Clare Lawicki – “Little 500” standout

Several weeks ago, Roger Zellner posted this photograph on Facebook of Steve Benovich’s beautiful upright sprint car at the Dayton Speedway.  Clare Lawicki who hailed from the Northern Detroit suburbs crashed and destroyed this car which had originally been owned by Bud Tingelstad in a United States Auto Club (USAC) race at Dayton in April 1970.  

 

Photo courtesy of Roger Zellner

 

Clare Lawicki first became known while racing “hot rod” roadsters at the ¼-mile dirt Motor City Speedway in Warren Township of Detroit. It’s unclear when he started racing but on May 7 1950 he was involved when tragedy struck on the fourth lap of the day’s 20-lap feature race.  Lawicki’s roadster “locked wheels” with Louis Smith Jr.’s machine and both cars flipped over the retaining wall. Because he had the presence of mind to duck under the cowling of his car at the beginning of the crash, Clare escaped with only cuts and bruises.

Unfortunately, Louis Smith fared much worse in the accident and though newspapers initially reported that the 33-year old driver had suffered a broken arm and internal injuries, doctors at Detroit’s Holy Cross Hospital found Smith had suffered a severe spinal injury and was paralyzed. Tragically, Smith passed away the next day from his injuries just five minutes before his parents arrived from their home in Waukegan Illinois.

Many of the highlights of Lawicki’s racing career came at the high-banked ¼-mile asphalt Sun Valley Speedway in Anderson Indiana, home of the annual 500-lap “Little 500” race. Lawicki first competed in the “Little 500” in 1954 when he drove the #57 Mercury V8-powered “hot rod” roadster owned by Birmingham Michigan’s Harold Thomas. Lawicki qualified with a single lap of 15.06 seconds, far off Tom Cherry’s new track record of 14.340 seconds, to start 17th in the field.

The 33-car field was paced to the start by cowboy star Roy Rogers in Dodge Royal 500 convertible.  Lawicki’s rookie finish in the race is lost to history (as only the top ten finishers were reported) in a race that was marred by two separate incidents in which axles broke on race cars and sent errant wheels went into the grandstands which injured nine fans.  1950 and 1952 winner Tom Cherry led an amazing 495 laps to win his third “Little 500” crown.

On July 11 1954 Clare took part in a National Association of Stock Car Racing (NASCAR) event held at the ½-mile dirt Grand Rapids Speedrome, and finished 11th driving a 1949 Ford. Lawicki finished 25 laps behind the winning 1954 Chrysler driven by Randleman North Carolina’s Lee Petty and won $25 in prize money. 

The following year, with the race again sanctioned by the Mutual Racing Association (MRA) for the “roaring roadsters,” Lawicki again drove Thomas’ roadster. After 30-year old singer Mel “the Velvet Fog” Torme paced the field in a 1955 Ford convertible before the start, Clare who had qualified seventh ran in third place at the 100-, 200-, and 300- lap points of the race but apparently had mechanical problems later as he was credited with a 14th place finish with 375 laps completed behind 4-time winner Tom Cherry who led an amazing 450 of the 500 laps.  

 

A photo of the 1956 Desoto Indy 500 Pace Car

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor

Speedway Collection

 

In 1956, the “Little 500” sanctioned by the All-American Racing Club (AARC) was postponed from Saturday night May 26 to May 29 by rain, and Lawicki who qualified 22nd in the Harold Thomas machine. The start of the “Little 500” was paced by the same gold and white 1956 Desoto “Pacesetter” Fireflite convertible coupe driven by L. Irving “Irv” Woolson the Desoto division president the same pairing that paced the start of the next day’s Indianapolis 500.  

 

Lawicki’s was the first car that retired from the 500-lap race with mechanical failure and he was credited with one completed lap. Later in 1956, Clare notched two “outlaw” sprint car feature wins at the familiar confines of Motor City Speedway in July and August in fields that also featured Al Miller, Richard ‘Red” Amick and Ronnie Duman.     

Clare Lawicki was absent from the 1957 “Little 500” (the running of which was delayed by weather until July 6), but he did race in a sprint car race held August 25 1957 at the high-banked ¼-mile paved Cincinnati Race Bowl. Five cars broke the track record, led by Leon Clum’s 12.708 second lap. Clare won the first heat race and then finished the 35-lap feature race in fifth place behind Al Miller, Pete Allen, Johnny White, and Duman.

Lawicki missed the 1958 and 1959 running of the 500-lap “Little 500” classic at Sun Valley Speedway as the cars transitioned into what we today recognize as sprint cars. Clare returned in May 1960 behind the wheel of John Bennett’s #66 sprint car and qualified at 58.350 seconds for his four-lap run to start ninth on the outside of the third row.

After the start paced by actor James Garner behind the wheel of a 1960 Chevrolet convertible outfitted with rear fender skirts, Parnelli Jones surged into the lead in the Fike Plumbing sprinter from his front row starting position and led 102 laps.

 

The 1959 winner Ronnie Duman sailed past Jones into the lead on lap 371 and never looked back and defeated Parnelli by two laps. Lawicki finished sixth, 79 laps behind Duman who drove Hoy Stevens’ GMC-powered machine which had won the “Little 500” in 1957 and 1959 and finished third in 1958.

Hoy Stevens was a Pontiac/GMC dealer from Fredericktown Ohio who owned the #37 black and white trimmed sprint car powered by a 12-port cylinder head fitted to a 306-cubic inch GMC inline six-cylinder engine. In 1959 Stevens bought the patterns and drawings for the Horning-Fisher 12-port heads form California and had four new aluminum heads cast in a foundry in nearby Columbus Ohio.     

For the 1961 “Little 500” Lawicki moved into the seat of Stevens’ three-time winning GMC-powered machine and won the pole position with a four-lap run of 55.79 seconds. Pre-race activities included the arrival of the pace car driver, cowboy star Clint Walker in the infield via helicopter as only hours earlier he had appeared in the ‘500’ festival parade in Indianapolis.

Clare led the race’s first nine laps and finished the race in second place, fifteen laps behind rookie race winner Jim McElreath and seven laps ahead of the third place car driven by the 1951 winner Marlin “Red” Renner. Later in the 1961 racing season Clare appeared at three USAC sprint car races at Indianapolis Raceway Park (IRP) and New Bremen with the Stevens’ GMC sprint car but failed to qualify for the 15-car starting fields.

In 1962 Lawicki started the season with a non-qualifying effort at Salem Speedway as the GMC powered car timed in the slowest of the 22 cars entered, but he rebounded in early May with a 12th place finish at New Bremen after starting shotgun on the field. The International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) was in its first year of sanctioning the “Little 500” at Sun Valley Speedway, and IMCA brought out its roster of stars that included young Texan Johnny Rutherford, who won the pole, Gordon Wooley, Johnny White, and Pete Folse.

1962 “Little 500” pre-race activities featured as the pace car driver actor Vincent Edwards (aka Dr. Ben Casey) who received protection from local National Guard troops to prevent a reoccurrence of the mob scene that had occurred days earlier in Indianapolis.  Lawicki started the race in eleventh place and ran strongly most of the race in the top five, and held the lead from lap 438 to lap 481, when Arnie Knepper of Bellville Illinois passed him for the lead and held on to win over Clare by half a lap.

Five days later, Lawicki and the Stevens GMC qualified for the fifteenth and last starting position for the USAC feature at the ½-mile dirt New Bremen Speedway and after the 30-lap race marked by high attrition, finished in ninth place. Unfortunately Clare’s subsequent attempts to qualify for five other 1962 USAC sprint car races fell short at IRP, Reading Pennsylvania, New Bremen, and Salem Speedway.

In early 1963, Lawicki and the GMC-powered car failed to qualify for the twin 50-lap feature program at the brutal 1-mile circular Langhorne Speedway in Pennsylvania as he timed 28th fastest out of the 29 cars entered. AJ Foyt won the first 50-lap race ahead of Roger McCluskey, but during the second feature tragedy struck on the 41st lap. Bobby Marvin a rising star on the USAC racing scene in 1962 drifted too high in turn two hooked the outside guardrail and flipped. The car came to rest in flames and the race was stopped with leader Roger McCluskey declared the winner.

Lawicki failed to qualify the Hoy Stevens GMC machine for the 1963 “Little 500” starting field but still competed in the race. Bud Randall had qualified one two cars entered by Hoosier sprint car legend Ennis “Dizz” Wilson for the eighteenth starting spot, but Clare started the car instead and though the car retired with overheating problems on the 452nd lap, Lawicki was placed in the twelfth finishing position.

Similar circumstances again resulted in Clare running the “Little 500” in 1964. After Dick Gaines qualified the “Dizz” Wilson Chevy sprinter in 32nd starting spot, Lawicki replaced him at the last minute.  Indianapolis television show host Don Melvoin drove the 1964 ½ Ford Mustang convertible pace car to start the race, then Clare drove the #72 car up through the field to finish tenth with 442 laps completed in an event which was won by surprise winner Dick Good who drove a Indianapolis roadster style machine to victory with an eight-lap margin.

In February 1966 Lawicki debuted with the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA) stock cars at the 2-1/2 mile high-banked Daytona International Speedway. He finished 10th in his 25-mile qualifying race but for the ‘ARCA Daytona 250’ itself, the #23 1966 Dodge Charger entry was driven by long-time ARCA competitor Jack Shanklin.  

After not competing in the 1965 “Little 500,” Clare Lawicki returned in 1966 behind the wheel of a familiar car, the ex-Hoy Stevens GMC-powered sprint car owned by Avery Adams of Belleville Ohio. The best time that Lawicki could coax out of the old two-time winner was 26th starting place. The fastest qualifier, Dean Mast in a caged supermodified fitted with a roof panel set a pair of new track records, four laps at 53.13 seconds and his fastest single lap timed at 13.09 seconds.

 

On May 28 front row starter Rollie Beale won as he drove the ‘Don-Ken Special,’ owned by Toledo transmission shop owner Kenny Lay, to victory  before a crowd of 14,500 spectators reportedly the largest crowd in the history of the event. Lawicki finished eighteenth in the six-cylinder GMC powered car, 65 laps behind the winner.

Lawicki’s tenth and final “Little 500”appearance came in 1967 behind the wheel of former driver Don Friend’s machine. Friend, a two-time “Little 500” starter in 1961 and 1963, had crashed Ted Helke’s yellow roadster in turn one at Winchester Speedway during an IMCA sprint car race on the third lap of the May 10 1964 feature. Friend’s driving career ended when the car “submarined” under the steel guardrail and Don suffered a skull fracture and his left arm was severed at the elbow.

Lawicki qualified Friend’s # 74 sprint car in 25th place for the 1967 race and then dropped out of the race on lap 255 with unspecified mechanical problems. The race’s pole-sitter Darl Harrisons won the race by three laps over Jerry Reichert with relief from Cy Fairchild over the last 115 laps.

In 1969, Lawicki drove the Benovich sprint car shown in the lead photograph at eight USAC paved track events, and the author strongly suspects that Clare tried to qualify for the “Little 500” but did not make the starting field. At June 1 at Dayton Speedway Lawicki failed to finish the 30-lap feature due to his involvement in an accident with Jim Smith, who retired after flipping out of the track.

Clare posted an eighth place finish at Toledo Speedway in the red and gold leaf trimmed sprinter, and then failed to finish at Heidelberg, New Bremen and Michigan’s 3/8-mile Berlin Speedway.   In September Clare finished fifth in the 50 lap feature behind Gary Bettenhausen Rollie Beale, Cy Fairchild and Larry Dickson, and the following month finished ninth at Salem Speedway after 30 laps of the Joe James/Pat O’Connor Memorial.

The USAC sprint cars made their 1970 season debut on the high-banked half-mile Dayton Speedway on Sunday April 12. In just the season’s fourth race it was already shaping up to be a continuation of “the Larry and Gary Show,” as Larry Dickson, the 1968 USAC sprint car series champion, had won the 1970 season’s first two sprint car races in Florida, while the 1969 USAC sprint car series champion Gary Bettenhausen had won the week before at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg Ohio.

In addition to Bettenhausen and Dickson, the field of entries featured 1966 “Little 500” winner Rollie Beale, Greg Weld, 1968 “Little 500” champion Karl Busson and a local 22-year old hydroplane racer named David “Salt” Walther. In qualifying Bettenhausen set the pace for the 20-car field and slotted in sixth for the feature start, while Clare Lawicki was set the start 14th on the outside of the seventh row.

After several failed attempts to start the scheduled 40-lap race, the green flag flew and Lee Kunzman charged into the lead from his pole position starting position. As the field streamed into the first turn, Lawicki attempted an outside pass for position but instead ran nearly head-on into the two-tier Armco steel outer guardrail.  The resulting impact sheared off the front of the car; a pair of photographers shooting from an unauthorized area where struck by debris and injured.  

Clare was trapped in the mangled wreckage for 15 minutes but once he was cut free and out of the remains of the Benovich sprinter, emergency personnel found that miraculously he had suffered multiple contusions on his legs and a broken wrist. When the racing resumed, Beale took the lead and led late into the race before his car’s engine failed and Dickson inherited the win. The crash apparently ended Clare Lawicki’s racing career and the Benovich car was a total loss.

Steve Benovich told observers at Dayton that day that he was out of money and that he was done with racing but he was premature in his statement.   Three years later in 1973 Benovich entered another #54 sprint car for the April 29 USAC feature at Eldora for the 1967 and 1970 “Little 500” winner and 1971 USAC rookie of the year Darl Harrison.

As reported in the following day’s Kokomo (Indiana) Tribune reported that during the feature Harrison’s car hit the outside rail coming out of the first turn on the 28th lap and flipped six times. Harrison was described as “severely shaken but otherwise unhurt” and the second Benovich sprint car was destroyed.  Sammy Sessions, the series’ defending champion grabbed the lead after the re-start in Mauri Amerling’s #1 car and held on to win the crash-filled 40-lap feature.

For his outstanding record in the “Little 500” with 3,366 laps completed, his pole position start in 1961, back-to-back runner-up finishes in 1961 and 1962, and two other top ten finishes in 1960 and 1964, Clare Lawicki was inducted into the “Little 500” Hall of Fame in 2009.  

The author is interested in learning more about driver Clare Lawicki – contact the author at kevracerhistory@aol.com

 

     

 

 

 

     

 

Stories behind the early Indianapolis ‘500’ radio broadcasts

 

The basic facts concerning the early history of radio broadcasts of the Indianapolis 500-mile race are well-known- the first broadcasts of the race took place on local area radio stations in 1922. The two stations were WLK, Indianapolis’ first radio station, run by Purdue electrical engineering graduate Francis Hamilton from his parent’s barn, and WHO, Indianapolis’ second radio station, which was owned by electric equipment and radio manufacturer, Hatfield Electric Company.

Chances are that those brief radio updates in 1922 were not very clear or the signals carried very far considering the low power of the stations’ transmitters.  Throughout the middle nineteen twenties, Indianapolis station WFBM, owned by the Merchants Heating and Light Company, and Chicago radio station WGN carried updates during those races.

The major step forward came in 1928 when the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) provided a nationwide radio broadcast of the last hour the 16^th annual International 500-mile Sweepstakes. NBC’s ‘Red’ network only covered the United States as far west as Denver, Colorado, so NBC added in their year-old ‘Orange’ network, comprised of seven stations up and down the West Coast, which received the broadcast via shortwave relay from Denver.  

The broadcast on May 30 1928 was sponsored by the John Warren Watson Company of Philadelphia Pennsylvania. The purpose of the company’s sponsorship, stated in the May 26 1928 issue of Automotive Industries magazine was to “honor the race drivers and bring home to Americans a higher appreciation of the work of the drivers in contributing to the advancement of the modern automobile.” There was of course another motive in sponsoring the broadcast – to sell more of the company’s main product, the Watson “Stabilator.” We’ll get into the details of the broadcast later, but first let’s learn about John Warren Watson and learn about “Stabilators.”

The Watson ”Stabilator” is simply described an automatic friction brake which acted to limit an automobile’s suspension spring recoil. Early shock absorbers, which were being developed, worked well on large bumps, but were not very effective in controlling minor motions.  Watson claimed that the “Stabilator” checked the spring’s recoil in proportion to the recoil force and prevented the car’s wheel from unloading and coming off the road which made for an uncomfortable ride, tire slippage and increased tire and brake wear.

The manufacturer, the John Warren Watson Company advertised that “Stabilators” were for everyone; “the poor man insists on Stabilators because of the hundreds of dollars they will save him,” and “the rich man insists on Stabilators because of the luxurious comfort and safety which they provide.”  Watson’s literature stated that without “Stabilators,” wheel unloading occurred 20% of the time, while with “Stabilators” installed on all four corners, the uncontrolled bouncing happened less than 2% of the time.

The Watson device was relatively simple with just four parts – weatherproof front cover, shoe and strap assembly, spring assembly and the brake attached to the weatherproof back cover.  The John Warren Watson Company held sixteen patents, all which related to the basic design of their device, which was tailored to each particular automobile manufacturer and model.

To install on each corner of their customer’s car, a Watson licensed dealer followed a detailed 14-step installation procedure followed by a 6-step adjustment process that used a special “Stabilator” wrench.  Once their cars were outfitted, car owners were instructed to never grease or oil the “Stabilators” and to carefully monitor their tire pressures for best performance.  

John Warren Watson stock certificates had a precise drawing of the factory

  

The John Warren Watson Company’s manufacturing factory, built in 1927 by William Steele & Sons Co., engineers & constructors alongside the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks near the intersection of Harrison Street and Tulip Avenue in Philadelphia stretched over six city blocks, with its own powerhouse and 125-foot high red brick smokestack.

The company’s namesake and President, John Warren Watson, started his business career around 1906 as the chief investor and President the American Bronze Company which produced non-granular bronze bushings and bearings for leading automotive manufacturers which included Packard, Locomobile, Maxwell, and later Stutz and Duesenberg, as well truck manufacturers Case and Mack. During World War One, American Bronze cast bearings and bushings which used an alloy of 86 ½ % copper, 11 % tin and 2 ½ % zinc were used in Curtiss and Duesenberg airplane engines.

Mr. Watson left the presidency of American Bronze to form his eponymous company in 1919, although he remained on the Board of Directors of the American Bronze Corporation. John Warren Watson was considered by automakers as an authority on the engineering required for a smooth ride in an automobile. For the 1927 model year, Watson “Stabilators” were standard factory equipment on Cadillac, Chrysler, Duesenberg, DuPont, Franklin, Hudson, Isotta-Fraschini, Jordan, LaSalle, Locomobile, McFarlan, Nash, Packard, Peerless, Studebaker, Stutz, and Willys Knight automobiles.

John Warren Watson's Duesenberg Convertible Victoria

Watson and his wife Mary had a large home in Wayne Pennsylvania, 30 miles west of Philadelphia, and a 776-acre estate near Pinehurst North Carolina that included a 70-acre artificial lake that Watson had created by building a dam. Watson owned several exclusive luxury cars which included a 1931 Duesenberg Model J long-wheelbase Rollston-bodied Convertible Victoria and a custom bodied 1927 Chrysler Imperial Sportif (sport) Convertible built by Locke & Company of Rochester, New York. Both the Duesenberg and the Chrysler were donated to the Henry Ford Museum after John Warren Watson’s death.   

John Warren Watson, described in the press as 'movie-star handsome,' counted most of the leaders of the automotive industry as his personal friends, including Edsel Ford and Fred Duesenberg. In a 1989 interview conducted 
for the Edsel B. Ford Design History Center, Gordon Buehrig, the chief body designer for Duesenberg Motor Company, related Watson’s role in the preventable death of Fred Duesenberg.

Duesenberg was headed home to Indianapolis from New York and stayed overnight at Watson’s Pennsylvania home. Before Fred left the next morning, July 2, 1932, in a Murphy-bodied Duesenberg, Watson went out to the car with Fred and Watson observed that the car’s tires had a lot of miles on them. Watson later related to Buehrig that he told Fred, "You shouldn't drive that car with those slick tires.” 

Fred did anyway and later that day Duesenberg lost control of the car and crashed on the Lincoln Highway in the mountains outside of Jennerstown, Pennsylvania. Fred Duesenberg but while he hospitalized for his injuries following the accident he contracted pneumonia and died on July 26 1932.  

The John Warren Watson Company advertised heavily in the automotive trade magazines and the highly popular Saturday Evening Post. In 1926, golfer Grantland Rice and race driver Harry Hartz appeared in a series of print advertisements endorsing Watson “Stabilators.” The text of the Hartz advertisement that appeared in the August 16, 1928 issue of the Saturday Evening Post entitled "RELAX" read in part:

“The smart race car drivers - those who win and last - seize every opportunity to relax - momentary pauses at the pit or even during the whirl of the race itself to soften the tension of over-tensed nerves. There must be relaxation in the wild whirl of race driving to insure rested steady nerves for the final effort. Either they relax of something cracks.

Harry Hartz stands out as probably the most consistent and dependable driver of the automotive race track. In more than four-fifth of all the championship events in which he has competed, he has been among the first three to finish.

Hartz attributes no small part of his success in his ability to relax. After having experienced the value of relaxed motoring in six other Stabilated cars, he recently refused to accept delivery of a new car for his personal use until it was equipped with Watson Stabilators.”

In 1928, Watson introduced Type AA “Stabilators” for ‘light’ cars which sold for $28 for a set of four ($388 today) plus installation. ‘Light cars’ were defined by Watson as including those made by Chevrolet, Dodge, Pontiac, Nash and Whippets. The advertisements claimed that with Watson “Stabilators” installed, “light cars can ride the roughest roads at forty.”   

The NBC broadcast of the 1928 Indianapolis 500-mile was anchored by legendary announcer Graham McNamee. McNamee, who always opened his broadcasts with his tagline "good evening, ladies and gentlemen of the radio audience," was voted America’s most popular announcer in 1925.

During his career, Graham McNamee’s name was synonymous with radio coverage of such major sporting events as the World Series, the Rose Bowl, and the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney 1927 boxing match (which earned him an appearance on the cover of the October 3, 1927 Time magazine) as well as national political conventions and presidential inaugurations.

Articles published in newspapers in the days before the race on Decoration Day 1928 explained that “continuous broadcasting from the historic track will be conducted during the last hour of the race.  Graham McNamee will be stationed at the microphone high above the track to describe the final hour of the famous race for the first time over a national network.” The program’s start time was advertised as 2 PM on the East Coast, with the provision that “the exact beginning will be governed by the speed of the racing machines.”

Assuming that the broadcast began on time, listeners would have tuned in around lap 160 and heard McNamee describe the action with Louisiana native Tony Gulotta in the race lead with the supercharged and intercooled 91-cubic inch Miller “Stutz Blackhawk Special” over rookie Jimmy Gleason in a factory Duesenberg entry, with fellow rookie Louis Meyer’s gold Miller in third place. On lap 181, Gulotta, whose Miller entry was owned by Frank Lockhart’s widow, was forced to pit with a clogged fuel filter, while at the same time the radiator in Gleason’s Duesenberg began leaking water onto the magneto.

The misfortunes that befell Gulotta and Gleason handed the lead to Louis Meyer who went on to lead the final nineteen laps to post his first of three 500-mile race victories.  Donald Davidson relates that Graham McNamee later stated quite emphatically that the start of the Indianapolis “500” was the most spectacular sight he had ever witnessed.

McNamee and the NBC network returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway through 1931 with similar “last hour” coverage. In 1931, the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company sponsored the program with Raymond Firestone as a guest during the broadcast.   

There was no radio coverage of the Indianapolis 500-mile race in 1932. In an article published in the Indianapolis News two days before the race, General Manager T.E. “Pop” Myers stated “radio in competition with newspapers….is unwilling to compensate financially for entertaining its listeners. It has been decided to permit the newspapers of the world to tell the complete and exclusive story of the race.”   NBC Radio returned the following year, 1933, and NBC coverage continued until 1938, in some years in addition to the finish, the network carried live segments at the start with updates during the course of the race.  

After 1932, NBC returned but did not hold an exclusive, as the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) radio network also covered the Indianapolis ‘500’ in the late 1930’s. The CBS programs were anchored by Ted Husing, who like McNamee, had covered political events, World Series games, track and field events and horse races. Later in his career, Ted Husing briefly appeared in the MGM (Metro Goldwyn Mayer) automobile racing film “To Please a Lady” which starred Clark Gable and Barbra Stanwyck as the Speedway public address and radio announcer.

From 1939 to 1950, the Mutual Broadcasting System transmitted coverage of the Indianapolis ‘500’ nationwide.   This was a monumental achievement because before December 1936, the Mutual network consisted of just four stations - WGN in Chicago, WLW in Cincinnati, WXYZ in Detroit and WOR in Newark New Jersey but that changed when the twelve-station Don Lee Broadcasting System, the leading regional network on the West Coast, changed its affiliation from CBS to Mutual, and Mutual became a nationwide network.

Don Lee, with 46 General Motors Corporation dealerships up and down the West Coast, had expanded into radio in 1926. Lee’s dealerships took orders for custom-bodied Cadillacs which were built by Don Lee Coach & Body Works which employed a promising young metalworker named Frank Kurtis. Don Lee died in 1934, at age 53 and his estimated $9 ½ million business empire was inherited by his 28-year old bachelor son Thomas Stewart Lee. “Tommy” inherited but only after an extended 14-year legal battle with Don Lee’s 24-year old wife, Geraldine, to whom Don had been married three months and had omitted from his will.

 

Under Tommy Lee's leadership, the Don Lee brand sponsored a pair of United Racing Association (URA) midget racing cars with bodies built by Frank Kurtis and was an entrant in four Indianapolis 500-mile races.  Tommy Lee entered his 1932 Alfa Romeo P3 ‘monoposto’ (single seat) in the 1946 Indianapolis 500 as the “Don Lee Special.” 

The Alfa Romeo, which had earlier competed in the 1939 and 1940 Indianapolis 500-mile races, was driven by ‘big car’ veteran Hal Cole. Cole qualified the screaming supercharged red car for the fourth starting position, but early in the ‘1946 500’ the Alfa Romeo lost a wheel and later retired with just 16 laps completed with a terminal oil leak and finished 32th.

The ‘Don Lee’ Alfa returned for the 1947 running Indianapolis ‘500 ‘with 40-year-old driver Ken Fowler whose only previous start at Indianapolis had come ten years earlier. Fowler’s teammate was Dennis 'Duke' Nalon behind the wheel of the mighty pre-war 1939 two-stage supercharged V-12 powered Mercedes W154.  Nalon posted the second fastest average speed in qualifying, over 128 MPH, but the Mercedes fell out on lap 119 when a replacement piston in the Mercedes engine broke and then two laps later, the Alfa retired with a broken axle.

The ‘Don Lee’ 450-horsepower Mercedes W154 returned for the 1948 Indianapolis ‘500,’ driven by 46-year old veteran of 14 ‘500s’ Chet Miller, while midget “hot shoe” and Indianapolis rookie Mack Hellings drove Lee’s new Kurtis Kraft 2000, chassis number 319 powered by a 270-cubic inch displacement 4-cylinder Offenhauser engine. Miller’s Mercedes retired on lap 108 with a terminal oil leak, but Hellings and the KK 2000 finished the ‘500’ in fifth place.

During the early nineteen forties, Tommy Lee suffered serious head, neck and back injuries in a passenger car accident and afterwards, either due to possible brain damage in the accident or the side effects of powerful pain medications, Tommy’s behavior became erratic. On August 28, 1948, less than a month after final settlement of his father’s will, Tommy Lee was declared mentally incompetent, with control of his financial affairs given to an uncle by marriage, and Tommy was placed under the personal guardianship of his aunt, Nora Patee. Tommy was institutionalized first in Pasadena, then later in Palm Springs.

Photo of Clark Gable in the "Mike Brannan Special" appears courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Studies 

The ‘Don Lee Special’ Kurtis Kraft entry was driven in 1949 ‘500’ again by Mack Hellings, but the Offenhauser engine broke a valve on lap 172.  During the 1949 filming of “To Please a Lady,” the MGM studio purchased the car from Tommy Lee and had it re-numbered to became the red #77 “Mike Brannan Special” driven in the film by Clark Gable’s character.   

On Friday January 13 1950 Tommy Lee was temporarily released from a Palm Springs hospital and flown by pricate plane to Los Angeles an appointment with his dentist, Dr. E.J. Thee. Tommy was dropped off in front of the Pellissier Building on Wilshire Boulevard, but instead of taking the elevator to the dentist’s office, he went to the twelfth floor, took a few puffs off a cigarette and leapt to his death through a fire escape window. Lee’s body was found on the roof of the adjacent Wiltern Theatre nine floors below moments later by his nurse Jeanne Shiffler. Tommy’s $8 million estate, spelled out in a 24-word will, was finally settled 18 months after his death.  

The Mutual System broadcasted the ‘500’ from 1939 to 1941 and from 1946 to 1950, all with anchor Bill Slater and sponsorship from the Perfect Circle Piston Ring Company of Hagerstown Indiana.  In 1951 Mutual wanted to increase their advertising rates, but after extended negotiations, Perfect Circle pulled out as the sponsor, and Mutual dropped the ‘500’ broadcast from their schedule.

Just days before the ‘500,’ Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials including President Wilbur Shaw scrambled to arrange coverage with the Indianapolis Mutual affiliate, WIBC-AM. The 1951 race updates were delivered by WIBC announcer Sid Collins with the feed then sent from the WIBC studios to 25 other Mutual affiliates. These 25 stations later formed the nucleus of the IMS Radio Network which debuted in 1952, which broadcast the first ‘500’ heard from start to finish in 1953, a tradition which continues through the present day.