Track Roadster re-creation

In the late 1940’s "hot rod roadster" or track roadster racing was the rage, with clubs across the United States, but there were three prominent clubs – Mutual Roadster Association in the Midwest, the California Roadster Association in Southern California, and the Northern California Roadster Racing Associatio - that shaped the sport. Many "hot road roadster" racers  advanced to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, namely '500' race winners Troy Ruttman and Bob Sweikert.

In Bakersfield California, Fay Mooney and JT “Spud” Simkins built a hot rod roadster of their own that used a 1925 Ford Model T body on a custom-built frame powered by an inline 6-cylinder GMC engine fitted with three carburetors.

Their very attractive car was built for both show and go as it appeared at the 1950 Oakland Roadster Show and in the pages of the January 1950 Hot Rod magazine, as well as on race tracks at Bakersfield, Porterville, Gardena and Culver City California driven by Simkins, Earl “Rosie” Roussel, and Harold Hall.   

With the original car lost to history, Mooney’s son Paul, commissioned Image Street Rods of Santa Maria California to build this accurate re-creation using period photographs.  The finished car was shown at the Coker Tire display at the 2018 SEMA show in Las Vegas.

All photos by the author

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

 

     

 

 

 

     

 

Roadster racer Don Kolb’s 1949 season

Don Kolb's 1948 photograph from the Oakland Tribune

 

When we last visited the story of Oakland roadster racer Don Kolb, he was a newlywed and finished third in the 1948 season points for Racing Roadsters Incorporated (RRI). In this installment we look at Kolb’s 1949 season.

To begin the 1949 season apparently there was a cease fire between RRI and the rival Northern California Racing Roadster Association (NCRRA).  The NCRRA sanctioned races in the San Joaquin Valley, east of the Bay Area, with Stockton’99’ Speedway as the group’s home track while RRI, with whom Kolb raced, sanctioned most of its 1949 races at Oakland Stadium. As an added attraction, several RRI races were paired with the new automotive ‘fad,’ demolition derbies, which began on the West Coast during 1947 at Carrell Speedway.

The Racing Roadsters Inc. 1949 season opened on Sunday night April 24 1949 at Contra Costa Speedway, a banked 1/4-mile dirt oval located near Buchanan Airfield on Pacheco Road four miles north of Walnut Creek California. The roadsters scheduled a full program that featured time trials, a trophy dash, four heat races, two semi-main races and a 25-lap feature race.  

The defending RRI champion Johnny Key won his heat race, one of the semi-main races and the feature, while Don Kolb won his heat race but his car dropped out during the feature. Other drivers at Contra Costa that night were Elmer George, Ed Andres, Al Slinker, Bill Grossi, former NCRRA regular Bob Schellenger (alternately spelled Schellinger) and a new driver to the Bay Area, young Bill Pettit originally from Salt Lake City Utah in his #222 roadster.

On Friday night May 6, the Racing Roadsters made their first appearance of the season at the freshly paved ¼-mile oval at Oakland Stadium, actually located at the intersection of 155th Avenue and East 14th Street in San Leandro. 4200 fans in the stands for the ‘Golden Gate Fields Sweepstakes’ meant that the RRI stars were racing for a purse of $2100. The 25-lap feature was captured by Sacramento’s Butler Rugaard who had started the race dead last. Second place went to Santa Cruz driver Lloyd Ragon followed by Don Kolb in third position with Pettit in fourth place in the race completed in just seven minutes and 36 seconds.

One week later, Kolb began the night’s races at Oakland Stadium in second place in RRI points behind Lloyd Ragon. Kolb beat Johnny Key to the stripe to win their heat race, but in the 25-lap feature later that evening, the finish was reversed as Key won a caution-filled race over Kolb and Slinker before what Oakland Tribune writer Rod Lee described as a small crowd.

Back at the Oakland Stadium on May 20 time trials, the trophy dash, and running of the heat races went smoothly, but the start of the evening’s 25-lap feature race was delayed for half an hour as drivers “squabbled over starting positions” according to a report in the next day’s Oakland Tribune. Once the feature began, Don Kolb took the lead on lap four and held on until lap nineteen when he gave way to Lloyd Ragon, the trophy dash winner. Ragon from Santa Cruz scored the victory over Kolb with Bob Schellenger third.

Based on his strong performances over the last two weeks Don Kolb entered the May 27 race at Oakland as the RRI point leader by eleven markers over Ragon. Kolb scored a clean sweep of the night’s racing as he won the trophy dash, his heat race, and the feature. Don took over the race lead from Schellenger on the nineteenth lap and won with a time of seven minutes and 32 seconds.

After the Oakland 5/8-mile track hosted the Western Racing Association (WRA) big cars on May 29, on Memorial Day the roadsters were back in action with twin 25-lap daytime features. Don Kolb won the trophy dash, but his name does not appear in the results of either feature. The first feature which honored flagman (and local new car salesman) Hank Mederios was won by Joe Perry, while the second race the ‘Memorial Day Sweepstakes’ was captured by Elmer George over his friend  and fellow Salinas resident Johnny Key.

At the next RRI race held on the ½-mile track in Watsonville on June 5, Don Kolb qualified third but had mechanical troubles during the evening and lost the RRI points lead to Ragon and Don would never again be in contention for the 1949 RRI drivers’ championship.  When the roadsters returned to Oakland on June 10, Kolb’s troubles continued as he and Schellenger tangled on lap 5 of the feature. Neither car finished while Ragon won again to pad his lead.

The following night, Kolb scored his second feature win of the 1949 season on the ¼-mile dirt track at Belmont City Stadium adjacent to the Bay Meadows thoroughbred track, Back at Oakland on Friday night June 17 for the ‘Captain Bolger Sweepstakes’ Kolb finished in third place behind Johnny  Key and  Stan Dean  in his trademark #33 roadster. Two days later in another Oakland Sunday daytime program, Key repeated as he won the 25-lap ‘Spike Jones Racing Roadster Handicap’ over Schellenger and tied the track record as he completed the 25 laps in seven minutes and six seconds at an average speed of over 52 miles per hour (MPH).

The following Friday night at Oakland after Ragon, Perry and Pettit crashed out on lap nine Johnny Key had victory in sight when his car blew a tire on the 22nd lap. With Key out of the running, Al Slinker inherited the win while Kolb finished in the fourth position.  Key returned to his winning ways at Oakland Stadium on July 1, but on Sunday July 10 for the “Radio Sweepstakes.” run on the 5/8-mile oval which featured a steeply banked third and fourth turn, the cars of Key, Kolb, Ragon and Slinker all broke down and did not start the 35-lap feature which was won by Stan Dean.

On Friday night July 15 the racing roadsters returned to the ¼-mile Oakland infield oval paired with the destruction derby. Al Slinker won the 5-car derby while Ragon won the 25-lap roadster main. The following night at Belmont, three spectators were injured after a wheel flew off Niles resident Chet Richards’ car and into the grandstand on the 33rd lap of the scheduled 35 lap feature. The rest of the race was cancelled with race leader Lloyd Ragon declared the winner.

Prior the start of the ‘hot rod’ race the next night July 16 at Contra Costa Speedway Ragon was listed as the RRI point leader, but after Johnny Key won the night’s feature race, Lloyd found himself trailing Johnny by seven points. Even though he won the trophy dash and finished second in the feature Don Kolb remained in fourth place in the RRI season standings behind Schellenger. Back at Oakland Stadium on Friday night July 22 1949 Don Kolb finished the 25-lap feature in third place behind winner Lloyd Ragon and runner-up Johnny Key.

During the following week, word reached the West Coast of the tragic death of 21- year old Bill Pettit in a July 23 crash in Iowa. The Salt Lake City native had moved to Oakland and raced with RRI from the start of the 1949 season through the July 1 race, after which young Pettit had married and traveled “back east” to race with the Hurricane Hot Rod Association a group run by Chicago speed shop owner Anthony Granatelli.

Before the fateful race, Pettit who turned 21 only eight days earlier, reportedly sold his roadster and told his bride of two weeks that he would quit racing. On the last lap of the Saturday night feature race at the Playland Park Speedway in Council Bluffs Iowa, Pettit tried to slice between two cars in their battle for second place. Pettit’s #222 hooked wheels, barrel rolled three times, and came to rest upright, but he suffered fatal head injuries.

The Council Bluffs track was part of an amusement park complex across the Missouri River from Omaha Nebraska owned by Abe and Lou Slusky. The ¼-mile dirt track was originally the site of the shuttered Dodge Park dog track allegedly owned by mobster Meyer Lansky. The race on July 23 was the third ‘hot rod’ race ever held there as the track usually hosted midget car racing.

To honor their fallen comrade before the ‘July Sweepstakes’ feature on the 29th at Oakland, Lloyd Ragon carried a checkered flag on a memorial lap. Kolb’s car the evening’s fastest qualifier at 16.69 seconds, broke on the first lap of the feature and Don finished 12th in the 12-car field as Lloyd Ragon won and re-captured the RRI point lead by six points over Key.

In a sad postscript to the Pettit story, pioneering black roadster racer Curtis “Cyclone” Ross was killed at Playland Park on July 30 during the running of the ‘Bill Pettit Benefit Race.’ Ross, who had been one of the drivers involved in the Pettit fatal crash, died after his car ran over the back of another car and flipped end-over end several times.

Ross at 32 years old was much traveled as he had raced with the Midwestern-based Mutual and the California Roadster Associations. The ‘Pettit Benefit Race’ that brought in over $1300 for Bill’s young widow was the final ‘hot rod’ race at the Playland Park track which continued to race stock cars until 1977.

The roadster racing season moved into August 1949, and on the fifth newcomer Bob Gonzales won the 25-lap feature and set a new ¼-mile Oakland track record of seven minutes and six seconds for the distance. After the race card on the 11th was rained out on the 18th Don Kolb his won his third roadster feature of the 1949 season after an interesting series of events.  

During qualifying Johnny Key’s usual #5 entry broke a connecting rod and Key jumped into the seat of the #11 car. After the engine in the #5 car was repaired, Kolb took it over and won the 15-lap semi-main race to advance into the feature starting field.  During the 25-lap feature, Key in #11 moved up from his tenth starting position to take the lead on the fourth lap and maintained his lead until the engine failed in his #11 mount on the race’s 22nd lap. Kolb led the final three laps in the #5 “John Milton Special” to claim the win. Despite his three wins, by the end of the 1949 RRI season, Kolb finished the season in fifth place behind Johnny Key, Lloyd Ragon, Bob Schellenger and Stan Dean as reported at the March 2 1950 awards banquet.

 

 

A newspaper ad for A BCRA "hardtop" race 

 

During the fall of 1949 Don Kolb participated in several Bay Cities Racing Association (BCRA) “hardtop” and midget races. “Hardtops” were a relatively new phenomenon which the BCRA had debuted in August at Contra Costa Speedway followed by a slate of weekly races, often held in conjunction with BCRA midget races, as the “hardtops” quickly supplanted midget and roadster racing in popularity.

Later in August BCRA officials suspended midget point leader Jerry Piper for “conduct detrimental to the organization” after he and former BCRA business manager Bob Barkheimer founded their own “hardtop” sanctioning body, the California Stock Car Racing Association (CSCRA).  With Piper on the sidelines, Marvin Burke won the 1949 BCRA championship. In the coming years the CSCRA with Piper as its President grew to sanction races at more than 20 tracks in the state. 

Kolb described as one of the “new BCRA pilots” together with future BCRA Hall of Famers Bob Rushing and Cliff Roberts debuted at the BCRA “hardtop” race at Oakland Stadium on October 4. Kolb finished third behind BCRA “regulars” Johnny Soares and Bert Moreland in the 25-lap ‘Hayward Moose Sweepstakes.’ Kolb also was documented as an entry in the final BCRA “hardtop” race of the 1949 season held November 27 won by Ed Normi ahead of Bert Moreland and George Bignotti.   

Kolb was one of eighteen drivers entered in the annual BCRA midget “Invitational Classic’ scheduled for November 6 1949 on the Oakland Stadium 5/8-mile track. Other entries included Ed Elisian, Bob Veith, Walt Faulkner, Bill Vukovich, and Earl Motter. Bob Sweikert who had sold his own Kurtis-Kraft midget in February  after he captured the six-race 1949 inaugural BCRA indoor championship, returned to drive George Bignotti’ s #1, while three-time BCRA champion Fred Agabashian entered his Ford V-8 60 powered machine for rising BCRA star Larry Terra of Hayward.

The November 6 1949 event was rained out after time trials were completed and the entire program was rescheduled for November 13. Earl Motter was the fast qualifier on the 13th as he posted a best lap of 20.11 seconds which was nearly a tenth faster than the quick time he posted a week earlier. Kolb did not start the 25-lap feature, which was won by Bob Sweikert over Motter and Marvin Burke in a caution-filled race completed in 12 minutes and 39 seconds.   

In our next installment we will continue to follow Don Kolb’s career in the rapidly changing Bay Area racing environment in the early nineteen fifties.