Chance Kinsley- racer

Part two

In the first part of the Chance Kinsley story, the young racer from Greenfield Indiana won the 1920 Labor Day races at the Shelby County Fairgrounds in Shelbyville Indiana. This second installment of his story begins Decoration Day weekend in 1921, with Kinsley entered in the 100-lap race on the ½-mile dirt track at the Butler County fairgrounds in Hamilton Ohio.

Wilbur D'Alene in 1919 in his Duesenberg

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

The race was promoted by well-known race driver Wilbur D’Alene a Hoosier native whose given name was Edwin Wilbur Aleon. D’Alene had raced with the American Automobile Association (AAA) since 1914, first for the Marmon factory and later the Duesenberg team. D’Alene nicknamed “the wild man from the West” finished second in the 1916 Indianapolis 500-mile race. D’Alene’s name was familiar to Southwestern Ohio fans as he finished second at the Cincinnati Motor Speedway board track in Sharonville Ohio on Labor Day 1916.

After he divorced his first wife Amy.in late 1916 Wilbur enlisted and served as an instructor for the aviation section of the US Signal Corps at Kelly Field in San Antonio Texas during World War 1.  On leave, D’Alene married for second time in July 1918 at age 33 and after his release from the service apparently raced little though he did appear in the 1919 Liberty 500-mile race.  D’Alene and riding mechanic William Vetere narrowly escaped disaster as their Duesenberg spun at high speed after one of the front tires blew out and jammed the steering. With the front axle broken the car was retired with 300 miles completed.   

During 1920, D’Alene settled in Fort Wayne Indiana where he operated a service station and a Miller Carburetor distributorship and was involved in “Garden City,” a planned amusement park and 1-1/4 motor speedway project. D’Alene’s race date at Hamilton was the first of a two-race promotion with the second race scheduled in Erlanger Kentucky on Saturday June 11.

The promised $1000 cash purse attracted a strong field. Drivers from Ohio included Charles Vischer from Toledo in a Chandler,  Joe Fielding of Columbus with an Essex,  Frank Varagnue from Walbridge and his Duesenberg,  Waldo Sober from Cleveland with a Roof Special and C. M. Fox of Toledo with an Oldsmobile racer.  In addition to Chance Kinsley in his Chevrolet Special, Hoosier entries among the fifteen cars and drivers entered included Frank Thomas from Indianapolis with a Rajo Special, Wilbert “Bill” Hunt in his ‘Craig-Hunt Special’ from Indianapolis and rookie driver Harold Werst from Fort Wayne with his Roof Special.

The Sunday afternoon pre-race practice session from 2 to 5 PM, held to give the drivers a chance to familiarize themselves with the track and tune their cars, was free and open to the public and attracted a sizeable crowd. The Monday May 30th race program was scheduled to begin at 2:30 PM, opening with an “elimination round” as each car took one flying lap against the clock to determine the nine-car starting field for the 100-lap 50-mile main event. Each successful qualifier was guaranteed $50 to start the race with the race winner set to receive $500, second place $300, third place $125, and the fourth place finisher $75.

On a day that featured “perfect weather” according to the report in the next day’s Hamilton Evening Journal the crowd which was “not as large as expected” enjoyed a thrilling afternoon of racing.  Alas, Chance Kinsley’s qualifying lap was not fast enough to advance to the 100-lap race which was marred by two accidents.

 

About a third of the way into the race, five cars tangled and all were knocked out of the race with Hunt’s Craig-Hunt Special faring the worst with as the Evening Journal  described the car as “practically destroyed with three wheels torn off.”  Driver Bill Hunt was rushed to Mercy Hospital with “painful and serious injuries” with cuts on his knee and chest and several broken ribs.

Later in the race while trying to catch the leader, Frank Thomas his ‘Rajo Special’ ran over the wheel of Bob Jackson’s Craig-Hunt Special and both cars were eliminated after the ensuing crash. At the end of the 50-mile race, D’Alene waved the checkered flag for the only three cars were still running with Joe Fielding’s Essex the victor by a three-lap margin over second place finisher Ben Lawwell with Ford Moyer from Indianapolis in third place. 

Apparently race promotion was not a long-term career path for D’Alene, and he returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway the following May in 1922 as a driver for the Monroe-sponsored three-car Frontenac team. Wilbur was teamed with young racer Worth Schloeman as his riding mechanic in a machine that was scheduled to carry a “radiophone” wireless system for communication between the car and the pit box according to Schloeman’s hometown Estherville Iowa Vindicator and Republican newspaper.  Schloeman born in 1899 had left his hometown just a year earlier with his home-built race car in tow in search of fame and fortune in the Middle West.  

Despite the pre-race publicity the honor of carrying the first radio set in the 1922 ’500’ went to Jack Curtner and his mechanic Homer Smith in the #18 Frontenac-Ford entered by the Chevrolet brothers.  During the 1922 ‘500’ D’Alene’s Monroe burst into flames on the backstretch and “singed” D’Alene and Scholeman.

 

The fire was extinguished and repairs were made, but the car lost many laps and when it was flagged off the track it had completed only 160 laps.  After he retired from racing D’Alene worked for a time as a deputy Federal Game Warden under his birth name Edwin Aleon.

1921 

Results from Chance Kinsley’s 1921 racing season are incomplete but the author found two reports.  Chance competed in the 25-mile race held on the ½-mile dirt track on the Fairgrounds in Warren Indiana on Saturday September 3 1921. An article in the Huntington Press newspaper the day before stated that “every plan of the management of the local races has been completed, and all is in readiness for the races. 

The writer promised that "every care is to be taken by the management to prevent accidents and show the public a clean, keenly contested race.” However, the article went on to note that “the public is warned to keep away from the fences and turns on the track, and is asked to aid in any way possible in making the race safe for the spectators.”

Earlier it had been revealed that F. S. Howell “entered a new 16 -valve Dodge which .will be driven by Chance Kinsley' of Greenfield, an old head at the racing game, having had a number of years of experience on the dirt tracks throughout the country.” Kinsley was joined by D. E. Jaques will appear in his Jaques Special from Thorntown, Ind., where he owned and operated the Jaques Auto and Garage Company which sold Dort and Velie automobile and Firestone tires.

Another entrant, Hugh Rife was identified as a former member of the Chevrolet team who “last year won six firsts out of ten starts” and there was an entry from Fred Clemons of Indianapolis with the ‘Speedway Special.’ Clemons was identified by the Huntington Press as “an old time driver and in 1911 and 1912 was driver for the McFarlan team in the 500-mile International races at Indianapolis.”

Clemons in fact had appeared at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1910 and 1911 and finished fifth in a McFarlan in the 1910 Remy Grand Trophy Race and fifth in an 80-lap race held on September 5 1910. Clemons and the McFarlan were entered for the 1911 “500’ but failed to maintain the required 75-mile per hour minimum speed.

The featured driver among the seventeen entries was Worth E. Schloeman of Estherville lowa with his ‘Schloeman Special.  Schliemann had reportedly entered his first races “in this section of the country” in 1920 and won fourteen out of sixteen starts. Among Worth’s accomplishments were victories in both the July 5th and the Labor Day events at Winchester, Indiana. The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette article stated that Schloeman “won first place at Greenfield in the fastest time made this year, beating a field of the fastest dirt track cars in this section of the country.”       

The races in Warren were apparently plagued by a small crowd (estimated at 1,000) and poor track conditions and there were several accidents which resulted in two injuries. In his five-mile elimination race, Jaques skidded in one of turns and flipped end-over-end twice and then caught fire with flames “shooting 20 feet in the air” as Jaques received severe burns around his left shoulder.

Meanwhile at the other end of the track a car swerved through the outer wooden fence and the riding mechanic L. Chapman was thrown from the car and suffered a deep wound below his left eye. In the other five-mile elimination ace the Frontenac-Ford of Ralph Ormsby of Fort Wayne the day’s fastest qualifier was eliminated for the day after the car’s rear axle broke.    

Five cars started the 25-mile feature race that Kinsley, Schloeman and Homer Ormsby. Homer’s car was eliminated when it too broke an axle on third lap, then Kinsley’s 16-valve Dodge dropped out with engine trouble on the 23rd lap. Schloeman led the remaining two cars to the finish in a time of 28 minutes and 58 seconds judged to be “exceptional considering the conditions.” No prize money was mentioned but Worth won “a beautiful silver loving cup put up by the racing association” and some handsome lap prizes donated by the merchants.”

Two days later on Labor Day Monday September 5 1921, many of the same drivers were among the fifteen race cars entered at the steeply banked half-mile Funk’s Speedway in Winchester Indiana. The Labor Day races featured a pair of races, 20 miles and 30 miles and attracted a large crowd despite the threatening skies overhead.

At some point during the afternoon, Chance Kinsley’s car went through the wooden guardrail and he suffered a “badly bruised” arm and chest. Kinsley was the only driver to suffer injuries at Winchester that day, though Worth Schloeman’s car reportedly turned over twice, and while the car was eliminated from racing for the rest of the day, Schloeman escaped injury.

Charles Brown of Indianapolis won the first 20-mile race in his ‘Brown Special’ in a time of 23 minutes and 54 seconds, more than two minutes faster than the previous track record for that distance. Brown won $200, while Cecil D Laum of Bloomington won $100 for finishing second in his Ford and local driver Everett Cox won $50 for his third place finish.

Arthur Chevrolet made a rare appearance on Labor Day as the driver and it paid off with a $400 victory in the thirty-mile feature event.  Chevrolet made limited starts after he was injured in a practice crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1920. The May 24 collision with Rene Thomas and Ralph DePalma left Arthur with facial cuts and a bruised chest.  On Labor Day 1921, Arthur’s Frotenac was chased across the finish line at Winchester by Waldo Smith and Charles Brown.     

1922

Click to enlarge

 

Results for Chase Kinsley's 1922 season are non-existent but an advertisement in the Shelby Democrat newspaper days before the scheduled October 8 1922 races at the Shelby County Fairgrounds identified Kinsley as a “famed motorcycle racer” who had driven “the Speedway Special in nine races this season and never finished out of the money.” 

In our next installment we will continue the story and look at how 1923 became Chance Kinsley’s breakout racing season.

 

  

 

   

Chance Kinsley - racer

Part One  

Young Chauncey “Chance” Kinsley was a Hoosier dirt track race car driver whose star was on the rise during the early part of the decade of the nineteen twenties but he never got his chance at the top rung of auto racing fame and fortune.

Chance born in Greenfield Indiana in 1896 was one of Marvin and Nannie Kinsley’s family of six children – two boys and four girls. Chance’s older brother Joseph and older sister Carrie both married and moved away from Indiana, while un-married middle sister Bessie lived in Portland Oregon.  Chance’s other two sisters, Nell born in 1890 and Frances, born in 1900, both lived in the family home at 218 South State Street in Greenfield and worked as school teachers.

Chance’s name first surfaced in connection with automobile racing at an event at the nearby Shelby County Fairgrounds ½-mile dirt track in Shelbyville on Labor Day Monday September 6 1920.  An advertisement in the Shelbyville Republican newspaper cautioned readers “Don’t fail to see these races or you will miss the most sensational, death-defying races ever witnessed by the public. The fastest and most daring speed demons in the country will drive in these races which will without doubt be the most exciting event ever staged in this community.” Admission to the races, held as part of the annual County Fair was 75 cents with a grandstand seat 25 cents more with the spectator gates scheduled to open at 10 AM and the racing set to start at 2:00 PM.

Due to the entries of “eleven speed artists” it was announced that “it will be necessary to hold elimination trials Monday morning in order to cut the field to the limited number of cars” for the three scheduled races, two 10-mile races and a 25-mile finale. Advance entries were received from hometown driver Dick Carroll, as well as from Wilbert “Bill” Hunt, Frank Thomas and Clarence Belt of Indianapolis, Toby Conners of Richmond, John Mahoney from Dunreith and Packey Quinn who hailed from Greensburg.

Louis Williams from Indianapolis was scheduled to drive the Keeton entry which was reported to have “held the record of 90 miles per hour (MPH) at Cincinnati,” a reference to the short-lived 2-mile board track Cincinnati Motor Speedway which had closed after the 1919 season.  Nearly 100 years after the fact, the provenance of Williams’ 1920 Shelbyville race entry cannot be positively confirmed but it seems probable that it was a former Indianapolis entry. The Keeton was seven years old in 1920 but local odds makers still established Williams as the 6-to-5 favorite to win the Labor Day races.  

 

 

The Keeton

In 1913, the company’s first year of passenger car production  Bob Burman raced a Keeton  finished in Brewster green with white trim in the Indianapolis ‘500.’ Burman’s Keeton was powered by a T-head Wisconsin Motor Company 4-cylinder engine that displaced 449 cubic inches and developed over 100 horsepower.  When one compares the specifications of Burman’s race car engine to that of the stock Keeton four-cylinder 255-cubic inch engine which produced 38 horsepower from the Detroit factory it appears that Burman’s car was an early example of a “silhouette race car.”  An April 1913 advertisement in the Motor World Wholesale magazine stated that Burman, “the Speed King of the World” had “selected the Keeton to drive and win the great 500-mile race at Indianapolis.”

Inventor Forrest M. Keeton established the Keeton Motor Company which built both six- and four- cylinder cars which rode on 120-inch wheelbase chassis that featured the radiator located behind the engine. Mr. Keeton’s patented design awarded patent number 969107 used a centrifugal fan attached to the flywheel to force air through the radiator.   

According to Keeton’s advertising, this “European design” (which was similar to Renault) allowed for a “graceful sloping hood” and “long low lines.”  The Keeton radiator design feature was carried over to Burman’s race car, which Mr. Keeton watched perform in the 1913 Indianapolis 500-mile race from the car’s pit stall.  

Bob Burman ran his single qualifying lap at 84 miles per hour in time trials and started the ‘500’ from 21st position but grabbed the lead of the race on lap 16 and quickly built up a substantial lead. Burman's time for 120 miles (48 laps) was one hour and thirty-one minutes, and as there was no previous standing mark for this distance, Burman's average speed of 79.12 MPH became a new race record.

Burman and his riding mechanic Tony Janette led the race until the engine backfired and the car caught fire on their 58th lap.  After the fire was extinguished and repairs made which included a carburetor replacement the Keeton had  lost over 20 minutes and ten laps but still managed to finish the race as “Wild Bob” who may have suffered burns accepted relief driving help from British driver Hughie Hughes.   

 

Author’s note:  there are a number of interesting photos of Keeton passenger cars and the Keeton racer in action in the 1913 Indianapolis ‘500’ on the Detroit Public Library website at https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/search?f%5B0%5D=mods_subject_topic_ms%3A%22Keeton%20Motor%20Company%22

 

Two weeks after the Indianapolis ‘500,’ Burman was entered in the Keeton in a race at the former Oakland Trotting Park in Emeryville California, but he drove his ‘Blitzen Benz’ instead. Over the July 4th holiday Burman and the Keeton placed second in the Potlach Trophy road race at Tacoma Washington then dropped out early in the National Trophy road race at Elgin Illinois at the end of August 1913. 

William “Willie” Knipper drove the Keeton racer now owned by Burman at Indianapolis for the 1914 International Sweepstakes after Louis Chevrolet passed on the ride. After he started twelfth over the course of the race Knipper made thirteen pit stops as the crew attempted to diagnosis the car’s lack of performance and changed the coil only to later find that the engine was performing poorly due to a stuck valve. The Keeton finished the ‘500’ in thirteenth place as car owner Burman relieved Knipper and was behind the wheel when the Keeton finally completed its 200th lap an hour and half after winner Rene Thomas had taken the checkered flag.

 

 

Jack Callaghan in the Keeton racer at Elgin Illinois

 

After racing promoter Ernest Moross bought the Wisconsin-powered Keeton,  Michigander John D. "Jack" Callaghan took the controls of the for the rest of 1914 and finished fourth in his hometown AAA (American Automobile Association) race at Kalamazoo (won by Burman in a Peugeot) and fifth at Galesburg Illinois both of which were one mile dirt ovals with small starting fields.   

Callaghan also raced the Keeton in several “outlaw” non-AAA IMCA (International Motor Contest Association) events across the country often in match races against the “Blitzen Benz” before he joined the Duesenberg team. Callaghan drove the third Duesenberg entry early in the 1915 AAA season while Frank Jennings replaced Callaghan as the driver of the Keeton in IMCA races.

Callaghan finished second in the “Tropico Road Race” held mid-week after a rain delay which was promoted by Lodge #1289 of the Benevolent and Protective Orders of Elks in Glendale, California, crashed out of the other two AAA early season West Coast races.  Jack lost two teeth after he struck a pole in the first crash at the San Diego Exposition Race, but his second crash a month later at Ascot Speedway proved fatal after Jack was impaled on a fence board and died the following day.   

The  Keeton Motor Company merged with the Car-Nation cyclecar company in early 1914, but the combined company failed in at the end of 1914. The Keeton was gone after just thirty-three months in business, and the factory building at 462 Lawton Avenue in Detroit and remaining inventory of 100 Keeton cars were sold off by the bankruptcy court during 1915.

 

 

The Craig-Hunt Special

 Another favorite for the Labor Day 1920 races at Shelbyville was Bill Hunt at 4-to-1 odds in the Craig-Hunt Special which was powered by a Ford Model T engine fitted with a sixteen-valve “Peugeot style” racing cylinder head. These heads with overhead valves and the camshaft controlled by bevel gears driven off the crankshaft were built in the shop owned by Hunt and John Craig on North Illinois Avenue in Indianapolis. Craig-Hunt Inc. later known as Speedway Engineering was also an early catalogue speed shop which sold parts needed  to build a race car such as speedster bodies, underslung frames, gear sets, engine parts and Pasco wire wheels.  

A few years later, Bill Hunt would hire a young man named Wilbur Shaw and allowed the young Shelbyville native to use his Illinois Avenue shop to build his first race car and the pair became lifelong friends. Hunt drove a Ford-Frontenac in the 1924 ‘500’ and later worked as a team manager and mechanic at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before he died in mid-December 1950, at what was believed to be 62 years old in Wickenburg Arizona after he collapsed while driving from Las Vegas to Phoenix. 

On Friday, September 3 1920 the Shelbyville Republican carried the news that the race registration committee announced that the fairgrounds track “will not be turned over to the drivers for practice spins before Monday morning.” The qualifying runs, for which the car and driver had to “do over 60 MPH” were overseen by Howard “Howdy” Wilcox the 1919 Liberty 500-mile Sweepstakes race winner, the second native Hoosier to win the great race and the first American born driver to do so since 1912 even though he drove a French Peugeot.   

The entry list for the 1920 Labor Day races in Shelbyville also included several Ford Specials, a Buick, an Oakland and a five-year Chevrolet driven by Chance Kinsley who was an employee of the Maxwell Motor Company.  While the author has been unable to find any published reports of the race, an advertisement in the Thursday September 9 edition of the Shelbyville Republican proclaimed that “Chance Kinsley of Greenfield won the most daring race Labor Day on the fairground track that was ever witnessed on a half-mile dirt track in his Chevrolet Special. He also says he never uses anything but Indian Gas.”

 

 

Indian Gasoline was the product of the Indian Refinery Company originally an Indiana company formed in Asphaltum a small village midway between Lafayette and Gary but which had years before relocated its offices to Cincinnati with its refinery in Lawrenceville Illinois. 

During the period between 1920 and 1922 Indian became a national chain via acquisitions and   transitioned its logo from the previous "running Indian" design to a logo that was a red ball surrounded by the words  “Indian” and  "Gas" in dark blue letters. In 1931 the Texas Corporation (TEXACO) purchased the Indian Refinery Company and operated Indian as a subsidiary until March 1943 when Texaco officially discontinued the Indian brand. 

In our next installment we will examine how Chance Kinsley’s racing successes led to growing prominence within his home state. 

A big “thank you” to Don Capps, Dennis Mattish and Jim Thurman of the Racing History Group for the information on the 1915 Tropico Road Race. Learn more and join the group at   https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/RacingHistory/info

  

 

 

 

 

Goodbye to Irwindale Speedway

 

Doug Stokes recently shared the sad news that the last official day of occupancy at the Irwindale Event Center (aka Irwindale Speedway) will be January 31 2018. Irwindale Speedway opened on March 27 1999, and from 1999 through 2011 the lightning fast progressively banked   ½-mile paved oval hosted the Turkey Night Grand Prix for the United States Auto Club midget division in a program supported by the USAC Western States sprint cars

Through the years, truly legendary midget car drivers raced and won the Turkey Night Grand Prix on Irwindale’s asphalt - Tony Stewart and Bobby Santos each won there, and the Bryan Clauson won back to back in 2009 and 2010. Jason Leffler won twice in 1999 and 2005, while David Steele won in 2001 and 2003.

While those were all great victories, for the author the most memorable race win came with the 2011 Turkey Night Grand Prix, when New Castle Indiana’s Caleb Armstrong led the last 81 laps as he withstood challenges from Kody Swanson, Bryan Clauson, Darren Hagen and a young kid named Kyle Larson. Clauson, denied his third straight Turkey Night win, finished third to claim the 2011 USAC midget title his second straight championship.

That November night in 2011, rumors swept the pit area that Irwindale has lost its title sponsor Toyota and was closing; sure enough, in February 2012 the Speedway declared bankruptcy. Nearly a year later, the track reopened as the Irwindale Event Center on a year-to-year lease but the Turkey Night Grand Prix never returned as the track focused on stock cars, "drifting," and figure eight racing.

Goodbye to Irwindale, we will always have its great racing memories        

The Eagles have landed at the Petersen

The author recently visited the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles and toured one of the featured exhibits “The Eagles have landed” in the gallery funded by the author’s friend and single engine wheel-driven Land Speed Record holder Charles Nearburg. The exhibit focuses on the cars and accomplishments of Southern California racing legend Dan Gurney  and we will take a look at several of the open-wheel cars on display.

 

 

From left to right – the All-American Racing (AAR) Gurney-Weslake V-12 Grand Prix car, the 1968 AAR Gurney-Weslake Ford powered Indianapolis car, and the AAR-modified Mclaren “McEagle” Can-Am car.

 

From left to right- the 1971 turbocharged Offenhauser powered Eagle, the 1975 turbocharged Offenhauser powered Eagle, and the 1977 Eagle SCCA Formula Ford.

1968 Eagle

Dan Gurney only drove the 1968 AAR Eagle in five United States Auto Club (USAC) races; four road course races and the Indianapolis International 500-mile Sweepstakes.  The Eagle’s season started at the Stardust 150 at the windswept Stardust international Raceway outside Las Vegas Nevada. Gurney qualified his new Eagle powered by the 303-cubic inch Ford stock block V-8 engine fitted with aluminum Gurney-Weslake cylinder heads for the pole position, but the front suspension of the car broke before Dan took the green flag. 

 

At the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Gurney qualified the Eagle in the tenth position with a four-lap average nearly five miles per hour slower than Joe Leonard’s pole-winning STP Lotus 56 turbine. During the race, Gurney never led but brought the Eagle home in in second place followed by his teammate Denis Hulme in fourth place. Two weeks later on June 15 1968, at the 2-1/2 mile Mosport road course in Canada, Gurney and the Eagle started from the pole position for both the 98-mile heat races. Gurney totally dominated the races, and led all 80 laps and won both the heat races.

Gurney and the Eagle did not appear in other 1968 USAC races until the season ending Rex Mays 300 at the Riverside International Raceway. For the second year in a row, Gurney qualified for the pole position and won the Rex Mays 300 for the second year in a row. Unlike the previous years, Gurney and the Eagle were totally dominant, as he led all 112 laps around the winding 2.6 mile road course.  In retrospect, the 1968 AAR Eagle has to be considered a success; three race wins and one second place in a limited five-race season

1971 Eagle

Dan Gurney retired as a driver in 1970, and he later admitted that the transition was difficult at times as rather a seat of the pants engineering evaluation, Gurney had to rely on feedback from new AAR driver. Bobby Unser.  The 1971 Eagle Indianapolis car was a revision of the 1970 Eagle fitted with a turbocharged Offenhauser power plant. The 1971 Eagle was brutally fast and Unser was the fastest qualifier at seven races and set four new lap records.

 

 

Reliability proved to be a problem and between mechanical failures and crashes, Unser only finished five races on the 12-race Marlboro Championship Trail but in two of those races, at Trenton New Jersey and the Milwaukee Mile Unser emerged victorious. In August at the Milwaukee Mile, Bobby led all but nine laps, and at the Marlboro 300 held in October at Trenton, Bobby led the first 70 laps before he pitted and turned the led over to his brother Al for the next ten laps before Bobby in the #2 Olsonite Eagle took back the lead and led the rest of the way.  

1981 Eagle

For 1980, Gurney together with All American Racers designers Trevor Harris and John Ward created an amazing design that used the Boundary Layer Adhesion Technology (BLAT) ground effects system. Instead of using tunnels underneath the car as with other designs the BLAT concept used a twin vortex generating shape at the trailing edge of the rear bodywork. The routing of the naturally aspirated aluminum block 358-cubic inch Chevrolet engine exhaust system added further energy and downforce to the airflow.

 

By 1981 BLAT had reached its ultimate development with this Pepsi Challenger and driven by veteran Mike Mosely qualified at 197.141 miles per hour (MPH) to start in the middle of the front row for the Indianapolis 500-mile race. While former Eagle pilot Bobby Unser streaked away from the pole position on his way to a disputed victory, Mosley was the first car sidelined after just 16 laps with an oil radiator leak.

 

A week later at the Gould Rex Mays Classic, Mosely and the Eagle suffered an early engine problem and failed to make a time trial run, so the Pepsi Challenger started 25th in the 26-car field. Mosley worked his way forward through the field and took the lead on lap 106 and he built up more than a one-lap advantage over second place Kevin Cogan when the checkered flag dropped after 150 laps around the one-mile oval.

Sadly the Milwaukee race was the high water mark for the Eagle’s 1981 season, as in its remaining three appearances, the car was sidelined with mechanical troubles. Later in an ironic turn events the Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) organization, which Gurney had helped, found after displeasure with USAC rule-making outlawed both the BLAT concept and the use of aluminum stock-block engines.    

"The Eagles have landed" exhibit which includes the historic Moet champagne bottle from the 1967 24 hours of LeMans and Gurney's Bell ground-breaking full-face helmet worn in the 1969 Indianapolis 500-mile race continues at the Petersen Automotive Museum  through January 10 2018

Photos by the author    

 

 

 

3/4 (TQ) midgets at the Petersen

The Richard Varner Gallery  of the Petersen Automotive Museum has a current exhibition through 2018 entitled "Harley vs. Indian." The author really isn't a motorcycle guy, but the exhibit featured a pair of  early 3/4 (TQ) midgets, powered by (as you might have guessed) Harley Davidson and Indian engines. The Harley powered car was emblazoned "Half a Harley" so its safe to assume that the Indian TQ midget was also a single-cylinder power plant adapted from a motorcycle.

Click to enlarge these photos of the Harley TQ

 

 

Click to enlarge these photos of the Indian TQ

 

 

The author took these photographs and welcomes more information on either or both of these cars at kevracerhistory@aol.com

 



1930’s Muroc Record breakers

Part three

In our last chapter about the land speed record (LSR) attempts conducted on Muroc Dry Lake during the 1930’s we traced the early history of  the Clyde Adams built “Catfish” race car designed by renowned Stanford aeronautics professor Elliott Grey Reid. The car dropped off  the 1932 AAA (American Automobile Association) national  championship trail- why?  

After the July 2 race at Syracuse race where “Stubby” Stubblefield finished second,  the current Class C world speed record holding car was purchased from Art Sparks and Paul Weirick by the 1932 Indianapolis winner Fred Frame who used it on a nationwide barnstorming tour. According to author Gordon Eliot White, Sparks and Weirick used the $8500 proceeds from the sale to buy a pair of Miller 220 engines stroked to 247 cubic inches which they used in their successful AAA Pacific Southwest circuit ‘big car.’

The “Catfish” & Fred Frame

On Saturday October 29 1932, Frame and the “Catfish” appeared in a match race sanctioned by the AAA against the 1927 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner George Souders who returned to racing after three years.  Severely injured in a dirt track crash at Detroit July 1928 in which he suffered a compound skull fracture and broken bones in both arms, Souders retired as race driver the following February.

The first race on the 5/8-mile West Texas Fairgrounds in more than two years was promoted and officiated by local petroleum products trucking company owner D.H. Jefferies, who imported the 1925 Indianapolis winner Peter DePaolo to act as the official starter. The 75 laps of racing action was scheduled to be divided into three heats- the first heat distance of 30 laps, the second 25 laps, and the last heat 20 laps. 

The interesting twist in Abilene was that the “Catfish” was driven by Souders, not Frame who drove his Miller-powered Duesenberg with which he had finished second at the 1931 Indianapolis ‘500.’ Frame purchased the blue-painted Duesenberg from owner Harry Hartz after the 1931 season, entered it for Billy Winn at Indianapolis in 1932, and then drove the car himself for the balance of the 1932 AAA season. Sometime prior to its appearance at Abilene, Frame had replaced the original Duesenberg engine with a Miller power plant.  

The Frame cars arrived in the Abilene area early in the week and were placed on display. The “Catfish” was parked at Christian’s Super Service the local Firestone tire distributor, while Frame’s Miller-Duesenberg was on display in the showroom of the Fulwiler Motor Company, the local Ford dealer  On Wednesday October 26, as the “Catfish” was towed behind a truck to the race track it bumped the back of the truck which “dented its snout.”

With the damage quickly repaired, Souders practiced the “Catfish” extensively on Thursday while Frame took a local newspaper reporter, Harold L. “Prexy” Anderson, along as a passenger for a few fast laps around the 5/8-mile dirt track. After the run, “Prexy” a long-time Abilene fixture self-described as “one of the most widely read and quoted sports writers in the southwest” wrote that it had been his “first racing ride - and last” while Frame for his part, noted that he had been running “at a snail’s pace.”

The Abilene Morning News reporter noted that while the “Catfish” was super-streamlined which allowed it run faster on the long straightaways at Indianapolis, it had “no advantage on the Abilene short course.” On Friday morning after a few practice laps, Souders directed mechanics to install a lower rear end drive gear in preparation for the following day’s race.

The race program which began at 3 PM on Saturday was very well attended but turned out to be not very competitive. Souders in the “Catfish” which still carried its Gilmore sponsorship logos suffered a flat tire during the first 30-lap heat race and George finished two laps in arrears. Souders was more competitive in the remaining two heat races, but Frame swept all three heat races wins that day.  

Frame and Harry Hartz at Muroc in 1933

 

 

This photograph from the June 1934 issue of Popular Science magazine

show a crew readying the Union '76' Special at Muroc Dry Lake

In March 1933  the “Catfish” powered by a Miller 255 marine engine reappeared at Muroc Dry Lake prepared to set new records driven by Frame and Harry Hartz.  Leading up to the record runs in early March 1933, newspaper articles ran across the country with a photograph of Hartz seated in the “new ultra-streamlined car” which “resembles very much a prehistoric monster.” Sponsorship for the record attempt was provided by with Union ‘76’ gasoline.

The Union Oil Company founded in 1890 in Santa Paula California sold its products through independent and company owned service stations. Union introduced its ‘76’ grade of gasoline on January 2 1932 and on February 6 1932 filed a trademark application which was rejected by the examiner of trademarks. The reason given was that “the number `76' applied to gasoline would doubtless indicate to the purchaser the octane rating….or Baumé gravity (density).”

An affidavit filed by the company responded that “said numeral `76' was not affixed by said Union Oil Company of California to the gasoline to indicate its gravity or octane rating or any other grade, characteristic or quality of the gasoline, but merely as an arbitrary trademark." This dispute clearly outlines the confusion over Union’76’ gasoline, as even 85 years later, there remains the public perception that Union ‘76’ gasoline had a 76 octane rating.

Union newspaper advertisements were carefully worded but bragged of the gasoline’s performance advantages. For example an advertisement in the San Bernardino Sun published in September 1932 read in part “Union 76 gives extra performance - this fresh gasoline broke and still holds every American stock car speed record from 1 to 500 miles.” This is a reference to the records set in July 1932 by Eddie Miller and Earl Cooper in a pair of V-12 powered Auburns.   

The Union ‘76’ ad went on to state “under all motor operating temperatures on the road, new Union 76 Gasoline has the highest anti-knock or octane rating of any non-premium gasoline sold!  Qualities vary in different gasolines. You will find Union 76 with its superior qualities of quick starting, anti-knock and power gives you the economy of greater mileage and smoother performance.”

After numerous appeals and rejections in 1937 the tribunals of the Patent Office affirmed the decision of the Commissioner of Patents’ rejection of the registration. The decision stated that the “numerals ‘76’ are mis-descriptive of a grade or quality of oil and do not indicate origin. It appears that the mark "76" might be understood by the purchasing public to be a grade or quality mark so the appellant should not be given the right to use these numerals to the exclusion of all others engaged in the trade.”

Even today Unocal (Union’s predecessor) states that “in 1932, the company introduced a new high-octane gasoline with the brand name 76. The number 76 is no ordinary number but was incorporated to mark a token of respect to the Declaration of Independence of United States of America dated 1776.”

Harry Hartz, the 1926 AAA national champion had retired from racing after suffering severe injuries and burns in a 1927 crash on the Rockingham board track in Salem New Hampshire. Hartz became a car owner and won the 1930 Indianapolis ‘500’ in car he modified.  

The following year, defending champion Billy Arnold in Hartz’ car led the first 155 laps of the 1931 Indianapolis ‘500’ before he crashed out with a six-lap lead, and Hartz’ second car driven by Fred Frame finished second.  In the 1932 ‘500,’ Frame returned in a Hartz owned machine and won after he led the final 58 laps.

On March 9 Hartz set new International Association Internationale des Automobile Clubs Reconnus (AIACR) records for the “flying” one kilometer and one mile at 148.70 Miles per hour (MPH) and 151.10 MPH respectively. The following day Hartz set the new 10-mile Class C record of 146.71 MPH as he covered the distance in a scant four minutes and 5.39 seconds which broke John Godfrey Parry-Thomas’ record which had stood since 1926. 

On March 11, Hartz set the new five-kilometer standard at 145.93 MPH which broke Stubblefield’s record set in the same chassis by more 12 ½ miles per hour. Fred Frame then took the wheel for the five-mile run that same day and he broke Stubblefield’s nine-month old record by over fourteen miles per hour.

The following day Sunday March 12 1933 Frame set new International Class C standards for 50 kilometer and 50 mile distances from a standing start. Kaye Don had set the old records in 1929 on the high-banked Brooklands track in England, but on a circular course set up on the flat dry lake surface, Frame smashed the old records. Frame’s new 50-kilometer speed of 136.52 MPH broke Don’s record by nearly 13 MPH, while his 50-mile average speed of 139.64 MPH bettered Don’s record by over 15 MPH.

The “Catfish” after the Muroc Class C records

 

Johnny Seymour and Frank Hinkley celebrate qualifying

for the 1934 Indianapolis 500-mile race

Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

 

The Clyde Adams built “Catfish” did not appear at any AAA championship races in 1933, but it was entered by Fred Frame as the unsponsored “Streamline Miller” for the 1934 Indianapolis ‘500’ for driver Johnny Seymour.  Johnny, himself a former land speed record holder on an Indian motorcycle had four previous starts at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all behind the wheel of front-wheel drive machines.  

Fred Frame entered three cars at the Speedway in 1934 - the “Catfish” with the Miller engine de-stroked to just 200 cubic inches of displacement, the old Miller-powered Duesenberg for rookie Rex Mays and the 1930 Indianapolis winning front wheel drive car purchased from Harry Hartz for Frame himself.  Seymour struggled through practice to find sufficient speed, while Mays comfortably qualified on the third day of time trials at 113.639 MPH.

On Monday May 28 the last day of qualifying disaster struck during Frame’s 10-lap qualifying run when a steering arm broke and the front wheel drive entry crashed into the wall and was damaged beyond immediate repair. Frame and his riding mechanic Aloysius ‘Al’ Theisen, a young dirt track racer were shaken but otherwise uninjured.

Frame watched from the pit area as Seymour posted a ten-lap qualifying average of 108.591 MPH to become the slowest car in the starting field. Seymour and his riding mechanic Frank Hinkley started the “Streamline Miller” last in the 33-car field but they were sidelined on lap 22 by either a burnt rod bearing or broken pinion gear 

Frame later sold the “Catfish” to Charles Worley around the time that its International 1-mile, 1-kilometer and five kilometer records were smashed by Rudolf Caraciola in a modified Mercedes W25 Grand Prix car. The record car funded not by an oil company but by the Nazi party, was fitted with a canopy over the driver and powered by a 205-cubic inch straight eight double overhead camshaft engine that developed a reported 430 horsepower. 

On October 28 1934 on five-kilometer stretch of specially constructed roadway known as “the Gyon record stretch” between Budapest and Kecskernet Hungary, Caraciola posted an astonishing two-way average speed of 197.35 MPH for the “flying kilometer” and 196.78 MPH for the “flying mile.” In an enormous jump in speed, both runs were nearly 50 miles per hour faster than Hartz’ records set just a year and half earlier  Caraciola afterwards compared the W25’s ride on the 18 feet 6 inch wide concrete to racing a limousine and the car forever become known as the “Rennlimousine"

 

 

The 1934 Mercedes W25 Rennlimousine

photo courtesy of Daimler AG

 

On December 10 1934 the “Rennlimousine” modified with a lower canopy, a wider windshield and a set of air intakes and outlets made its attempt at the five kilometer record at the AVUS (Automobil-Verkehrs und Übungsstraße) track in the Berlin suburbs which was composed of two six-mile long straightaways connected by tall banked brick curves. At the end of the day, Caraciola smashed Hartz’ record by 46 MPH and establish the new AIACR Class C five kilometer standard of 197.86 MPH

 

Frank McGurk and Karl Hattel pose before the 1936 Indianapolis 500 start

Photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 

 

The “Catfish” returned to Indianapolis in 1936 powered by a Ford Model B engine with a ‘DO’ (double overhead camshaft) Cragar cylinder head conversion as the ‘Abel’s Auto Ford Special.’  Frank “Wildman” McGurk a Legion Ascot Speedway veteran but a rookie on the Indianapolis bricks was selected to pilot the car he also drove Worley’s ‘big car.’

Karl Hattel a talented 21 year old midget racer served as McGurk’s riding mechanic and the pair qualified the “Catfish” with a ten-lap average speed of 113.102 MPH on the busy second day of time trials to take their place as the 22nd starter. On Race Day, the number 52 “Catfish” was sidelined after 51 laps after the crankshaft broke in the Ford engine.

Before the 1937 Indianapolis ‘500’ ownership of the “Catfish” passed to another of the era’s multi-talented men, Frank Brisko who was a race driver, mechanic, engine and car builder. Brisko first raced on the Indianapolis 2-1/2 mile brick course in 1929 and had introduced his own engine design in 1936. Brisko fitted one of his own 271-cubic inch six-cylinder double overhead camshaft engines between the frame rails of the “Catfish” for rookie driver Dennis “Duke” Nalon. After “Duke” could not get the #21  “Elgin Piston Ring Special” up to speed, veteran Dave Evans, who first raced in the ‘500’ in 1925 gave it a try but fell short as the car could not complete its qualifying attempt.

Postscript

According to Gordon Eliot White, the “Catfish” was driven by Emil Andres in the 1938 Indianapolis 500-mile race but the car was unrecognizable as the “Catfish” as it had been re-bodied with a one-man body after the end of the AAA “junk formula” rules following the 1937 season.  The “Catfish” was gone but it had spawned some similarly styled machines; in 1938, Floyd “Pop” Dreyer built a Harley-Davidson powered midget race car that was a small-scale homage to the “Catfish.”  

Wilbur Shaw's winning "Pay Car" in 1937  

note the similarity to the "Catfish"

photo courtesy of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway

The most famous of the cars inspired by the aerodynamic “Catfish” was the Wilbur Shaw “Pay Car.”  Built by Myron Stevens who rode with Shaw in the car’s debut in the 1936 Indianapolis ‘500,’ the pair lost ten minutes during the race when the hood came loose and the “Gilmore Speedway Special” finished seventh.   The following year the “Pay Car” returned;  Shaw started second, led 131 laps and recorded his first of three “500’ victories.