the AAA, Curryer’s ARA allowed black drivers to compete.  Twelve starters took the green flag for the feature - Bud Rose quickly maneuvered his way forward and took the lead on the 11^th lap and from that point on was never challenged to the checkered flag.

On lap 20 of the feature, Negro driver Mel Leighton’s car blew a tire and the car flipped twice. Leighton was later reported “out of danger” at a Lakewood hospital.  Rose took the checkered flag ahead of Sennett, Rajo Jack and Van Edwards with Tommy Wise in fifth place.

The following week, on Easter Sunday March 24th the results seemed to be headed to be a repeat of the past Sunday. First Sennett lowered the track record to 26.8 seconds and later Bud Rose handily led the feature until disaster struck. The Miller engine in Rose’s car quit on lap 26 which handed the lead to Wally Schock.

Wally, the manager of the Santa Rosa Montgomery Ward store held on to win in his DO HAL “Riverside Tire Special” (the brand of tires sold at Montgomery Ward) with Sennett second and Rajo Jack third for the second straight week and Tommy Wise repeated his fifth place finish.  The DO (Double Overhead camshaft) HAL engine built by Howard Hosterman of Akron Ohio could be competitive with a top-line Miller engine at a far lower cost.  

After the race, Sennett was scored as the ARA point leader, ahead of Rose by two points, with Rajo Jack third and Tommy in fourth 28 points behind the leader. On May 12, the ARA racers visited Curryer’s primary racing facility, the one-mile dirt Oakland Speedway for a 100-lap feature.

6200 fans saw a thrilling feature won by Schock by two laps over Rajo Jack and Rose who drove a borrowed car. Mel Leighton, recovered from his Ascot spill on March 17 was not so lucky this time as his car left the track in the third turn, went through the fence then tumbled down the embankment and Mel suffered broken ribs and a broken right foot. Tommy Wise finished twelfth and last at Oakland on May 12^th after his car suffered an early mechanical failure.   

On June 2 1940 the ARA racers visited the “newly reconditioned” 5/8-mile Goshen Speedway in the San Joaquin Valley. Veteran Ed Barnett set quick time, then won the helmet dash won and the first heat race.  Tommy Wise won the second heat race as he passed Butch Devore in the last 500 feet before the finish line.

Early in the 25-lap feature, Tommy pressed Barnett for the lead before he retired with mechanical troubles. Barnett won easily over Van Edwards as Devore finished fourth.  Wise and the rest of the ARA drivers returned to Goshen on Sunday June 23 and Rajo Jack claimed the feature win over Barnett.      

In July Tommy returned to the midget race cars. On the 9^th he raced at the ¼ mile paved Atlantic Stadium near the intersection of Atlantic Boulevard and Olive Avenue in Lakewood and finished second in the 15-lap B main. On the 26^th he returned to San Bernardino’s Orange Show Speedway and finished third in his heat race. 

Tommy was entered as the driver of the #17 ‘Lehamann Special’ for the third annual Labor Day  500-mile “Little Indianapolis” ARA “big car” race held at Oakland Speedway but apparently was not fast enough to qualify for the 33-car starting field. Tommy wound up sixth in the 1940 American Racing Association points behind champion repeat champion Wally Schock, Slim Mathis, Rajo Jack, Van Edwards and Tex Peterson.  

The 1941 schedule at Southern Ascot Speedway in Southgate changed radically from previous years as the ARA “big cars” were not emphasized. In fact with a weekly slate of Sunday afternoon racing programs that started on January 5, the “big cars” did not race there until May 11. The ARA big cars opened their season at Oakland Speedway and Tommy scored a tenth place finish behind winner Hal Cole.

During the Winter and Spring, fans at the half-mile Ascot track saw a variety of stock car, jalopy, motorcycle, midget car and stock roadster races and “Captain Bob Ward’s Daredevil Aces Death Circus,” a motorcycle, automobile and airplane thrill show.

Tommy Wise qualified among the fastest eight cars at Ascot on May 11 and thus did not have to run the 10-lap race that advanced six non-qualifiers to the rear of the 14-car starting field for the 100-lap race.  “Tex” Petersen grabbed the lead on the first lap and remained out front until Kenny Palmer passed Tex for the lead on lap 85. A couple of laps later Palmer began to slow as the gasket on his car’s fuel pump began to leak and Petersen recaptured the lead.

Late in the race Buck Whitmer, a racer who had been declared dead after a crash the previous year in Hammond Indiana, passed the faltering Palmer machine on the last lap to claim second place, while Wise settled for a fifth place finish.   Tommy in tenth place in the ARA season points returned to Ascot on June 7^th and Petersen won his second straight “big car" 100-lap feature. 

Wise appeared in the #6 big car at Oakland for a 200-mile race on July 4^th that boasted a total purse of $5000 and then qualified the #53 car 29^th in a field of 30 starters for the 500-mile Labor Day race at Oakland, but we do not have Tommy’s results from either race. 

In August and again in October, Tommy and the ARA drivers christened the “new” ¼-mile dirt Santa Rosa Speedway sponsored by the VFW Post #1844. Previously known at the DiGrazia Motordrome when it opened in 1939, the track was now managed by Charles Curryer.  Hometown hero Wally Schock easily won both races at the facility.

Tommy took part in the “Western Association Championship”150-lap “big car” race on November 9 1941. Less than a month later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor which shelved the 1942 American Racing Association schedule.  Ascot Speedway closed forever after a final “jamboree” on Sunday July 26^th, 1942 that featured roadster and motorcycle racing and two thrills shows. The official Office of Defense Transportation ban on auto racing went into effect at midnight on July 31 1942. 

Tommy Wise lived in a one-bedroom apartment on Seventh Street in Boyle Heights when he had registered for the Selective Service on October 16 1940. Some sources indicate Tommy served in the United States Navy during World War Two, but his family is unaware of his wartime service. Tommy might have received deferment status given his age (32) and his status as a widower with a dependent child.

Tommy met and married Martha Akre, and they settled into a small apartment on Siskiyou Street in the Boyle Heights neighborhood. During the summer of 1947 at the age 39 Tommy returned to race a “big car” with the Western Racing Association (WRA) at Carrell Speedway in Gardena.  Joshua James “JC” Agajanian, the President of the WRA was heir to a San Pedro-based Armenian trash collection and hog farming business and yielded to family pressures as he chose to become a car owner and promoter instead of a race car driver.  

The WRA an “outlaw” (non-AAA) club, sanctioned and promoted races at Carrell, built by excavation contractor Emmett Malloy in 1946 as the “Gardena Bowl” on land owned by Inglewood Judge Frank R. Carrell at 182nd Street and South Vermont Avenue in Gardena. Advertised as “the world’s fastest ½-mile track” that featured 10-foot high banked turns it steadily hosted midget, hot rod roadster, stock car, big car, jalopy and motorcycle racing.

“Veteran driver” Tommy Wise entered the “big car” races held on Sunday afternoon August 10, along WRA point leader Bayless Levrett, “”Slim” Mathis, Fred Luce, Bud Rose, Buck Whitmer, Hal Cole, newcomers Roy Prosser, Andy Linden and Jack McGrath and negro racer Leroy Nooks.  

Art George, Lenny Lowe, Joe Gemsa and 17 year old Troy Ruttman each won the 6-lap heat races, as Legion Ascot veteran Arvol Brunmeier crashed in his heat race but escaped with cuts and bruises.  Marine veteran Andy Linden led the majority of the 30-lap feature but was passed on the 27th lap by Jack McGrath who sped away to victory.

Ed Korgan won the August 16th 300-lap “National Championship Gold Cup” stock car races for 1946 and 1947 model cars complete with fenders, bumpers, starters and other factory parts, less mufflers under the track’s new lighting system. Korgan turned the tables on his competitors as he drove a Willys Jeep to victory ahead of Johnny Mantz in a full-size Mercury at an average speed of 54 miles per hour for the 150 miles before a reported crowd of 30,000 fans. 

After McGrath repeated his winning ways in the August 23rd 30-lap WRA “big car” main event, on Wednesday August 27, Carrell hosted the “rambunctious” California Roadster Association (CRA) “hot rod roadster” races that starred many familiar names –   Ruttman the CRA points leader, McGrath, Linden, Nooks and Manny Ayulo, the son of a Peruvian diplomat. During the night’s first race, the 3-lap trophy dash, Troy Ruttman’s car spun, hit the wall and lost its right rear wheel.

The loose wheel bounded over the retaining wall and chain link fence and struck a young Glendale girl, Carole Waldbillig, seated with her family in the third row of the grandstands. Seven-year-old Young Carole was rushed to Southwest General Hospital but pronounced dead on arrival.  When the program resumed, Archie Tipton, Pat Flaherty, Leroy Nooks and Jack McGrath each won their five-lap heat races and Flaherty won the 10-lap semi-main.  McGrath won the 20-lap feature over Ayulo.

On September 3 a Los Angeles County coroner’s jury held an inquest to review the facts of Carole Waldbillig’s death. After hearing testimony from several witness, the jury delivered the decision that the seven year old’s death was an accident and found no one criminally liable.  The jury held that the track “was equipped with adequate safety devices” and that Ruttman “exercised maximum precautions.”   

There were 40 cars entered Saturday night August 30^th WRA “Trophy Cup” “big car” race with a driver lineup that included Tommy Wise, 1935 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner Cavino “Kelly” Petillo, Hal Cole, McGrath, Ruttman, and ‘Tex’ Peterson. The WRA championship was up for grabs as the 1946 WRA champion Bayliss Levrett had temporarily switched his focus to racing in the Midwest.  

Frank McGurk won the three-lap trophy dash, then during the formation of first heat race another car failed to start and officials sent Tommy out to join the field. During the race, Pinky Hill’s car spun and as he tried to avoid Hill, Tommy collided with the machine driven by Ed Korgan.

Tommy’s car rolled over three times and he was thrown out, while Korgan was slightly injured. Tommy was admitted to Southwest General Hospital unconscious suffering from a compound fracture of the left ankle and a severe head injury. He passed away shortly before midnight on Saturday night

Tommy’s body was taken to Utter-McKinley Mortuary and he was interred in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in the Boyle Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles. Tommy was survived by his mother, two sisters, his daughter and his pregnant wife Martha who gave birth to Tommy’s second daughter, Sherry Lynn Wise, on January 4, 1948.

Tommy Wise was one of many victims of the dangerous years of auto racing in the nineteen forties on poorly prepared tracks with wooden guardrails before the acceptance of seat belts and other rudimentary equipment such as roll bars.   Sadly many of the drivers Tommy competed with at Carrell were later seriously injured such as Bayliss Everett and Tex Peterson and several, that included as “Slim” Mathias and Fred Luce, lost their lives there.

Thanks to Tommy Wise’s family members, Joanna Palooza and Hal Richey, for their research assistance and providing the family photos of Tommy.  

From mechanic to driver to death

the Ray "Red" Cariens story

All photographs courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection in the IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

Raymond Lloyd “Red” Cariens, the third of eight children born to George and Lura Belle Cariens, was born on a farm near the village of Cisne Illinois on December 20, 1899. As a young man, Ray trained as an apprentice mechanic at the Hudson/Essex factory in Detroit, and then he lied about his age enlisted in the United States Army Air Force and worked as an aircraft mechanic at Wilbur Wright Field near Dayton Ohio.  

According to an article in the August 9 1924 edition of the Altoona Mirror newspaper, Cariens first raced as Eddie Pullen’s riding mechanic in the factory Hudson at one of the five American Automobile Association (AAA) races held on the Beverley Hills board track during the 1920 season.  Cariens then reportedly worked in the Duesenberg Motors engine plant in Elizabethtown New Jersey perhaps on the Jimmy Murphy/Tommy Milton Daytona Beach land speed record car before the plant was closed and Duesenberg relocated operations to Indianapolis.

Driver Joe Thomas and "mechanician" R.L. "Red" Cariens

pose in their 1921 Duesenberg entry 

During 1921, the red-headed Cariens rode with in the 1921 Indianapolis ‘500’ with driver Joe Thomas in the factory Duesenberg 183-cubic inch straight eight powered machine which had been qualified by Joe Boyer. 'Red' miraculously escaped injury when the Duesenberg’s  and it crashed after the steering failed during the pair's 25th lap. Thomas and Cariens then finished eighth in the 100-mile AAA ‘Universal Trophy Race’ held June 18 1921 at the Uniontown (Pennsylvania) board track, and a few weeks later on July 4, Cariens also rode along as Joe Thomas captured a third place finish at the 2-mile long wooden Pacific Coast Speedway Tacoma Washington.  

At the start of the 1922 AAA season, Cariens, sometimes called “Big Foot” because of his size 14 feet, now used Los Angeles as his home base, and continued to work as a mechanic for the Duesenberg racing team. While in California he rode with Jerry Wonderlich on April 16 in the ‘Golden State Motor Derby’ at San Carlos and again on Thursday April 27 in the ‘Raisin Day Classic’ on the wooden one-mile Fresno Speedway. The pair finished sixth in both races which were dominated by the Duesenberg team. 

During May 1922 Cariens joined the Cliff Durant-Harry A. Miller factory team, a timely move as the Miller racing cars were soon to become the hottest vehicles in AAA racing. In September 1922 “Red” rode with Bennett Hill at the inaugural race at the Kansas City board track, but is listed in AAA records as “Leslie” Cariens.   The pair started on the pole and finished the tragic 300-mile event marred by the loss of Roscoe Sarles in sixth place.   

For 1923, riding mechanics became optional by AAA championship racing rules, and of course no one used them. Early in the season “Red” Cariens worked as a mechanic on Bennett Hill’s red #3 Miller but when the circuit moved east, he joined the Durant team and primarily worked on Harry Hartz’ second place '500' finisher, but chances are with seven Durant team cars entered at Indianapolis , Cariens worked on every one of the Durant Miller entries at one time or another during the month of May 1923.  Cariens continued to work as a mechanic on Hartz’ trio of Miller race cars throughout 1923 and the early 1924 AAA season.

Fall 1924 was a pivotal season for Ray Cariens, as he transitioned from his role as “the world’s best race car mechanic “(according to the writer for the Altoona Mirror) and became a race car driver.   Cariens debuted in the 200-lap “Fall Classic” held on the 1 ¼ -mile Altoona Pennsylvania high-banked board track, one of the country’s most deadly.  

 

Ira Vail 

Cariens' car owner was driver Ira Vail, who had first raced his new ivory-colored Miller double overhead camshaft (DOHC) 8 cylinders in-line 122 cubic inch engine chassis #2431 at the 1924 season opening race at Beverly Hills. Vail finished eighth in the car at Indianapolis and ninth in the AAA circuit’s first 1924 season visit to Altoona three months earlier. At the previous AAA race in Kansas City, Vail qualified the car but turned it over to rookie driver Lou Wilson for the race.

Ray Cariens started from the pole at Altoona on Labor Day 1924 and then ran into mechanical difficulties but hung on to finish in eighth place, 14 laps behind winner Jimmy Murphy in a race that saw Joe Boyer lose his life.  Two weeks later Murphy himself would lose his life in a crash on the "Moody Mile" at Syracuse New York.   At the end of the 1924 season, Vail sold the Miller and Cariens was out of a ride, and 'Red' closed out the year working as a mechanic for Bennett Hill.

At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1925, Cariens was nominated to drive the red #3 Miller ‘122’ rear-drive chassis #2403 owned by Bennett Hill, who had great success with the car during 1924 with six top five finishes. Hill won the 1924 AAA season-ending 250-mile race at Culver City Speedway with a startling average speed of over 126 MPH after a supercharger had been added to the Miller engine to compete with the newest Miller ‘122’ race cars.  

In a continuation of a long-running Indianapolis tradition, Bennett Hill gave up his regular ride for one that he felt had a better chance of winning at the Speedway.  At the time of Jimmy Murphy’s death Harry A. Miller Engineering was building two front-drive cars that Murphy had ordered.  The two cars were subsequently known as “Front Drive # 1” for use at Indianapolis and the board tracks, and ‘Front Drive #2” that was designed and built specifically to set land speed records and which used outboard front brakes located inside the disc wheels to reduce the frontal area. After Murphy’s death, Harry A. Miller had completed both cars and entered them himself for the 1925 Indianapolis ‘500.’

Bennett Hill in 1924

Veteran Dave Lewis drove ‘Front Drive #1,” while Hill drove the red #21 “Front Drive #2.” After qualifying, the diminutive Hill was apparently spooked by its handling and Harry Miller withdrew the car from the race on the eve of the ‘500.’ Hill returned to drive his rear-drive Miller ‘122’ which Cariens had qualified for the field in 21st starting position with an average of 104.16 MPH. Ray Cariens was out of the ‘500,’ though he did relieve Hill from lap 57 to lap 68 before the car was retired with a broken rear spring. After his car was eliminated, Hill relieved Dave Lewis and drove the last 26 laps on the way to “Front Drive #1’s” second place finish. 

It is unclear precisely what Ray Cariens did after the 1925 ‘500,’ but presumably he continued to work as a mechanic, probably for Bennett Hill. On October 3, at the Fresno 1-mile board track “Red” drove Tommy Milton’s #14 Miller ‘122’ which earlier had rear wheel brakes and truss rods to stiffen the frame added for Indianapolis. Cariens replaced driver Norm Batten who had been injured in the car in a crash during the Syracuse race weeks earlier.  The Fresno track owned by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors had nearly burned down in September of the previous year, and only by working day and night had a team of 200 carpenters rebuilt the track and grandstand in time for the 1924 ‘San Joaquin Valley Classic.’

The sixth annual “San Joaquin Valley 150-mile Auto Classic’  held on October 3, 1925 featured some of the top drivers of the time – Peter DePaolo, Leon Duray, ‘Doc’ Shattuck, and Bennett Hill and drew a crowd estimated by officials to be 30,000 people.  Cariens started on the front row of the Fresno eight-car field alongside veteran Jerry Wonderlich, with whom he had ridden just three years earlier.  The 150-mile race was completed is less than hour and half, with the victory going to Kansas’ Fred Comer for his first and only career AAA win with Cariens finishing in third place.

After he won the race at the circuit's October 26  stop at Laurel (Baltimore) Maryland, Bob McDonough crashed the Milton Miller at Charlotte on November 11, so Cariens was back in the car for the season-ending race scheduled for Thanksgiving Day at “the fastest track in the West” Culver City Speedway.  The race was re-scheduled to Sunday November 29 at the request of the drivers, and “Red” and Jerry Wonderlich again started side-by side, but this time they made up the third row in the 15-car field, as four drivers had withdrawn before the race for reasons unknown.   

A view of racing at the Culver City Speedway

Pole-sitter Earl Cooper, who had posted a lap of 141 ½ MPH in qualifying around the 1 ¼ mile track, shot into the lead with Ralph Hepburn and Leon Duray in hot pursuit as the leaders averaged 135 MPH over the first ten laps, before fourth place Earl Devore retired on lap 23 with a broken valve. Tragedy struck on the next lap when Wonderlich’s #10 car blew a tire as he raced down the backstretch in front of grandstand ‘B’, and Jerry’s car first careened up the 45-degree banking, then slid nose down towards the five-foot high inner wall.

Cariens who was close behind, swerved the #14 to avoid Wonderlich’s car, brushed Hepburn’s passing machine, spun twice, then the Miller smashed backwards into the inner wall which was backfilled with dirt.  After the impact, Ray’s car overturned and he was thrown onto the track surface. Meantime, Wonderlich’s car, perhaps 100-200 feet behind, crashed nose-first into the inner wall but stayed upright, though Jerry suffered scratches on his face and a stiff neck. The entire crash sequence was captured by photographer Ted Wilson, and the photos can be viewed at   https://revslib.stanford.edu/?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=cariens

One of Wilson’s graphic photographs shows the unconscious Ray Cariens lying on the track face down minus his shoes and cloth helmet but still wearing his trademark white gloves while another photograph depicts Cariens’ overturned car facing the wrong way on the track.  While the race continued, eventually won by Frank Elliott at a new world’s record average speed of over 127.87 MPH, Ray was removed to the Angelus Hospital, 10 miles away where he was initially given an “even chance at recovery.”

Newspapers the following day reported that Cariens remained unconscious in “very critical” condition. Ray “Red” Cariens, just days away from celebrating his 26th birthday, passed away just before midnight December 2 with his death attributed to a basal skull fracture and internal injuries.  Cariens’ body was transported to West Branch Iowa where his mother had relocated after his father George’s death in 1919. 

 

Ray rests in the Cariens family plot in the Municipal Cemetery alongside his mother, father, two brothers, and two sisters.  In those days, race cars were durable, and a fatality meant little to car owners; for example, the car that Frank Elliott used to win at Culver City in November 1925 had been the same car in which Jimmy Murphy lost his life.

Tommy Milton sold his Miller ‘122’  after the  damage to the fuel tank, hood, and cowling of the car from Ray’s fatal crash at Culver City was repaired. The car was re-numbered #15 for the 1926 and was driven by owner Peter Kreis for the first four AAA races while his new car was finished, then the Miller '122' was sold to Illinois garage owner Henry Kohlert. 

 

Peter Kreis bought a new Miller 91-cubic inch supercharged and intercooled front-drive machine which was delivered in time for the 1926 Indianapolis 500-mile race and easily qualified for the starting field in 20th position. Peter became ill with the flu days before the race and was replaced by a brash young rookie named Frank Lockhart, who drove Kreis’ car to victory in the rain-shortened 1926 Indianapolis 500-mile race.
 

Kohlert entered the former Milton Miller 122 at the “Elgin Piston Pin Special” for Legion Ascot Speedway veteran Fred Lecklider at Indianapolis in 1927, and then crashed the car during the race himself while driving in relief. The following year, Kohlert entered the “Elgin Piston Pin Special” for a young rookie, future 1935 ‘500’ winner Kelly Petillo who crashed the car in practice.  

Kohlert abd his crew reapired the damage to the Miller, and Henry squeezed into the field on the final day of time trials and finished in 13th place. Kohler then sold the car to a pair of Pittsburgh businessmen who raced it in the 1929 Indianapolis 500. The car disappeared with the dawning of the Rickenbacker “Junk Formula” era, as historian Michael Ferner believes the Milton Miller was cut up to build a two-man chassis.  

Ray "Red" Cariens quickly advanced up the racing ladder as every young man would have dreamed of as he advanced from a mechanic on the sidelines to become a riding mechanic and then ultimately a race driver. Surprisingly, given their hazardous nature ,"Red" was the only driver to die in a board track during the 1925 AAA season.