The notorious ‘Tiny’ Wainwright

Part four – his sad final years

Former midget auto racer Branch Milton ‘Tiny’ Wainwright lost 85 pounds he was while incarcerated in the Missouri State Penitentiary.  When he was released from prison on the morning of December 5, 1951, ‘Tiny’ had served just over thirteen months, with time credited for good behavior which included blood donations earmarked for the military. 

Wainwright left the Jefferson City prison angry because he had recently learned that his former girlfriend had gotten married.  ‘Tiny’ headed west for Kansas City and stopped along the way to purchase a knife with a 5-inch long blade. Once in Kansas City, ‘Tiny’ went directly to his former girlfriend’s residence with her new husband, a man named Harold McCroskey and pushed his way into their apartment.

As fate would have it three police officers were already in the apartment, questioning Mr. and Mrs. McCroskey about five stolen ladies’ coats, including Mrs. McCroskey’s fur coat. Once inside the apartment, the enraged ‘Tiny’ blindly charged at McCroskey, kicked him and swung his knife.  Police Lieutenant Lester Haupt lunged to grab the knife and was stabbed.

According to a report published in the Daily Capitol News, Wainwright then exclaimed “Hell, Lester I didn’t know you were in here. I’m sorry.” While Haupt went to the hospital to get eight stitches in his wounded hand, the other police officers arrested McCroskey on an outstanding robbery arrest warrant from Beverly Hills California and also took ‘Tiny’ to headquarters for further investigation.      

One would assume that with an assault on a police officer, ‘Tiny’ Wainwright had assured himself a quick return trip to the penitentiary, but somehow, he was not charged in the bizarre incident. 

Weeks later in early 1952, Wainwright was hired as the assistant business agent of the Greene County Teamsters Local 245 union with offices at Springfield, Missouri. By 1954, Wainwright had risen through the ranks to become the union local 245 president and  in that role, was questioned by Joplin Missouri police officers about violence that occurred during the Teamsters union’s attempt to unionize workers at a local Coca Cola bottling plant.

On Thursday June 25, 1958 Wainwright made a disastrous appearance in Washington DC before the United Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor or Management Field (known to generally to the public as the “McClellan Rackets Committee”). 

The purpose of the hearing that day according to Committee chairman Arkansas Senator John McClellan was that “we shall inquire into the effect that the type of leadership in this international union now being provided by Mr. Hoffa and a number of disreputable and questionable characters who are his associates is having on the membership of the union.”

After he was sworn in, ‘Tiny’ who was accompanied by the Teamster union's Washington attorney H. Clifford Allder, was asked several basic innocuous questions by Senator McClellan. The questions included what he did for a living, and the name of his employer, but for each of McClellan’s questions, Wainwright invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination as he stated, “I respectfully decline to answer because I honestly believe my answer might tend to incriminate me.”

McClellan was incredulous at ‘Tiny’s’ responses to such basic questions, then he turned the questioning over to Robert Kennedy, the Committee Chief Counsel. Kennedy asked ‘Tiny’ to confirm his criminal conviction history which included a previous publicly unknown one-year probation for a 1934 burglary and payment of a fine for a burglary conviction in 1948. Wainwright again cited his Fifth Amendment rights.

Kennedy then read verbatim testimony given in 1956, to a United States House of Representatives committee, wherein Mr. Ray L. Smith, owner of Ray L. Smith & Son, stated that “he had to pay $650.80 for the period from September 7 to September 28, 1952, as an extortion payment to Mr. Branch Wainwright.”

‘Tiny’ was asked by Committee Chairman Senator McClellan “Do you want to deny the testimony that Mr. Ray L. Smith gave against you as to your extorting money from him?” 

Once again, Wainwright invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, a common tactic used by Allder’s clients. Kennedy then asked if the Missouri-Kansas Conference of Teamsters, headed by Harold Gibbons had hired him in 1952 just a few days after being released from prison. After ‘Tiny’ again refused to answer Kennedy’s last question, the Committee members dismissed him.   

With the bad local publicity generated by his Senate testimony, ‘Tiny’s’ days with the union were numbered and on July 30, 1959 Teamsters Union President James R. Hoffa announced that “Branch Wainwright is no longer with the local union," he said, “I immediately notified the local union officials to remove him from the payroll and from any authority in the local."

In September 1961, Wainwright whose weight had ballooned back up to 250 pounds as he lived in Independence Missouri, was arrested again and charged with the theft of $972 worth of women’s clothing after a Shawnee Kansas couple, the Georges, were arrested with stolen clothing which they claimed that “Tiny” had sold them.  

Before the start of his clothing theft trial, ‘Tiny’ and another man Ernest “Ernie” Anderson were charged with the theft of $5,000 worth of furniture from a display home in Overland Park Kansas. Anderson, a former Teamsters official, was the salesman for the builder and allegedly gave ‘Tiny’ the key to the home. “Tiny’ was also charged with the bombing of a $37,500 home under construction in Leawood Kansas that was being built with non-union labor. 

Both his daughter and his former wife were among seven witnesses who testified against ‘Tiny’ in the trial on the charge of grand larceny that began on March 28, 1962 in the Johnson County District Court in Olathe Kansas, but the key witness for the state was Doyle Howard Mace, of Springfield Missouri.

Mace, described as “a former friend of Wainwright,” was brought to the court in Olathe from the jail in Springfield Missouri to testify. Mace testified that he and Wainwright, stole the clothing from an Oldsmobile station wagon owned by salesman J. Gordon Campbell while it was parked in front of Campbell’s home at 7634 Nall Avenue in Prairie Village Kansas. 

Mace testified that on May 4, 1961 he and the ‘Tiny’ each took two bags of the stolen clothing and went to Mace’s home and the clothing was stored in his basement. The net day Mace said that several people, including Mrs. George, whom ‘Tiny’ introduced to Mace as his ex-wife, came to his home to look at the clothing.  

Mrs. George bought $175 worth of the clothing, which she paid for by check, and after Tiny cashed the check, he split the money with Mace. Mrs. George and ‘Tiny’s’ daughter both testified that he told them that Mace was a salesman for the women’s clothing company.

With his cross-examination, ‘Tiny’s’ lawyer attacked Mace’s credibility and claimed that Mace was angry with the ‘Tiny’ and had agreed to testify against him just to get even. Mace admitted that he was upset that Tiny failed to pay him $1,000 that Mace claimed he was owed for his part in Wainwright’s fraudulent $4,500 fire insurance claim for which ‘Tiny’ had already been charged. 

Mace also testified that he had been short changed after other robberies that the pair had allegedly committed, which included the safe robbery at a candy store, theft of two adding machines and a typewriter from an office, and the theft of a $650 refrigerator-freezer from an Overland Park Kansas home.  

On Friday March 31, 1962 the jury convicted Wainwright of grand larceny for the theft of the $972 worth of women’s clothing samples and in accordance with the terms of the Kansas Habitual Criminal Act, ‘Tiny’ was sentenced to a term not to exceed 10 years of hard labor at the Kansas State Penitentiary located in Lansing Kansas. 

With Wainwright free on bond, less than a month later, Wainwright’s attorney filed an appeal of the conviction on several grounds, among them the fact that a juror in the trial was not a resident of the county. 

On December 8, 1962, the Kansas Supreme Court released a ruling that rejected all three points of ‘Tiny’s’ appeal. When it came time to surrender to begin his prison term, on February 8, 1963, 49-year old ‘Tiny’ failed to appear and he forfeited his $8,000 bond.

Six months later he was arrested by FBI agents in Kansas City, Kansas on August 9, 1963 after the agents were tipped that Wainwright would be walking on Minnesota Avenue at 7 AM. Four armed agents surrounded the rotund former race driver and he was whisked to Olathe Kansas where Judge Clayton Brenner imposed sentence and ‘Tiny’ was confined at the Kansas State Penitentiary the following day. 

After serving only 2-1/2 years of his ten-year term, ‘Tiny’ was paroled in March 1966 but he was soon arrested for petty larceny in April 1966 after a patrolman saw him stuff $7.79 worth of steaks in his pockets in a supermarket.  

‘Tiny’ returned to prison on August 11, 1967 after another alleged parole violation in St Louis and he died in prison at 12:15 AM on September 12, 1967, at the age of 55, on the eve of his parole revocation hearing before the Kansas State Parole Board. 

Warden Sherman Crouse said that ‘Tiny,’ aged 55, suffered a fatal heart attack in the prison hospital where he had been confined for several days. The brief obituary in the Kansas City Times noted that “before his conviction for assault in 1949, Wainwright was a well-known midget racing car driver.” 

Branch Milton ‘Tiny’ Wainwright, a decent midget auto racer but a lousy criminal, is interred in Green Lawn Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri.

The notorious ‘Tiny’ Wainwright

Part three – 1949 and 1950

Branch ‘Tiny’ Wainwright raced for most of the 1948 season with the Midwest Midget Auto Racing Association (MMARA) a group run by John Gerber as he drove the black #2 Ford V-8 60 powered Kurtis-Kraft midget owned by Lloyd Van Winkle of Lincoln Nebraska. After the racing season ended, ‘Tiny’ was implicated as a member of a 5-man criminal gang that committed nineteen robberies.   

Free on bond awaiting trial, Wainwright was without a ride for the second midget auto race of the 1949 season at the Ce-Mar Bowl in Cedar Rapids Iowa, although it was reported that he had contacted car owner Paul Van Zee and asked to drive the #63 midget. The defending MMARA series champion Danny Kladis driver of the #39 midget, was in Indianapolis in an unsuccessful attempt to qualify the ‘Speedway Cocktail Special’ for the 500-mile race, but his midget car owner Eric Lund stated that he would not put any other driver into his car in Kladis’ absence.  

The featured attraction at Ce-Mar on Sunday afternoon May 22 was the appearance of the “Marvel Man” Don Haynes who had had himself welded inside a 1949 Kaiser Deluxe 4-door sedan. Haynes from Ashland Oregon claimed that he intended to live inside the car for 14 months to win a $25,000 bet with a local farmer.  Haynes was a 39-year-old truck driver and an ex-Merchant Marine so his stunt was also known as the “Seaman of the Sealed Car.’  

Haynes was welded inside his car on February 19, 1949 with chrome bars installed over the windows along with an exercise machine, chemical toilet, folding bathtub, electric shaver, typewriter, radio and a record player. There was no need for a bed, as the Kaiser already featured a rear seat that folded down into a bed. Haynes sponsored by Richard Reinan, the owner of an Ashland lumber mill planned to visit the major cities in all 48 states with visits at Kaiser-Frazer dealerships. Haynes, stopped at Ce-Mar in support of Dan Hunter the local Kaiser-Frazer distributor while enroute to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Indianapolis 500-mile race.  

Haynes eventually lost his bet (which after all that time appeared to be a fabrication) when he had the car doors cut open and he exited the car after being inside thirteen months and eighteen days. Haynes had drove a reportedly 110,000 miles, but ended his ordeal because public interest in his stunt waned and no more paid appearances were booked.  Haynes and his wife tried a similar stunt in 1958 as they were welded into a 1958 Mercury Turnpike Cruiser station wagon but it met with much less success then his earlier publicity stunt.

Tiny drove the John Spach #7 at the Ce-Mar Bowl on May 22, and at Playland Park on May 24 where he finished second in the trophy dash. At Indianola Iowa on June 14 ‘Tiny’ finished seventh in the 20-lap feature, and when the MMARA series visited Davenport on Friday June 17, 1949, Wainwright did not have a ride, but he was scheduled to drive the John Spach #7 midget at Ce-Mar on Sunday June 19. That did not occur because ‘Tiny’ was arrested on Saturday in Columbia Missouri and he was transported by Missouri State Highway Patrolmen to the Cole County jail in Jefferson City Missouri.    

Joe Heninger, an older bachelor farmer who lived in rural Russellville Missouri, alleged that on the evening of Thursday June 16, Wainwright and an unknown accomplice acted as though they had experienced car trouble in front of Heninger’s farmhouse. When Heninger came to investigate, the pair drew guns on him and forced him back inside his home. The pair then used adhesive tape to bind the farmer to a chair and proceeded to ransack his home, while they repeatedly shouted, “where do you keep your money?” When the robbers found no money after several hours, they left bound and Heninger worked himself free from his bonds early Friday morning and called police.

Once ‘Tiny’ was in jail in Jefferson City, police found that he was already under indictment in Moberly Missouri for his participation in an earlier burglary with $315 taken from a food market in Columbia Missouri on March 25, 1948.  Wainwright made his first appearance before Magistrate Foster S Wheatley in Jefferson City at 3 PM on Monday June 20, 1949 and his bail was set at $10,000.  On July 6 a hearing was held in Moberly without ‘Tiny’ who was still in jail in Jefferson City, regarding the 1948 burglary and it was discovered that in addition to his $5000 bond for that case, Wainwright was also out on a $3000 bond on a charge of safe burglary in Dallas Texas.

On July 27, 1949 ‘Tiny’ was released from the Jefferson City jail on a $10,000 bond posted by two Kansas City women, Stella Parke Beatty and Glady Parke Kline. In his next court appearance before Judge Sam Blair on October 3, ‘Tiny’ entered a plea of not guilty to the charge of assault with intent to rob. Two weeks later, his accomplice, William DeWayne Brown, a parolee from Leavenworth who had served 11 years of a 25-year sentence for theft of US mail was identified, arrested and charged.

During his March 1950 assault trial, Wainwright testified that he had driven home to Kansas City from Davenport Iowa, and arrived home in the early hours of June 20, 1949. He said he slept until the afternoon, ate dinner at the Golden West Bar and Grill and then attended a Catholic church carnival until 10 PM. His local attorney, HP Lauf, called ten witnesses that supported ‘Tiny’s’ account, but on March 14, 1950 the jury returned a guilty verdict and recommended Wainwright receive a two-year prison sentence.  

Judge Sam Blair postponed sentencing to allow time for appeal and on April 12 another of ‘Tiny’s’ attorneys, Ed C Orr, requested a new trial on the basis that the entire testimony was not recorded while the trial was in progress and that the prosecution testimony was weak, ambiguous and incomplete. A month later Judge Blair held the appeal hearing and on May 17 ‘Tiny’ was granted new trial over the objections of Prosecutor James T Riley.

While out on bond and awaiting his new trial date, ‘Tiny’ raced Bruce Bromme’s Offenhauser powered ‘big car’ at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in De Moines in August 1950. ‘Tiny’ qualified 14^th fastest in a field of 27 cars with a time of 28.80 seconds.  During the “B” feature, due to rough track conditions the front suspension of the Bromme car collapsed and the car flipped end-over-end as it cartwheeled along and through the inner wooden guardrail. ‘Tiny’ reportedly was thrown free and suffered only facial cuts and bruises.      

On September 7 Wainwright drove the repaired Bromme #77 in the two-day IMCA ‘big car’ program at the half-mile track at the South Dakota State Fairgrounds in Huron, ‘Tiny’ timed in eleventh fastest in time trials with a lap of 29.20 seconds compared to Deb Snyder’s fast time of 24.85 seconds. Wainwiright finished third in his heat race and advanced to compete in the feature race where he finished eighth behind winner by Frank Luptow.

Wainwright’s second trial on the felonious assault charges against Joe Heninger was held October 4, 1950 again before Judge Blair. On October 5, after 2-1/2 hours of deliberation, the second jury found ‘Tiny’ guilty and recommended a two-year sentence in the Missouri State Penitentiary. On October 31 ‘Tiny’s’ attorney Ed Orr filed paperwork that requested a new trial, but in open court on November 6, 1950 Orr asked that Judge Blair overrule his appeal of ‘Tiny’s’ second conviction, as his client was out of money and unable to continue the legal battle.

Judge Blair immediately sentenced Wainwright to two years in prison and he was assigned prisoner number 64186 in the Missouri State Penitentiary also located in Jefferson City.  His accomplice in the Heninger assault, William DeWayne Brown, was tried in Howard County on October 26 and the jury deadlocked but in his second trial held on January 18, 1951, Brown was convicted and given a two-year prison term.  

“Tiny’s’ racing career was on hold while he was incarcerated for assault – in the next and final installment we will share the direction Wainwright’s life took after 1951. 

The notorious ‘Tiny’ Wainwright

Part two - 1947 and 1948

At the end of our last installment of the story of Branch Milton ‘Tiny’ Wainwright, the rotund driver had just completed his 1946 midget auto racing season as he competed in a series of races held in Lubbock Texas during October 1946.

Little is known of the early part of ‘Tiny’s’ 1947 season, but the July 4th holiday found him entered for the races held on the 1/5-mile dirt track on the Tri-County Fairgrounds. Located in Mendota Illinois the races were sanctioned by legendary pioneer ‘big car’ racer turn promoter John Gerber’s Midwest Midget Auto Racing Association (MMARA). An advance article in the Dixon Evening Telegraph listed Wainwright at a fairly a svelte (for him) 225 pounds but stated that he was so large that he required “an oversized cockpit to house his frame.”

The race, on the 1/5-mile dirt track built in 1941, featured a field of 20 competitors.  In addition to Wainwright, “the biggest driver in the business,” the drivers included 1946 Indianapolis ‘500’ competitor Danny Kladis, ‘Red’ Hoyle from Cedar Rapids Iowa, Harry Meeks and the appearance of Les Forrer in his front wheel drive midget powered by a Wisconsin four-cylinder air-cooled engine.

MMARA president Gerber noted in an interview for a newspaper article that the Tri-County 1/5-mile track was composed of distinct two types of soil – one end, the third and four turns, was comprised of sand while the other end of the track, turns one and two, was “regular dirt” and that the differing soil types required different driving techniques

The Friday July 4 afternoon race was unusual at Tri-County, which featured track lighting and seating for 5000 fans and typically held Thursday night races during the Summer months. The afternoon 20-lap feature was won by the previously unknown racer Vic Ellis from Rochelle Illinois.

Later in the 1947 season, race car owner Ray Tomaseski from nearby LaSalle Illinois took over the promotion of open competition midget auto racing at Tri-County under the sanction of the Chicago-based “Midwest Racing Association.” Midget racing apparently did not catch on in Mendota, as in subsequent years, the small flat track hosted only occasional AMA-sanctioned motorcycle races promoted by the local Rock River Riders Motorcycle Club.

Sunday July 13, 1947 found ‘Tiny’ in action with the MMARA midgets on the ½-mile Hawkeye Downs dirt track located in Council Bluffs Iowa. Originally built in 1925 as a rodeo grounds, the facility also featured a ¼-mile dirt track.  Wainwright was scheduled to drive the ‘Cotton Fasone Special,’ a Ford V-8 powered car from Kansas City which the Cedar Rapid Gazette identified as “specially designed to carry his 250-pound racing weight.”

Wainwright’s name did not appear as one of the top finishers in the day’s races at Council Bluffs, which were dominated by Danny Kladis from Chicago. Kladis set a new track record as he sped around the half-mile track in 28.44 seconds, and then he won the trophy dash and his five-lap heat race. Kladis started from the pole position for the twelve-car 10-lap feature race and led every lap to defeat a field of mostly local cars with Dick Hobel in second place and ‘Red” Hoyle third in the feature which was completed in five minutes and two seconds.

‘Tiny’ was listed as one of the entries for the midget races on Saturday afternoon August 2, 1947 held as part of the 93^rd Coles County Fair in Charleston Illinois. Other entries for the race promoted by the Parkes Brothers on the Coles County Speedway which had opened on Sunday April 27, 1947 included Frank Burany, Myron Fohr, Ray Knepper, Ben Chesney, and Rex Easton. The promoters promised that those drivers and “Tiny’ would drive Offenhauser powered cars on the 1/5-mile dirt clay oval managed by Indianapolis’ Orville Stiff who was identified as a pre-war midget auto racer.

‘Tiny’ Wainwright made a rare “big car” racing appearance in the 1948 first annual Memorial Day races on the Iowa State Fair track in Des Moines promoted by the Za-Ga-Zig Shrine temple of Altoona Iowa. In addition to ‘Tiny,’ whose hometown was listed as St. Louis, the “definite entry” list included “Pat Patterson from Wellman in a big McDowell race car,” Pat Cunningham from St Joseph Missouri and Kirk Washburn from St Paul Minnesota, with all four drivers described in the Associated Press wire story as “well known to midwestern auto race fans.” 

‘Tiny’ was entered in the notorious “Schrader car” the Offenhauser powered car owned by Virgil Campbell, so called because it was the car in which Gus Schrader was killed in Louisiana in October 1941 . Reportedly, ‘Tiny’ was replaced as the driver by ‘Rabbit’ Musick after time trials, but the Campbell car retired during the feature race.   

In front of a crowd of 7,500 fans, Wally Stokes, an up and coming ‘big car’ driver from Cleveland, Ohio, in his Offenhauser powered #2 grabbed three victories during the five-race program – his heat race, the trophy dash and the day’s 10-lap finale on the half-mile dirt track as he beat Herschel Buchanan to the finish line by 40 yards.  Sadly, Stokes would die a little over a year later in a traffic accident in August 1949, the day following his AAA championship car debut at Springfield Illinois, when the car driven by his wife left the road and hit a tree.

Wainwright was listed as one of the members of the Tri-State Midget Auto Racing (TSMAR) traveling circuit promoted by Glen and Lloyd Bauman prior its inaugural visit to Huron South Dakota on June 4, 1948. ‘Tiny,’ who was said to weigh 300 pounds, was described as the “showman of the troupe,” as the article in the Huron Hurronite said that the other drivers claimed that “Mr. Five-by-Five carries his machine around the track instead of the usual run of these things.”  Wainwright drove a Ford V-8 powered machine, while other featured drivers - George Binnie, Jay Booth, Buddy Rackley, and Charlie Taggert, all raced in Offenhauser powered midgets.

Promoter Lloyd Bauman, a South Dakotan, explained to the Hurronite writer that the Tri-State circuit included race tracks in five cities – Huron, Riverview Park in Sioux City Iowa, Playland Park in Council Bluffs Iowa, a ½-mile track in Canby Minnesota and a ¼-mile track in Luverne Minnesota. The Tri-State racing schedule started in Riverview Park on Sunday, moved to Playland Park Tuesday night, then headed north to Luverne on Wednesday night, on to Canby for Thursday night before the racers headed west and wound up their week in Huron South Dakota. Bauman said with an estimated 20,500 fans expected to attend the races weekly, that translated to a weekly guaranteed pot of $4,250 in prize money for the racers.    

After morning rain showers, Kansas City’s George Binnie was out-qualified by Buddy Rackley from Houston Texas by .06 seconds with a best lap of 18.43 seconds on a wet track. As the track dried, Binnie rebounded to win four of the evening’s racing events. Binnie’s near clean sweep included wins in the three-lap trophy dash, his eight-lap heat race, the eight-lap handicap race and the 15-lap ‘A’ feature. “The big, good-natured” ‘Tiny’ drove the black #3 Van Winkle Ford powered midget and finished as the runner-up to Binnie in both their heat race and the ‘A’ feature. 

Even though the drivers billed it the best track on the circuit, and the one that featured the best seating, midget auto racing at Huron South Dakota was short-lived. After the third Friday night event on June 18, the promoters moved the racing program to Saturday nights. After the June 26^th race, the races scheduled for July 3^rd and 10 were cancelled due to conflicts with the other fairgrounds events.

On July 15, 1948 the Hurronite newspaper carried the news of the cancellation of further midget races “for the remainder of the season” because the promoters judged that “the 1/5-mile track was not in shape.” TSMAR events at the two tracks in Minnesota never drew decent crowds and apparently the circuit collapsed midway through the 1948 season, as for the rest of the season ‘Tiny’ raced with John Gerber’s Midwest Midget Auto Racing Association (MMARA)

Sunday afternoon July 11, 1948 Wainwright returned to the 1/5-mile clay surface at the Ce-Mar Bowl located on the grounds of the Ce-Mar Acres amusement park in Cedar Rapids Iowa for races promoted by MMARA. ‘Tiny’ who had debuted at Ce-Mar three weeks earlier was teamed with Jay Booth in a pair of potent Ford powered Kurtis-Kraft midgets owned by Lloyd Van Winkle of Lincoln Nebraska. The pair along with the familiar names of Danny Kladis, Johnny Hobel and ‘Red’ Hoyle were joined by Cliff Nalon the brother of the famed “Duke” Nalon and newcomers Dick Ritchie and Bud Koehler who also piloted a Kurtis-Kraft midget.   

5,423 fans turned out for the races which were dominated by local Cedar Rapids drivers. ‘Red’ Hoyle won the first heat race followed by ‘Tiny’ Wainwright, with the second heat also won by a local driver Dick Hobel.   Johnny Hobel, Dick’s brother, won the 14-lap handicap race, then led the first ten laps of the feature until he spun out. Johnny’s spin handed the lead to ‘Red’ Hoyle who won over Danny Kladis as ‘Tiny’ dropped out of the race with engine trouble.

Tragedy struck the MMARA circuit on Friday night August 13^th during the third heat race on Gerber’s 3/10-mile track at the Mississippi Valley fairgrounds in Davenport Iowa.  On the third lap of the race, Glenn Cromwell of Erie Illinois in the Paul Kaminsky’s #4 midget hit a rut in the second turn and the car spun to a stop. Clyde Skinner steered his midget to the upper groove of the track but could not avoid Cromwell’s machine. The impact turned Cromwell’s car over; Glenn suffered critical head and chest injuries, and the injured driver was transported to Mercy Hospital in Davenport. 

Cromwell had survived an earlier crash in May in a different midget at the ¼-mile Jefferson Iowa track when his car rolled twice and came to rest upside down with Glenn trapped underneath.  Cromwell had escaped the May crash without serious injuries but he did not survive the August crash. Glenn passed away at 1:20 AM on Saturday morning, August 14^th as he left behind Lois his wife of just eleven months, who was at the track when the accident occurred. Wainwright’s car had again suffered engine trouble during the Davenport program, and his car was not fixed in time for him to compete in the August 15 race at the Ce-Mar Bowl.

When the MMARA midgets appeared at Ce-mar on August 22, ‘Tiny’ had a new teammate on the Van Winkle team for this race – young Clyde Skinner who had been involved in the Cromwell tragedy substituted for Jay Booth.  The MMARA teams ran a Sunday afternoon show at Davenport, then drove northwest to race at Cedar Rapids for a Sunday night race. The Ce-Mar Bowl which had seen growing crowds over the past three weeks had enlarged the parking lot and added bleachers which could accommodate up to 7,500 fans. The track had also added a new safety feature – red, green and yellow “safety lights” were installed in the corners to alert drivers of the conditions on the track.

On Thursday night August 26 the MMARA circuit appeared at the ¼-mile oval at the Warren County Fairgrounds in Indianola Iowa.  ‘Tiny’ in the “improved” Van Winkle Ford set the quick time for the night as he ran a best lap of 17.36 seconds in time trials. Ray Hall of Kansas City won the feature followed by Dick Hobel with Paul Newkirk third and ‘Tiny’ in fourth place.

A record crowd of 5,963 fans turned out at Ce-Mar on Sunday night September 5, 1948 as ‘Tiny’ and the Van Winkle team arrived at the track late.  He posted the second fastest qualifying time, then won the 15-lap semi-main over his teammate Jay Booth, but neither driver emerged as the   finishers in the evening’s feature race.

On Wednesday night September 22, the MMARA teams visited a new venue, a 1/5-mile track at the Northwest Missouri State Fairgrounds in Bethany Missouri, but the program was plagued by three accidents. Early in the evening, an errant machine ran over MMARA pit steward Truman “Shorty” Berryhill of Cedar Rapids and injured his leg.

Later during the handicap race, George Miller of Cedar Rapids spun and his car was hit by Ray Hill, the evening’s fast qualifier in Paul Kaminsky’s #11 midget, with Hall’s car damaged badly enough that it scratched for the rest of the night. In the evening’s feature Dick Ritchie spun out and Miller’s car climbed over Ritchie’s and rolled over – George was unhurt but his car was badly damaged. ‘Tiny’ won his heat race and finished second in the feature behind Walter Raines of Alta Iowa.

Two nights later, Wainwright won the semi-main event at Davenport as Danny Kladis won the feature which was marred by a seven-car accident that eliminated five cars from the race. Two days later, the MMARA cars were back in Cedar Rapids for the first afternoon show at Ce-Mar Bowl. There was more mechanical carnage in the 20-lap main at Ce-Mar as seven cars crashed and the race had to be restarted three times on a slick slow track. ‘Tiny’ started on the pole position and led the first eight laps then yielded to Kladis as only four cars finished the feature which was witnessed by a small crowd of less than 3,000 on a cold wet and windy day.

In October 1948 Milton ‘Tiny’ Wainwright was identified as a member of five-man criminal gang that was responsible for a string of nineteen safe burglaries in restaurants, drugstores, and other small retail establishments during the Summer and Fall of 1948. Two members of the gang were jailed in the Boone County Missouri jail, while another, Roy Rees, was in the Bethany Missouri City Jail, with another conspirator jailed in Lexington Kentucky. ‘Tiny’ was the only gang member free at the time, and was rumored to be at the time in Los Angeles California. On November 15, 1948, ‘Tiny,’ identified as a local taxi cab driver, surrendered to police in Kansas City and was charged with participation in the March 25, 1948 safe burglary at the Columbia Fruit Company in Columbia Missouri.     

Look for our next installment which reviews 1949 and 1950 as ‘Tiny’s’ previously unknown life of crime interfered with his midget auto racing career.  

        

The notorious ‘Tiny’ Wainwright

Part one - 1946 racing season

Since its beginnings at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento California on June 4, 1933 there have been some nefarious characters Involved the sport of midget auto racing, such as Diego ‘Dee’ Toran, but none the author is familiar with came close to approaching the level of criminal activities conducted by racer Branch Milton “Tiny” Wainwright.

Wainwright, born August 31, 1912 in the small town of Delmar Maryland, came of age in the Kansas City area as a stout young man of less than average height - feet five inches tall.  His nickname of “Tiny” was ironic, as he weighed at least 250 pounds though period press reports varied; some articles stated that he weighed 275 pounds, while some pieces listed his weight as high as 300 pounds.  

When Wainwright enlisted in the United States Army at Fort Leavenworth Kansas on March 24, 1944 he claimed that he was married and listed his occupation as an “actor.” Military records reviewed by the author have not provided any answers as to Wainwright’s duties in the Army or the length of his service.

Fellow historian Bob Lawrence found the earliest record of Tiny Wainwright’s racing career via a photograph that showed him as the driver of Carl Oliver’s #3 Ford V8-60 powered rail-frame midget at CeJay Stadium in Wichita, Kansas on Sunday September 16, 1945. That date was less than a month after the Office of Defense Transportation lifted the wartime ban on automobile racing. CeJay, which took its name from the initials of the track promoter Carl Johnson, was a 1/4-mile dirt oval track that was located on the southeast side of Wichita that operated until 1949.

‘Tiny” was not related to the famed Texas pioneer midget racer and later Texas-Oklahoma Racing Association business agent and promoter Mel Wainwright but both competed in some of the same events in early 1946.  In a promotional article prior to that start of racing San Antonio Texas Pan American Midget Speedway, ‘Tiny’ was billed in the San Antonio Light newspaper with “a weight of 275 pounds, the biggest midget race car driver in the world.”

Wainwright is credited with a second-place finish in the February 24 “B” feature ahead of ‘Dee’ Toran, then he earned a fourth-place finish in the “B” feature on Sunday March 10 in a program that also featured California drivers Jerry Piper, Cal Niday, and Bill Vukovich.

The following week, in the Sunday afternoon show on March 17 on Pan American’s 1/5-mile clay surface, ‘Tiny’ scored another third-place finish in the ‘B’ feature. On March 31, which was the final scheduled Sunday program for the 1946 racing season, “hard luck” Wainwright was unable to compete due to what the San Antonio Light reported as “a lack of parts for his red midget.”

In the debut of Friday night racing under the lights at Pan American on April 5, 1946, ‘Tiny’ was the fastest qualifier with a lap of 16.36 seconds but his car “threw a shoe” in the third heat, and the San Antonio Light reported that “his masterful driving brought cheers from the crowd as he steered into the pits on three wheels without injury to himself or other drivers in the race.”  After the incident, Wainwright’s car was done for the night, so he did not appear in the evening’s 20-lap feature which was won by Californian Johnnie Parsons in an elapsed time of five minutes and six seconds.

While there is a bit of confusion as some reports of his early racing exploits identified him as ‘Tony,” a week later, on April 12, at Pan-American Speedway, Wainwright finished sixth in the ‘A’ feature as Parsons won again. During the April 19 racing program ‘Tiny’ ran into trouble twice in the same evening.  Just after the start of the consolation race, ‘Tiny’s’ car tangled with those of Jimmy Hicks and ‘Red’ Dowdy.

All three cars restarted after their spins and ‘Tiny’ transferred to the night’s feature race. On the ninth lap of the feature, Dowdy spun in front of ‘Tiny’ and 'Tiny's' car crashed into Dowdy’s then rolled over, with both drivers taken to the hospital where they were checked and released.

Tiny was listed as a competitor in the Sunday afternoon midget racing programs on May 12 and the Tuesday night races on May 14 held on the 1/4-mile clay oval Wichita Falls (Texas) Speedrome along with ‘Red’ Dowdy, Emmett ‘Buzz’ Barton, Dick Sharp, Elmer ‘Rabbit’ Musick (one of five Texas racing brothers), Ted Parker and a pair of local brothers, Tommy and Dale Mendenhall.  

‘Tiny’ also was entered in the AAA (American Automobile Association) sanctioned midget auto races held at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds track in West Allis. These races were held on the big one-mile flat dirt track, not the smaller track in the infield that was used for weekly midget races. A series of AAA races on the Milwaukee Mile were held as part of the ‘Milwaukee Centurama’ celebration, a thirty-day event that marked the city’s centennial which ran from July 12 to August 12, 1946.

Wainwright, described in a pre-race article in the Hammond Times as a “newcomer“ and “a Kansas City star” joined such legendary midget racers as Tony Bettenhausen, Dennis ‘Duke’ Nalon, Frank Burany, and Henry Banks in a two-day program that saw time trials and heat races completed on Saturday and the 100-mile feature on Sunday June 23, 1946 which was won by two-time pre-war badger Midget Auto Racing Association (BMARA) champion Ray Richards.

Fall 1946 found ‘Tiny’ Wainwright in Lubbock Texas for the Southwest Racing Championship races held on the 1/5-mile dirt Panhandle-South Plans Fairgrounds track along with Dowdy, Parker, Kansas’ Leonard ‘Cotton’ Musick (who was not related to the Texas Musick brothers), Oklahoman Jay Booth and Amarillo’s Lloyd Ruby.

The series of midget auto races, promoted by local garage owner JT Wolfe and sanctioned by the Texas-Oklahoma Racing Association, were slated to start on July 18 but it was July 27 before the first seven-race program began on Saturday night with Parker the red-headed driver from Dallas the initial winner.

Parker repeated with a second victory on August 3, then scored his third win in a row on August 10 in an evening in which he also won the helmet dash before 2,500 fans. Bud Camden won the 25-lap feature on August 17^th and Jay Booth won on August 24.  Parker claimed his fourth series feature victory on August 31, which was the final Saturday night program, after which the races were switched to Thursday nights to avoid conflicts with football games (even in those days in Texas, football was King).  

Wainwright was not listed as one of the original drivers announced for the Southwest Racing Championship series, but he was mentioned in press reports as an entrant prior to the September 5 races. That evening Clarence Brooks of Dallas won the 8-lap “Championship race,” then finished second in the first 10-lap semi-main to transfer to feature which he won over Kansan Bud Camden and Tulsa’s Junior Howerton. On the morning of September 12 race promoter Wolfe announced via an article published in the Lubbock Morning Avalanche newspaper that that night’s races were cancelled for unspecified reasons.

The next week’s midget auto racing program, scheduled for the evening of September 19^th was postponed due to rain.  When racing resumed on Thursday September 26, Corky Benson won the feature, and ‘Tiny’ won his heat race.  The following week was packed with racing, with the midgets scheduled to race four consecutive days during the six-day run of the Panhandle-South Plans Fair which was being held for the first time since 1941.

On Tuesday afternoon October 8, ‘Tiny’ Wainwright led the feature with Benson in second when their cars tangled and they both spun out. Third place driver “Count” Walter Von Tilius of Denver Colorado in the Frank Hingley owned Kurtis-Kraft Offenhauser powered midget avoided the melee and went on to win the feature as ‘Red’ Dowdy finished in second place. The race program the following day, Wednesday the 9^th was rained out, rescheduled for Sunday afternoon, the final day of the fair.  

The Panhandle-South Plains Fairgrounds 1/5-mile dirt track dried sufficiently for the midget races to resume on Thursday October 10, with Eddie Carmichael of Oklahoma City was declared the feature winner as his midget crossed the finish line in a near “dead heat” with the machine of Corky Benson with ‘Tiny’ Wainwright in fourth place.  

On Friday afternoon October 11, Texans swept 3 of the top 4 finishing spots as 18-year-old Lloyd Ruby won the feature, followed by Houston’s Bill Marshall in second place, and local driver Corky Benson in fourth place.

The Sunday afternoon midget finale, the make-up date from the 9^th, was a barn-burner. Corky Benson set quick time in time trials, then spun out on the second lap of the feature and had to restart from the tail of the field. Benson carved his way up through the field in dramatic fashion and claimed his second series feature victory.

In our next installment we will trace ‘Tiny’ Wainwright’s exploits through the 1947 and 1948 racing seasons.  

       

1909 Buick racer 

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum featured four cars from the Speedway’s history in a special “From the Vault” exhibit at the 2019 PRI (Performance Racing Industry) show. 

One car in the exhibit, the 1909 Buick, is of interest since to racing historians as it participated in the earliest automobile races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in August 1909 and won the second race held at the track.  

After the purchase of the 328-acre Pressley Farm property in December 1908 by four partners – Carl Fisher, James Allison, Frank Wheeler and Arthur Newby – construction on the track started in March 1909. The racing surface of the 2-1/2-mile oval was created by the placement of layers of gravel and limestone mixed with tar and oil of varying thickness topped with crushed stone chips.

The first motorized racing event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a series of motorcycle races, held on August 14, 1909, did not go well due to failure of the track surface and the planned second day of racing was cancelled by Indiana Motorcycle Club officials.  

The first three-day automobile racing meet, sanctioned by the American Automobile Association (AAA), was scheduled for August 19 through the 21^st, 1909 with each day to feature several short races and a long-distance trophy race. Anticipation for these events ran high as many automobile manufacturers entered cars for the Indianapolis races.   

David Buick started his eponymous automobile company in 1903 with a majority partner Benjamin Briscoe, who soon sold his shares in the company to James H. Whiting, who moved the company to Flint Michigan. The following year, Whitting lost control of the company to William Durant, and in 1906 David Buick sold his shares and left the company. Durant soon built Buick into one of the top-selling car brands in America. 

Buick factory photo and specifications of the 1909 Buick 16B roadster 

Durant believed in the promotion of Buick sales through automobile racing, and Buick publicized their racing success through press releases. Durant built a successful team in 1909 led by Swiss emigre Louis Chevrolet, teamed with George DeWitt, Lewis Strang and Bob Burman. The team primarily drove Buick model 16B racers with a 112-inch wheelbase roadster chassis powered by the proven Buick four-cylinder engine.

The Buick 16B racers, stripped of their fenders, running boards and lights made extensive use of wood for the floorboards and firewall with the seats mounted directly to the floorboards and the car rides on 34-inch diameter wood spoke wheels with mechanical brakes on the two rear wheels only.  

Louis Chevrolet and the Buick 16B photographed 

at the 1909 Ira Cobe Trophy race

Photograph appears courtesy of IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection  

The Buick factory team arrived Indianapolis “in a big express rail car” with a level of optimism on the strength of the victory by Chevrolet at the previous AAA race held the Crown Point Indiana road course - the 395-mile Ira Cobe Trophy Race held two months earlier. Chevrolet led the final four 23 ¼- mile laps at Crown Point to win with an elapsed time of just over eight hours even though the Buick only ran on three cylinders for much of the event.  

On Tuesday August 17 on the way to the Speedway for practice, Cliff Litterall, a mechanic with the Stoddard-Dayton team which was headquartered in a shop near downtown, jumped (or fell) from the race car in which he was riding and was run over by a following team car. The 28-year old Litterall (alternately spelled Littrell) suffered a crushed chest and the father of two died in Methodist Hospital on Thursday morning. 

The opening slate of five races began at noon before a crowd of 12,000 spectators on Thursday August 19.  The first event was a five-mile race for stripped chassis AAA class 4 machines with engines that displaced from 161 to 230 cubic inches.

The Buick entry that competed in the first event was a Buick Model 10 powered by a four-cylinder engine that displaced 165 cubic inches with George DeWitt behind the wheel, and DeWitt finished third behind a pair of Stoddard-Dayton machines. After the first event, drivers already complained about the track surface and the extreme danger posed by the open drainage ditches adjacent to the racing surface.

The day’s second event, a ten-mile race for stripped chassis AAA class 3 cars with engines that displaced 231 to 300 cubic inches, featured three Buick 16B racers, all equipped with a 298-cubic four-cylinder engine, which fitted with a single Schebler carburetor developed 32 horsepower.  

Louis Chevrolet led the 4-lap race wire-to-wire from the standing start in our featured car followed by teammates Strang and Burman. Chevrolet’s winning time of eight minutes and 56 4/5 seconds was a new world record for the ten-mile distance that eclipsed the old record set at the Empire City one-mile horse track in New York in October 1908 by a remarkable 15 seconds. Unfortunately the identity of the Buick's riding mechanic is not known. 

The third race of the day was a five-mile race for stripped chassis AAA class 2 machines with engines sized from 301 to 450 cubic inches and again, Chevrolet, Strang and Burman were entered in Buicks, these were probably equipped with 318 cubic inch engines. Burman finished second and Chevrolet third behind William Bourque in a Knox. The fourth race was a “free-for-all” 10-mile handicap race won by Harry Stillman in a local entry, the Marmon.          

The finale for Thursday was the 250-mile (100 lap) Prest-O-lite Trophy race for Class 2 machines with three 318-cubic inch displacement Buicks entered for Chevrolet, Burman and Strang. The Prest-O-Lite Company, owned by Fisher and Allison, manufactured and sold cylinders filled with compressed acetylene gas used to power headlights.

Strang retired early from the race after his Buick caught fire, while Chevrolet led the first 14 laps before he yielded to Burman and later made a pit stop. On the 58^th lap, the Knox, driven by Bourque with his riding mechanic Harry Holcomb, hit a rut, left the track, veered into the drainage ditch and flipped. The crushed car came to rest upside down against a fence and both men suffered fatal skull fractures in the accident, thus they became the first fatalities recorded at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Press reports indicated that the Buick driven by Louis Chevrolet was directly behind the Knox and that it was only through Louis’ “superior driving skills” that he avoided colliding with the crashing Knox. Chevrolet retired from the race immediately, reportedly he was blinded after his goggles were smashed and Louis withdrew. 

Late in the race it came down to a duel between Fred Ellis in the Jackson and Burman in the Buick – Ellis led from lap 82 to lap 88, then faded as Burman led the rest of the distance to claim the Prest-O-lite Trophy and the $1,000 prize.   

On Saturday August 21, the scheduled 300-mile Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race, the grand finale of the Indianapolis meet, was cut short due to deteriorating track conditions which had resulted in several crashes and the fatalities of Claude Kellum, a riding mechanic, and two spectators.

Kellum was originally assigned by National Motor Vehicle Company to ride with Johnny Aitken, whose #8 National dropped out on lap 40.  Later during the race, the #10 National’s original riding mechanic, Robert Lyne fainted, and Kellum replaced Lyne. On lap 70, the right front tire burst on the National driven by Charles Merz (later the Chief Steward at the Speedway) crashed through a fence and Kellum and two spectators were killed.     

Research for this article also uncovered two lawsuits that occurred in the aftermath of the 1909 Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race that may be of interest to racing historians.

When the race was stopped at 94 laps or 235 miles, due to ruts in the surface and clouds of dust, referee S B Stevens declared the race as “abandoned,” in effect the AAA stated that there was no race and thus no winner. Accordingly, the Speedway declined to award the Wheeler-Schebler trophy which was valued at $10,000 and announced that the race for the trophy would be run as the first race of the 1910 season.  

A copy of the Jackson advertisement in the Indianapolis Star 

that led to the AAA banning Jackson from racing for a time 

The Jackson Automobile Company of Jackson Michigan owner of the car driven by Leigh Lynch that was leading the race when it was stopped, sued the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on August 26^th to obtain the trophy, and Jackson published newspaper advertisements after the race in the Indianapolis Star newspaper that announced that its car had won the race. After a hearing, the AAA Contest Board announced on October 12, 1919 that the Jackson Automobile Company was banned from AAA competition until January 1, 1910. 

Another legal case related to the 1909 Wheeler-Schebler Trophy race was filed in April 1910, when Carrie Kellum the widow of the mechanic killed in the crash of the National sued both the National Motor Vehicle Company and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for negligence and asked for $10,000 in damages. The case was heard in Hancock (County) Circuit Court in December 1912 and the jury awarded Ms. Kellum $7,000 in damages. After an appeal by the Speedway, the award was affirmed by the Indiana Supreme Court in June 1915.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum acquired the Buick Model 16B in 1964 and it has been painstakingly restored to its appearance on August 19, 1909 when it won the second automobile race held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

All color photographs by the author 

Roscoe Turner’s 1929 Packard

While the author was in Indianapolis for the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show, he saw that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum had placed a 1929 Packard Custom Eight 6-40 Dual-Cowl Phaeton on display at the Indianapolis International Airport to promote its special “From the Vault” exhibition, While it is a beautifully finished example of a spectacular era of automobile manufacturing, what is most fascinating about the Packard is its original owner - the famed aviator Colonel Roscoe Turner.  

Born in Corinth Mississippi in 1895, Turner worked at various jobs until he enlisted for World War One. Roscoe first served first in the balloon corps then later as a fighter pilot.  Upon his return to the United States, the mustachioed Turner used his wartime pay to buy and airplane and became a dashing barnstormer and stunt pilot.

A consummate self-promoter, Turner was a pioneer in what we today call “personal branding.”  In public, Roscoe always wore a custom uniform the consisted of a military-style tunic, jodhpurs, and highly polished riding boots. He accessorized the outfit with an officer’s cap embroidered with a winged insignia with the monogram "RT" and the matching logo on a pin on his chest and on his large brass belt buckle.

In 1928, young film maker Howard Hughes purchased Turner’s huge Sikorsky S-29-A twin-engine biplane airliner for air-to-air filming of his epic film Hell’s Angels. Roscoe flew the airliner and worked as a stunt pilot until towards the end of filming, in March 1929, when Hughes asked Turner to undertake a dangerous “spin” stunt in the Sikorsky which Roscoe thought too dangerous.

With Turner’s refusal, Hughes fired him and enlisted another crew to fly the stunt. The Sikorsky, disguised as a World War I German Gotha bomber, crashed and one member of the crew was killed. Turner continued to work in Hollywood for several years as a stunt pilot and appeared in several films as an actor.  

In early 1929, Turner and his first wife, Carline, used the proceeds from his Hughes movie work to purchase this Packard from Douglas M. Longyear’s dealership Hollywood Motors Inc.  The car is identified as a ‘6-40’ which identifies it as the sixth series of Packard production built on a 140-inch wheelbase chassis. The car is fitted with a catalog #341 dual-cowl phaeton five-passenger body which means the car features no side windows but has a second cowl and windshield for rear seat passengers that was built by the Holbrook Company of New York.   

The Turner’s Custom Eight Packard was the mid-range of the 1929 Packard automobile line - Packard offered the Standard Eight, the Custom Eight and the Deluxe Eight, as well as the ultra-rare two-seat Speedster. The heavily optioned 6-40 is equipped with the dual side-mounts (spare tires with covers) and wire wheels, powered by the Packard L-head straight eight engine that displaces 384 cubic inches and develops 105 horsepower.

One of the major selling points for the new-for-1929 Packard was the new Packard Shock Absorbing System that features double-acting hydraulic shock absorbers on all four wheels for a smoother ride to complement the smooth slow-revving Packard straight-eight engine that features a crankshaft with nine main bearings.  

This photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Center for Digital Scholarship

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection shows Roscoe Turner's Packard 6-40

parked in the IMS infield in 1934.

Roscoe Turner continued his aviation career by forming with partners Nevada Airlines that flew a fleet of new Lockheed Vega 5B airplanes between Los Angeles, Reno and Las Vegas, with Turner as the operations manager and chief pilot. In 1929, the Governors of the states of Mississippi, Nevada and California all bestowed Turner with the honorary rank of Lieutenant Colonel as a member of their personal staffs and thus for the rest of his life, he was known as “Colonel Roscoe Turner.”  

Nevada Airlines was promoted by Turner as “The Fastest Airline in the United States," and he used the Vegas as his springboard to enter the emerging sport of air racing and record-setting with moderate success. Turner later persuaded oil tycoon Earl Gilmore to purchase a pair of racing airplanes- a Wedell-Williams Model 44 and a Lockheed Model 3 Air Express which used a parasol wing design fitted with wheel pants for streamlining that was primarily used in cross-country events.   

This photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Center for Digital Scholarship

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection shows left to right

Roscoe Turner, Madonna Turner, Mary Fendrich Hulman

and Anton "Tony" Hulman gathered around the stuffed lion "Gilmore"

For several years, Turner toured the country in the Air Express flying with his pet lion cub, another promotional idea, as a stylized lion’s head was the symbol of his sponsor, the Gilmore Oil Company. Eventually the lion grew too large to handle and went to a private zoo, but after the lion “Gilmore” died in 1952, Roscoe had it stuffed and kept it in his home. 

Roscoe with the Packard 6-40 and the three major US aviation trophies

 that he won in his career. On the left the Thompson Trophy,

the center is the Harmon Trophy and at right is the Bendix Trophy

             

Turner won the 1933 cross-country Vincent Bendix Trophy race from New York to Los Angeles with the time of 11 hours and thirty minutes in the Gilmore Wedell-Williams. In 1934, Turner won his first Charles Thompson Trophy race, known as the “Indianapolis of the Sky,” and he covered the 150 miles on the ten-mile closed course above Cleveland at an average speed of 248 miles per hour (MPH) in Wedell-Williams.

In 1935, Turner lost the cross-country Burbank-to-Cleveland Bendix Trophy race by a mere 23 ½ seconds. Turner won the Thompson Trophy race again in 1938 and 1939 as he piloted the ‘Meteor,’ a plane of his own design. Roscoe won the 1939 300-mile race with an average speed of 282 MPH and became the only racer to win the Thompson Trophy three times.

During his career, Turner also was awarded the Clifford Harmon Trophy for the United States twice in 1932 and 1938 as the outstanding aviator in the United States. Roscoe also won the Clifford Henderson Award of Merit three times in 1933, 1938 and 1939 as the United States’ fastest air racing pilot. In 1939 and 1940, Turner also starred in the CBS Network weekly radio drama Sky Blazers that was supported by a mail-order model plane and comic book series.

The Gilmore-sponsored Lockheed Air Express powered by a Pratt & Whitney Hornet 525 horsepower nine-cylinder radial engine was capable of 175 MPH, but it did not have the same racing success as the Wedell-Williams plane. Turner bought the Lockheed Air Express from Gilmore in 1932 and flew it until 1938. During his ownership of the Air Express, Roscoe commissioned a custom-made hood ornament for the Packard that was a detailed miniature of the plane complete down to a working propeller that spun in the wind.       

Turner was involved with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for many years beginning with when the facility was owned by his friend the World War I ace and four-time “500’ starter Eddie Rickebacker. Roscoe served as the starter for the 1933 Indianapolis 500-mile race, which was the last year the starter’s role was ceremonial. Turner served as the race’s honorary referee in 1940, and he greeted the 1939 and 1940 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Wilbur Shaw in Victory Lane as the Champion Spark Plug representative.   

Turner moved to Indianapolis in 1940 and formed the Roscoe Turner Aeronautical Corporation based at the Indianapolis Weir Cook Municipal Airport to teach students the skills of aircraft mechanics and provided flight training. Roscoe and his wife bought a three-story 5,500 square foot four-bedroom four-bathroom home located at 6800 West 10th Street in Indianapolis. The 1929 Packard was kept in a special enclosed section of the large detached Turner garage.

Turner attempted to enlist for service in World War 2, but was rejected due to his age, and he spent the war touring war materiel plants and giving speeches. In 1945 Turner was divorced by Carline, from whom he had been separated since 1938, and in late 1946 he married a Hoosier woman 20 years his junior. With the dawning of the jet age, air racing and the name Roscoe Turner faded from the headlines and he stopped wearing his military-style uniform.

This photo courtesy of the Ray Satterlee collection at the Ball State University

Library Digital Media Repository shows an interview in 1961

conducted prior to the start of the Indianapolis 500-mile race.

At left Earl Cooper, announcer Jim Phillippi, Roscoe Turner,

Eddie Rickebacker and Ray Harroun on the right.

Roscoe forged a strong friendship with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s new owner, Anton “Tony” Hulman who was an aviation enthusiast. Turner was included in a group of “old timers” along with Ray Harroun, Earl Cooper and Rickenbacker. that piloted antique race cars around the oval before the start of the Golden Anniversary 1961 Indianapolis ‘500.

Given his friendship with Hulman, it is not a surprise that the 1929 Packard 6-40 was donated to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum several years after Roscoe’s death in June 1970 by his widow Madonna, while the rest of Roscoe’s trophies, airplanes (including the Wedell-Williams and the “Meteor”) and memorabilia (included the stuffed pet lion) were donated to the Smithsonian Institute.

At the time of the donation, the car was painted two-tone silver and gray and even though it had accumulated many miles, it was in excellent condition. The author recalls seeing the Turner Packard 6-40 on display in the “new” Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum around 1976, and since that time, the Packard 6-40 has been beautifully restored by the Museum staff in its two-tone brown livery.

All color photos by the author