Indoor hardtop racing in San Francisco

Part three

Following the success of the North California Indoor Hardtop Championship (NCIHTC) races indoors at the Cow Palace, the Oakland Racing Association (ORA) scheduled a second series of races, the Cow Palace Stock Hardtop Championship, set to begin May 7, 1955 and run through the month of May for four weeks.

The outdoor racing season had already opened in Northern California, so the Saturday night indoor races were paired with Sunday afternoon outdoor races on the ¼-mile dirt Vallejo Speedway. In an interesting promotion, the indoor races were scheduled head-to-head against the NASCAR (National Association of Stock Car Racing) hard tops which raced Saturday nights at San Jose Speedway.

Before the races could begin, the Cow Palace hosted the Grand National Junior Livestock Exposition from April 2nd to the 6^th, then the 10-round non-title boxing match between world middleweight champion Carl “Bobo” Olson and middleweight Joey Maxim. In a match that was broadcasted nationally on television and radio on April 13, Olson was awarded the unanimous decision.

In early May, ORA General Manager Marc Mott and Race Director Jack Smith announced a partial list of competitors for the Spring series; the winter indoor champion Henry “Cowboy” Alves would defend his crown, while runner-up Max McCord entered with his sights set to win the title this time.

Other winter indoor racers who filed their entries included Chet “Johnny Comet” Thomson, Walt Moniz, George Hanson and Lou Phillips who was scheduled to race a new Hudson coupe. Alves and Thomson competitors on the track were partners in an Oakland used auto sales lot, “Chet & Cowboy’s Car Corral,” on East 14^th Street.  

Also on the Cow Palace entry list were names which were familiar to many Bay Area racing fans - Bob Anderson and Carmel Fernandez, both Junior and Senior joined by ex-Oakland traffic officer Dick Marcell, Joe Guisti from Stockton, veteran Jack Perrin from San Leandro and Phillip Wong, a racer from Oakland billed as the “only Chinese driver on the West Coast” whose 1954 racing season at Oakland Speedway featured four flips and four destroyed race cars.     

Dick Seyler, who hailed from San Carlos, won the first night’s 20-lap main event on May 7^th which was interrupted by the crash of Max McCord’s car, with McCord, who won two races in the Winter indoor series, transported to Kaiser Hospital in South San Francisco. McCord’s injuries were variously described as “minor” and “not serious” and he was released after several hours.  

The following day a group of Bay Area high schoolers took part in the Junior Chamber of Commerce “Road-E-O” in the Cow Palace parking lot. All the young drivers drove identical 1955 Chevrolets in four events set up in the parking lot: parallel parking, a serpentine course, a smooth stopping test and a straight-line course.

Stephen Reiden from San Mateo High School scored 250 points out of a possible 300, won a trophy and the opportunity to compete in the state finals in June in Fresno with a chance to advance to the third annual national contest to compete for a $1500 college scholarship. 

Before action got started for the Cow Palace indoor race on the evening of May 14, Jerry Hoyt shocked the world as he won the pole position for the 1955 Indianapolis 500-mile race. On a windy Hoosier day, Hoyt in the Jim Robbins Special edged out Tony Bettenhausen in the only other car to make a qualifying attempt. That evening on the 1/5-mile track inside the cavernous Cow Palace, Phillip Wong beat Fernandez Sr to win the trophy dash for the four fastest qualifiers then also won his heat race.

Other May 14 heat race winners included Fernandez Sr, Oakland’s Joe Ratto, and Dick Selen, while McCord, recovered from his previous week’s accident, won the 8-lap semi-main event over Joe Nelson. Joe Diaz, who earlier in the evening had lowered the track record to 11.33 seconds during qualifying, won the 20-lap main event over Johnny Comet with Fernandez Sr in third place.

The following day, May 15, the ORA regulars were in action on the ¼-mile dirt Vallejo Speedway as George Tietjen, a tow truck driver during the week took the honors over Henry Alves and Johnny Comet. Midweek before the next race, Tietjen and the May 15 Vallejo trophy dash winner Chuck Minshell announced their entries for the May 21 Cow Palace races under the flag of starter Charles “Chuck” Ray.

Prior to the May 21 Cow Place event, Alves led the ORA points over Chet Thomson and Walt Moniz with Minshell and McCord tied for fourth place.  Chet Thomson won the May 21 trophy dash and his heat race, with other heat race victories to Bob Abaddie, Smokey Slocum and Joe Diaz. Alves won the semi-main event trailed by Bob Anderson and Jack Perrin, but “Cowboy” had to settle for third place in the 25-lap main event behind winner Joe Diaz and runner-up Walt Moniz. 

The next day at Vallejo Speedway, Thomson set a new track record of 22.24 seconds for one lap in qualifying, with the heat race wins grabbed by Abaddie, Diaz, Don Berrins Jack Perrin and Dick Atkins. Tietjen won the semi-main by a hair over “Cowboy” Alves, while Lou Phillips won the 30-lap feature over Perrin and Diaz. 

The finale of the Spring indoor series was set for Saturday May 28^th with qualifying at 7:15 PM followed with races at 8:15 PM with Alves leading the points chase trailed by Diaz on the strength of his two victories.  However, that is where the mystery begins, as the Saturday pre-race newspaper article is the last mention in the local press that the author has found for the Cow Palace indoor races or the Oakland Racing Association for that matter. The Oakland Racing Association, formed in late 1953 to sanction racing at the Oakland Speedway (Stadium) appeared to have simply disappeared early in the 1955 season.

The author welcomes any additional information or photographs of the indoor stock car racing held during 1955 in the Cow Palace near San Francisco from our dedicated readers.  

  

Indoor hardtop racing
in San Francisco

Part one

 

The Cow Palace shown during the nineteen fifties 

on a postcard from the author's collection

 

 

In early January 1955, multiple newspapers in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area began to publish articles about an upcoming series of indoor full-size stock automobile races to be held in the Cow Palace in San Francisco.  

The Cow Palace (known officially as the California State Livestock Pavilion), located seven miles south of downtown San Francisco in the Bayshore District, was first proposed based on success of the livestock pavilion at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition (World’s Fair).




After many years of planning, the final site near the San Francisco and San Mateo county boundary was selected and purchased in 1935. Construction began in the summer 1936 with funding from San Francisco and San Mateo counties supplemented with federal Public Works Administration (New Deal) funding.   

 

Photo of the interior of the Cow Palace shortly after completion from the book Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration by C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown. Photo appears courtesy of the Living New Deal program in the Department of Geography at the University of California.

 

The main structure, the Livestock Exhibition Building, was a reinforced concrete arena with a 6-acre steel arched truss roof designed by San Francisco architect Wilbur Peugh. With permanent seating for 12,000 visitors, construction of the arena was completed in February 1938 at a cost of $700,000. However, the complex, with a final project cost to $2.5 million, was not completed for several years and the first event in the Cow Palace, the Western Classic Holstein Show was held in the new arena on April 20th and 21st 1941.  

The Cow Palace complex was formally dedicated by Governor Culbert Olson during the opening ceremonies for the first Grand National Livestock Exposition on November 15 1941. The initial Grand National exposition was a huge success, with over 142,000 attendees, but three weeks later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the United States government requisitioned the Cow Palace.

Beginning in January 1942, for a rental cost of $1.00 a year, the Army used the Cow Palace as a processing center for troops prior to their deployment to the Pacific Theatre. Later in the war the Ordnance Corps used the facility as a vehicle repair center through 1946, with the second Grand National Livestock Exposition held in November 1946.

 

The Cow Palace arena shortly after completion in 1938 from the book Public Buildings: A Survey of Architecture of Projects Constructed by Federal and Other Governmental Bodies Between the Years 1933 and 1939 with the Assistance of the Public Works Administration by C.W. Short and R. Stanley-Brown.

 

Photo appears courtesy of the Living New Deal  Program in the Department of Geography at the University of California.

 

The Cow Palace, owned and managed by the 1-A District Agricultural Association, a California State agency regularly held rodeos, horse and livestock shows, concerts, consumer shows and sporting events such as roller derbies, basketball games and boxing and wrestling matches.


The idea of indoor hardtop, or stock car, races was novel, and public interest was piqued on January 13 1955 when several Bay Area newspapers carried the announcement of the North California Indoor Hardtop Championships.

The races were scheduled be held every Saturday night for two months beginning February 12 1955 -  each night would feature qualifying and the 11-race program, scheduled for 50 cars each night, was sponsored by the Crown American Racing Club of San Francisco.


On February 2 1955 an article in the Oakland Tribune newspaper reported that an all-steel guardrail was being erected inside the Cow Palace “to afford greater safety for spectators” during the upcoming races, and noted that “more than 200 drivers have applied for entry for the national debut of indoor stock car racing.”

As the college basketball regular season wound down (the University of San Francisco used the Cow Palace as a home court for its biggest opponents), on Sunday February 6, the Oakland Tribune published an interview with Jack Smith managing director of the Oakland Racing Association (ORA), the group that would sanction the races. ORA appeared to have started during the 1954 season to sanction "stock hard top" racing. 

Smith revealed the roster of officials for the Cow Palace races, which was headed by Hillary Govia of Hayward as the referee, with Frank Vogel as the starter and the legendary BCRA Jack Carmedy the public address announcer while Mack (Mac) McGrete of Concord worked the timing clocks.


In the pit area, George Sweeney was the technical inspector with Bob Moss the pit marshal assisted by Steward Manuel Picanco and course clerks Harry Schilling, Tim Ahern and Bill Evans.  McGrete and Schilling had served of co-promoters of Oakland Speedway located near San Leandro during the 1954 season.

The article in the February 6th edition of the Oakland Tribune claimed that the 1/5-mile Cow Palace oval would be “the world’s fastest indoor paved speedway” and that “tests are being run to ascertain the best type of asphalt that will be applied in special areas on the paved speedway.”  The field of over 200 entries received would be winnowed “down to the fastest 50 cars" after a rigid screening and qualifying process by the Oakland Racing Association (ORA) board.”
 

During the week before the February 12 1955 inaugural race, the ORA released a partial list of entrants for the first night of the Cow Palace hardtop races. The list was topped by Ben Gregory of Crockett California whose given name was Gordon Campbell, raced under a nom de guerre to hide his racing activities from his employer, the California Highway Patrol.

 

In 1952, Gregory won $2,500 (equivalent to $23,000 today) for his victory in the 250-mile stock car race held on the Bay Meadows one-mile thoroughbred race track.  Gregory the day’s fastest qualifier took the lead with three laps to go in his 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 coupe.

Other entries for the first Cow Palace race included noted sports car racer Jack Flaherty of San Francisco, Joe Roletto, the 1954 American Racing Association (ARA) ‘big car’ champion, veteran San Jose Speedway hardtop racer Carmel Fernandez, and hot rod roadster racer George “Blonde” Pacheco, as well as drivers Dan Regan of Palo Alto, Joe Cairate from San Bruno, Glen Jensen of Menlo Park and Ted Hanning, Orval Rose, and Dave Davies, all of San Francisco.  

 

In our next installment we will reveal the results of the 1955 wintertime races in the Cow Palace.