Tony Stewart’s 1995 Silver Crown championship winner

As part of the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum presented the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit which featured Tony Stewart's 1995 United States Auto Club (USAC) championship winning Silver Crown championship dirt car.

In 1995, Tony Stewart became the first driver to win the USAC “Triple Crown”- as won championships in the National Sprint Car, National Midget and the Silver Crown series - all in the same season. 

Tony drove this USAC Silver Crown championship dirt car owned by Edinburgh Indiana engine builder Glen Neibel  powered by one of Neibel’s potent V-6 engines with sponsorship from the Willie Boles Chevrolet dealership in Pendleton Indiana. As they were competing against cars equipped with 358-cubic-inch V-8 engines, the V-6 powered car was given a weight break.

Stewart never won a USAC Silver Crown race during the 1995 season but strung together a consistent series of finishes. In a ten-race season, Tony scored five top-5 finishes and three top-ten finishes. 

As he entered the final race of the season at the Cal Expo Fairgrounds in Sacramento California, Tony was in third place in the points. As the race progressed the two drivers ahead of him in points, Dave Darland and Jack Hewitt experienced troubles during the 100-mile race,  Stewart scored his second consecutive and third overall runner-up finish and won the 1995 USAC Silver Crown title by just two points.   

Stewart moved into the NASCAR "cup" series and won three driver championships (2002, 2005 and 2011) to go along with his four USAC driver championships. With his 1997 IRL championship, Tony is the only man to win both an IndyCar and NASCAR  championship. Stewart was elected into the USAC Hall of Fame in 2016 and the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2019. 

All photos by the author        

Restored 1975 Plymouth Duster ”California Flash” drag car

Driver and engine builder Larry “Butch” Leal from Tulare California is a legend in National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) drag racing. Beginning with his first foray into the sport in 1960 in a Chevrolet El Camino. In the early nineteen sixties, Leal became a member of the Ford Drag Racing Team and he won the Super Stock class at the 1964 US Nationals in Indianapolis where he earned Leal the nickname “the California Flash.”

In 1965, Leal joined the Chrysler Corporation as a factory-supported driver in the Pro Stock category driving Hemi-powered (hemispherical combustion chamber) cars. Chrysler pulled out of direct factory sponsorship for Pro Stock racing in 1974 because of NHRA Pro Stock weight rules which Chrysler management felt unfairly favored the small-block Chevrolet.

In 1975, Butch Leal became associated with the Chrysler Direct Connection performance-parts program and ran this Ron Butler-prepared Plymouth Duster powered by a 16-plug (two spark plugs per cylinder) 426-cubic inch Hemi engine with a 4-speed transmission. Competing in the   B/MP (Modified production) class, it ran a best quarter-mile elapsed time of 9.65 seconds with a best trap speed of 142 miles per hour. This car was featured on the cover of the April 1975 Car Craft magazine and the cover of the 1975 Chrysler Direct Connection parts catalog. 

   

With this car, which had to weigh 8.00 to 8.99 pounds per cubic inch of engine displacement.  was allowed very few body and chassis modifications, as the body and the bumpers are all steel. Leal won the Modified Eliminator class at the 1976 NHRA Winter Classic, the Winternationals and the Gatornationals events. 

Leal was named to the 1976 Car Craft Magazine All-Star drag racing team as the modified driver of the year.  Leal drove Chrysler cars through the 1977 NHRA season. Leal who retired from drag racing in the late nineteen eighties is a member of the Mopar Collector’s Guide Hall of Fame the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame.

The car was meticulously restored by John and Denny Laube who proudly displayed the car at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry show in Indianapolis Indiana.    

"Pop" Dreyer big car at PRI 2018 

One of the features at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum presented the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit. The display included a 1937 Dreyer Special Sprint Car which is similar to the car driven by Everett Saylor, shown as a tribute to those years of racing and leading car builder “Pop” Dreyer.

Floyd “Pop” Dreyer began as a motorcycle sidecar-racer, owned an Indian motorcycle dealership in the early nineteen twenties and quit when he was married in 1925.   worked as a welder at Duesenberg and worked on Frank Lockhart’s ill-fated land-speed streamliner. After Duesenberg closed, Dreyer started his own shop in Indianapolis.    

"Pop"  began to build motorcycle powered midget race cars .big cars (today known as sprint cars), junior racers for kids, overhead valve conversions for Ford engines and magnesium wheels.  The entire front row of the 1931 Indianapolis 500-mile race was occupied by cars that all wore bodywork built by Pop Dreyer. 

Everett Saylor won the 1937 CSRA (Central States Racing Association) championship in a Dreyer-built Sprint Car while Dennis “Duke” Nalon won the 1938 AAA (American Automobile Association) Eastern Big Car title in a Dreyer chassis, and Jackie Holmes won the 1949 AAA Midwestern big car title behind the wheel of a Dreyer.  

In 1953 Dreyer sold his patterns and racing parts and invested in a motorcycle dealership, and in 1959 Dreyer became the ninth Honda dealer in the United States and the first east of the Mississippi River. Today Dreyer Honda remains in business the oldest continuous operated Honda dealer in the nation.  

Floyd “Pop” Dreyer has recognized for his accomplishments and contributions to racing with inductions to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame, the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) Motorcycle Hall of Fame, and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America. 

Rich Vogler’s midget

As part of the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum presented the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit which included Rich Vogler’s midget.

Rich Vogler won his first United States Auto Club (USAC) national midget title in 1978, and then would go on to win the national midget championship in 1980 (the same year he won the national sprint car title), 1983, 1986 and 1988. Vogler repeated as the USAC sprint car champion in 1989. Vogler was the first man to win the midget and sprint title in the same season.

During his career, Rich won all the prestigious midget races - the inaugural Chili Bowl Nationals in 1987, the Night Before the 500 at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 1978, the WWRA Florida Winter Nationals in 1983, the “Hut Hundred” eight times, the midget portion of the 4-Crown Nationals  at Eldora Speedway  four times, the midget portion of the  Copper World Classic twice and the Hoosierdome Invitational twice. Vogler also drove in the Indianapolis 500-mile race five times, frequently qualifying for the race with very few practice laps.   

His record of 134 USAC National Series wins - 95 Midget, 35 Sprint, and four Silver Crown wins is second only to AJ Foyt’s total of 169 wins. Vogler was inducted in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1992 and into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1986.

Rich Vogler lost his life the day before his 40^th birthday, July 20, 1991 in a crash during live-televised USAC sprint car race at Salem Indiana.   Rich was leading the race at the time of the accident and the race was considered complete after the accident with Rich declared the victor for his 134^th and final USAC national win.   

All photographs by the author 

1972 Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team VPJ-1

1972 Vel's Parnelli Jones Racing Team VPJ-1

Maurice Philippe started his career designing airplanes before he joined Lotus Cars in 1965. Phillipe worked with Colin Chapman and redesigned the Lotus 39, and then drew the BRM-powered Lotus 43. The next Phillipe design was the classic Lotus 49 and later Philippe was involved in the design of the 1968 Lotus four-wheel drive turbine Indianapolis cars.

Phillipe’s master stroke was the Lotus 72, a dramatic Formula 1 design which broke new ground by mounting the radiators alongside the driver in sidepods, a design that McLaren Cars adapted for the M16 USAC car that won the Indianapolis pole position in 1971. In late 1971, Maurice left Lotus to work as a free-lance designer.

Philippe's 1972 design for the Vel’s Parnelli Jones (VPJ) Racing Team featured wings sprouting at a 45-degree angle off the monocoque known as dihedral wings which also contained the radiators. Most shocking there was no rear wing mounted behind the turbocharged Offenhauser engine.

The new Parnelli also featured new Phillipe-designed suspension technology known as dual camber compensators meant to keep the triangular shaped chassis monocoque level in all racing conditions.

The VPJ team was the first of the modern “super teams” with a lineup of top drivers, mechanics, and strong sponsorship so expectations were high for the new car. The team featured drivers Joe Leonard, Al Unser and Mario Andretti, Leonard was the defending United States Auto Club (USAC) national champion in the PJ Colt, a chassis that was copied from a Lola design.  

Unser was the two-time and defending Indianapolis 500-race race winner, while Andretti was a three-time USAC national champion and the 1969 Indianapolis champion. George Bignotti the multiple time Indianapolis winning mechanic was the team’s chief mechanic paired with mechanics John Capels and Jim McGee.  

Leonard’s car carried season long sponsorship from Samsonite luggage, while Andretti’s and Unser’s cars carried full sponsorship from Viceroy cigarettes. The sponsorship was supplemented with a massive influx of funding from the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which was engaged in a “tire war” with Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. 

A press photo from the 1972 VPJ-1

 unveiling at Ontario Motor Speedway

author's collection

  

The VPJ team and the national auto racing media gathered at the Ontario Motor Speedway in March 1972 for the car’s introduction, and after a coin flip with teammate Mario Andretti, Al Unser took the prototype out for its first laps. After several laps Unser pulled into the pits and Andretti then took the car out for some slow laps, then drove directly to the garage area. Shortly thereafter the press outing ended.  

Not disclosed to the press was the fact that the car, known as the VPJ-1 was a horrible combination – it was both scary and slow. The team went to work to revise the design and develop the VPJ-1. The team used the older Colt chassis at the season-opening race in Phoenix, then the new car debuted at Indianapolis minus the dihedral wings, with a conventional suspension system and more typical front and rear wings.

In the 1972 Indianapolis 500, the VPJ-1 finished second, third, and eighth.  Later in the 1972 USAC season, Joe Leonard won three consecutive races – a 200-mile race at Michigan, the Pocono 500-mile race, and the Tony Bettenhausen 200 at Milwaukee. On the strength of those results, Joe Leonard captured his second straight USAC national championship with Al Unser in fourth place in the 1972 points.

Despite the early problems, Maurice Phillipe penned the 1973 Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing Team entry, the VPJ-2, the VPJ-3 used sparingly in the 1974 USAC season (the team switched to 1974 AAR Eagle customer chassis for most of the season) and the VPJ-4 ill-fated Formula 1 car powered by a Cosworth engine.    

The Vintage Indy Registry displayed VPJ-1 chassis #102 owned by Chuck Jones was shown in its original dihedral wing configuration at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show. The car is expertly restored as it appeared in early season testing. 

This chassis was driven by Joe Leonard to a third-place finish at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Leonard drove chassis #102 to the three wins during the 1972 season at Michigan, Pocono, and Milwaukee until the was damaged in a tire testing crash before the season-ending race at Phoenix, and Leonard drove VPJ chassis 104 at Phoenix. 

Leonard crashed chassis #104 in practice and did not start the Best Western 150. Fortunately for Leonard, he had a commanding points lead over second place Billy Vukovich and claimed his second consecutive USAC National driving Championship.    

All photos by the author except as noted 

Ed Carpenter's quarter midget at PRI 2018 

One might ask how did a man who has started from the coveted pole position for the Indianapolis 500-mile race three times and finished as the runner-up in the 2018 Indianapolis ‘500’ get his start in racing?

The answer is quarter midget racing, and Ed Carpenter’s quarter midget was part of the “Hoosier Thunder: Indiana’s Short Track Heritage” exhibit. at the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) trade show in Indianapolis.

Ed began to race his quarter midget in 1989 at age eight, comparatively old for that type of car, as some quarter midget drivers start at age four. Before he moved up to up to three-quarter midgets at age 16, Ed won several local and regional titles. At age 17, Carpenter debuted in full-size midgets and during his career, he has driven in all three of the USAC national series - midget, sprint and Silver Crown championship cars.

Carpenter started in the Indy Lights series in 2001 and the Indy Racing League (run by his step-father Tony George) in 2003. Ed has won three IndyCars races - in 2011 at Kentucky Speedway, 2012 at Fontana Speedway and Texas Speedway in 2014. 

Carpenter started from the pole position at the Indianapolis ‘500’ in 2013, 2014, and 2018. As an IndyCar owner/driver since 2011,Ed Carpenter has only driven on oval tracks in IndyCar since 2014. 

For comparison, we share photos of a modern quarter midget race car as shown at the Bilstein booth at the PRI show. Compare with Ed Carpenter's 1990's era quarter midget to see how technology has advanced. 

All photos by the author 

1934 Charlie Allen midget

While passing through the Indianapolis International Airport for the 2018 Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show, the author spied this 1934 Charlie Allen midget race car on display. 

Owned by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, this car was built by Los Angeles race car builder Clyde Adams, who got his start along with fellow car builder/metalworker Myron Stevens working for Harry A. Miller. After Miller sold out to the Schofield Company and the company went into decline, Adams and Steven left to start their own race car shop.  

The first documented midget car race took place on June 4, 1933 at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento, California, and less than a year later, Adams built this car for car owner/driver Charlie Allen, powered by a 2-stroke 4-cylinder ELTO engine.

Outboard motor pioneer Ole Evinrude sold his eponymous company in 1913 to care for his ill wife with one of the terms of the sale that he could not enter the outboard motor business for five years. 

Ole kept experimenting and developed a lighter more powerful two-cylinder outboard motor and in 1921 he founded a new company to sell his invention. Ole couldn’t use his name for the new company so he called it ELTO, which stood for “Evinrude Light Twin Outboard."

During the early nineteen thirties ELTO marketed two two-cycle engines to the midget auto racing community; the ELTO 4-60 (as in this car) comprised of four cylinders with a single rotary valve that displaced 59.4 cubic inches that produced 60 horsepower, lot of power in its day. For lubricant, racers added castor oil to a mix of methanol (wood alcohol) and benzene which created the signature trail of smoke associated with ELTO engines.

In 1939, Charlie Allen continued his ground-breaking ways, as he purchased the first Frank Kurtis-built midget which was equipped with a four-cylinder Offenhauser engine.  

Photos by the author