The failed Indy “nitro ban” 

Nowadays, the use of nitromethane to boost the horsepower output of racing engines is well known, but such was not the case in the nineteen fifties.  Produced by the treatment of sodium chloroacetate with sodium nitrite to create the chemical compound CH3NO2, an colorless oily liquid that is very effective as a power adder because carries its own oxygen.  Nitromethane is 52-1/2 percent oxygen by weight, so it needs much less atmospheric oxygen to burn and release its massive energy.

The theoretical stoichiometric air/fuel ratio of nitromethane ne is 1.7:1, which means it takes 1.7 pounds of air are needed to burn 1 pound of nitromethane. By comparison the stoichiometric air/fuel ratio of gasoline is 14.7:1 and methanol commonly used in Indianapolis racing engines has a stoichiometric air/fuel ratio of 6.45:1.

As far back as 1919 Arthur A Backhaus of Baltimore Maryland patented a fuel mixture of gasoline, alcohol and nitro benzol, but Backhaus did not make any claims of increased power output. In the nineteen thirties, Carleton Ellis, Standard Oil’s pioneering automotive chemist, patented several mixtures of nitro-hydrocarbons as ‘anti-knock” additives for lower octane gasoline.

Prior to the outbreak of World War 2, the Mercedes and Auto-Union racing teams both used nitro compounds to boost horsepower; the German teams used a mixture of 85-percent methanol, 10-pecent nitromethane and five-percent acetone. While the mixture increased horsepower, nitromethane was also corrosive to the internal components in the engines and fuel system which required a strict program of draining a flushing the fuel system between races.  

In 1949, Southern California hot rodder Vic Edelbrock was introduced to nitromethane by midget racer Eddie Haddad, who had been given a gallon of nitromethane by the trio of pioneering tether car builders the Dooling brothers. Edelbrock experimented with the use of nitromethane in his Ford flathead V-8 60 engine to keep up with the purpose-built Offenhauser four-cylinder racing engine which had a significant power advantage over the Ford V-8 60 cubic inch power plant.

Through trial and error Vic learned that the use of nitromethane required the metal portions of the fuel system to be nickel-plated and the use of spark plugs with a cooler spark tip.  Edelbrock's late-night work paid off as on the evening of August 10, 1950, Vic’s midget the seventh Kurtis-Kraft car built driven by Rodger Ward to victory at the famous Gilmore Stadium with a 20% blend of nitromethane in the tank, then Edelbrock and Ward followed up the next night with another URA midget race win at Orange Show Stadium in San Bernardino.   

The growth of the use of nitromethane in American open-wheel racing paralleled the wide-spread use of fuel injection as both spread east from the West Coast. Following his service in World War 2, Jim Travers partnered with Stuart Hilborn to develop and sell fuel-injection systems, but that venture failed.  Hilborn returned to working at night in his home garage to perfect his system while Travers fulfilled his promise to his war-time buddy Elinor “Swede” Lindskog to go midget racing full-time.

Lindskog from “backwoods Washington” was a pre-war midget racing standout, and with the “Swede” driving and Travers on the wrenches, the pair were very successful, but their partnership was tragically short-lived.  On the evening June 27, 1946, “Swede” set a new track record of 14.78 seconds on his first timed lap on Gilmore’s quarter-mile track, but on his second lap, Lindskog’s midget crashed into the outside retaining wall and rolled over three times. Just 29 years old, “Swede” died enroute to the Hollywood hospital and Jim Travers swore to quit racing.    

Eddie Haddad soon persuaded Travers to join his team which was owned by Southern California garage owner John Balch. Shortly afterward, Balch sold the team to Superior Oil Company tycoon Howard Keck and before long Keck wanted to add a second mechanic to the team and Jim Travers suggested his dry lakes competitor, Frank Coon.

In 1948, with Keck’s backing, Travers and Coon ordered a new front wheel drive chassis from Los Angeles metalsmith Emil Diedt to try to conquer Indianapolis. During the 1948 Indianapolis ‘500’ driver Jimmy Jackson ran just outside the top five for most of the race, but a good finish was spoiled when a wheel spindle broke on the sleek maroon machine with seven laps to go and Jackson spun into the infield and was placed tenth.

Early in 1949 Stuart Hilborn left his day job to devote himself full time to the manufacture of his injectors, with the first production run for the 105-cubic inch Offenhauser midget engine with Eddie Haddad as one of the salesmen and pioneers of the use of the fuel injection system. Hilborn then advanced into building injectors for the 270-cubic inch Offenhauser engines for Indianapolis cars.  

The prototype Offenhauser 270 injector system was fitted to the Keck machine and Jimmy Jackson qualified with the first Hilborn fuel injectors at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but the team switched back to carburetors for the 500-mile race.

By 1950 there were seven Hilborn injection set ups at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and some of the qualified teams rented their set-ups to other teams for qualifying. Car owner Howard Keck and his mechanics, “the Whiz Kids” Travers and Coon hired three-time Indianapolis 500 winner Mauri Rose who liked the Hilborn injection system. 

Rose averaged 132.319 mile per hour (MPH) to qualify on the outside of the front row as the highest qualifying injected machine, then Rose and five other cars raced in the 500-mile race with the revolutionary Hilborn injectors installed.

The use of nitromethane was first discussed publicly after the 1952 race - most railbirds figured that about half that teams used a mixture of 10-12% nitromethane for qualifying.  In 1952, on straight methanol the 270-cubic inch four-cylinder Offenhauser engine developed 345 horsepower but a dose of ‘pop’, as nitromethane became known, added at least 40 horsepower, and could add up to as much as 100 horsepower depending on the amount of nitromethane used. In addition to the cost - nitromethane cost $5.35 a gallon in 1952 ($50 a gallon today), too strong a dose of nitromethane could quickly destroy a racing engine.

A 1954 Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) paper prepared by E.S. Starkman a University of California professor entitled “Nitromethane as a Piston Engine Fuel” found the when added to methanol, nitromethane increased power by 13 percent, but Starkman’s experiments found that nitromethane percentages above 20% created unfavorable pre-ignition conditions in the cylinders.     

Jim Travers, left and Frank Coon, right are congratulated by 

Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Wilbur Shaw 

at the 1953 "500' Victory banquet as the mechanics on the winning car.

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library 

Center for Digital Studies Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection  

  

It was widely believed that in addition to adding the liquid for time trials, several teams added a small percentage of nitromethane for the running 1952 Indianapolis 500-mile race. Those teams included oilman Jack Hinkle’s team with driver/mechanic Jack McGrath, J.C. Agajanian’s team with chief mechanic Clay Smith and driver Troy Ruttman, the Granatelli brothers team from Chicago with driver Jim Rathmann, and Bill Vukovich, the new driver of the Keck “Fuel Injection Special” team. Those teams dominated the 1952 ‘500,’ and among them led all the laps of the race, which Ruttman won after Vukovich’s Kurtis-Kraft roadster broke a steering gear on lap 191.  

Tommy Milton, the first two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500-mile race and the race’s Chief Steward from 1949 through 1952 gave a provocative interview published in the May 1953 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine. that discussed among other subjects, the use of nitromethane.  In the article entitled “The 500 as the Experts See It” Milton and his long-time friend C.W. Van Ranst revealed the details of “the so-called nitro fuel” a product most racing fans knew nothing about in 1953.

Milton explained that nitromethane was added to the base methanol fuel, and stated that the fuel was dangerous, because “the bravest guy will win - the driver who is willing to put the highest percentage of nitro in his fuel will go the fastest until the engine flies apart.” Milton stated that “they” wanted to eliminate nitro, but that “they” would “have a hard time trying to police the ban. No matter how they change the rules the minute the rules are out, everybody goes to work to find out how to beat them.”   

In early 1953, the National Championship Car Owners Association (NCCOA) a group comprised of car owners on the AAA (American Automobile Association) championship circuit led by Ed Walsh started a movement to ban “high explosives in fuel” for the 1953 Indianapolis 500-mile race. The NCCOA sought to ban the use nitromethane, nitrobenzene, nitropropane or “any other liquid explosive” (the powerful Novis used acetone, propylene oxide, benzene, and hydrazine fuel additives) because they thought they were dangerous, but the ban had been not included on the entry blanks sent out for the 1953 International 500-mile Sweepstakes.  

Although three-time ‘500’ winner and Indianapolis Motor Speedway president Wilbur Shaw said that a chemist had told him that nitromethane “in proper hands was not too dangerous,” the Speedway wanted to go along with the car owners group.  Shaw forwarded an agreement to ban the fuel additives to all 83 entrants; acceptance had to be unanimous for the agreement to become effective.

An Associated Press wire story reported on April 30, 1953 that only 73 car owners had signed and returned the agreement, then on May 4 the Indianapolis News sportswriter J. E. O’Brien reported that NCCOA President Walsh of St. Louis, a car owner and partner with Frank Kurtis in Kurtis-Kraft, Incorporated had told the writer that there was one holdout that killed the proposed ban.  

During the 1953 race run on the second-hottest day in race history to that time, fourteen drivers sought relief, sickened by the heat and exhaust fumes and driver Carl Scarborough died of hyperthermia.  The day following the 1953 race, Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials announced their intention to ban “nitro” based on the belief that the fumes from the “nitro” fuel was what had sickened many drivers during the running of the ‘500.’

The 1954 nitromethane ban never came to fruition and nitromethane or nitro compounds continued to be used by many teams that raced at Indianapolis particularly in time trials. It was the advent of turbocharging in the later nineteen sixties that brought the end to use of nitromethane and other exotic fuel additives. With turbocharged engines, mechanics could “turn the screw” on the turbocharger wastegate to increase the turbocharger boost level and create more horsepower with straight methanol.

Don Weaver's South Bay 

Auto Body sprint car

On display as part of Race Car Day at the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo California was the restored South Bay Auto Body sprint car once owned by Don Weaver. 

Don Weaver like many young men in Southern California caught the racing bug attending midget races at the legendary Gilmore Stadium, working with such famed drivers as Ray Crawford and Bill Vukovich. After he served his hitch in the Army in Korea, Don and his brother Bob bought a midget race car which Don drove for awhile. 

Later in his career, Don worked as a racing mechanic, including a stint with Vel Miletich's very successful team at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Don became a well-known California Racing Association (CRA) car owner, and the quality of Don's equipment attracted top-name drivers like  Bobby Unser, and the driver of this sprint car, Keith "Porky" Rachwitz.

In the early 2000's Don Weaver became an event promoter as he staged the annual Legends of Ascot banquet for eight years.      

Yes, this was how a top-flight sprint car team went racing in the glory days of the 1960's - with their 301 cubic inch fuel-injected Chevrolet powered sprint car loaded on open single axle trailer. 

The beautiful restoration was a fitting tribute to the Southern California racing legend Don Weaver. 

Photos by the author 

Brenna Malloy's "Rocket" film

is a treat for racing historians 

The author was a guest at the recent showing of Brenna Malloy’s short film “Rocket,” as part of Race Car Day at the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo California one of the many 2019 LA Speed Week events.  Ms. Malloy’s charming film takes the viewer on a nostalgic trip back into nineteen fifties dirt track racing that follows the adventures of young racer named Annie Pankratz. The film was made as Brenna’s master’s thesis in Film Studies at Chapman University has captured numerous awards, including a 2016 Student Academy Award.

For the car lover, the movie features ten of her grandfather Tom Malloy’s vintage open-wheel race cars, including midgets, sprint cars and track roadsters but the star of the film, the Myron Stevens built Chapman Special that was driven by Ed Elisian in the 1954 Indianapolis 500-mile race. Befitting the star, the car was on display in the corner of the Packard Auditorium where the film was shown. 

After the screening of the film, Brenna and her grandfather took questions and shared stories.  Ms. Malloy revealed that the genesis of her film came when she heard the heartbreaking story that Bill Vukovich Junior was listening to the radio broadcast of the 1955 Indianapolis ’500’ in which his father perished. She also shared that she used the name of her film’s lead character, Annie Pankratz, from the famous three-generation racing family because she thought the name “very cinematic.”

Tom Malloy, a noted vintage racer, shared memories of his father, Emmett’s race track, Carrell Speedway, and as a young man working alongside Bob Pankratz, the family patriarch as he built Emmett’s Indianapolis car. Tom also shared that “Rocket” was a family project, as the racing scenes were shot at on a temporary track bulldozed into the hills of his brother Mike Malloy’s farm near Lompoc, California.  

        

In addition to the Malloy family, other guests at the event included midget racer Jerome Rodela, who briefly appears in the film as a driver of a vintage Kurtis-Kraft midget, and famed sports car racer John Morton who both shared terrific racing stories. 

Will Power's likeness added to 

the Borg-Warner Trophy 

History was made at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum on December 5, 2018, with the debut of the newest face on the Borg-Warner Trophy™. Will Power, winner of the 102nd Indianapolis 500 in May, is the 105th face to be permanently fixed to the trophy. Besides displaying Indianapolis 500 champions, the trophy features a 24-karat gold head portrait of the late Speedway Owner and President Anton “Tony” Hulman Jr. in tribute to his rejuvenation of the track and the Indianapolis 500 after World War II.

Sculptor William Behrends uses a multi-phase process to create the three-dimensional masterpiece. To design the image, Behrends, who has been crafting faces to adorn the trophy since 1990, conducted a multi-phase process that took months to complete.

The process started with a series of photographic headshots taken of Power that was completed with an in-studio session where Power posed while Behrends worked on a full-scale clay model of his face to better capture Power’s personality. The life-size clay model was then scaled down to a smaller clay image, which was perfected in polysulfide rubber and plaster, among a series of other processes, to refine the image.  

Eventually, the image was cast in wax, cleaned up and sent to a jeweler to transform the image from wax to sterling silver. Once that was complete, Behrends polished, buffed and refined the image before affixing it to the Borg-Warner Trophy. 

The Borg-Warner Trophy features the sterling silver image of every Indianapolis '500' winner dating back to Ray Harroun in 1911. Made of sterling silver, the trophy with base weighs 110 pounds and stands 5 feet, 4-3/4 inches tall and is currently valued at $3.5 million.  

Since its inception, the Borg-Warner trophy has become one of the most recognizable trophies in sports with drivers from 12 countries and 21 of the United States represented on its base and cup. The trophy is on permanent display at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum, located on the grounds of the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

In 1935, The Borg-Warner Automotive Company (now called BorgWarner) commissioned designer Robert J. Hill and Spaulding-Gorham, Inc., of Chicago, to create the trophy at a cost of $10,000. The trophy was unveiled at a 1936 dinner hosted by then-Speedway owner Eddie Rickenbacker who officially declared it was the annual prize for Indianapolis 500 victors.  The first driver to be bestowed the honor was Louis Meyer who was presented with the trophy featuring the previous 24 winner’s faces.

The last driver to have his likeness placed on the original trophy was Bobby Rahal in 1986. With all the squares filled, a new base was added in 1987, which itself was filled following Gil de Ferran’s victory in 2003. For 2004, Borg-Warner commissioned a new base that will not be filled until 2034.

To give the winner and team owner a personal keepsake of their victory, BorgWarner established the BorgWarner Championship Driver’s Trophy™ (also known as the “Baby Borg”) in and the BorgWarner Team Owner’s Trophy™. Both are 18-inch tall sterling silver replicas of the Borg-Warner Trophy. On December 5, 2018 Power received his first “Baby Borg,” while car owner Roger Penske has seventeen of the replicas.   

BorgWarner is the Official Turbocharger Partner of the Verizon™ IndyCar Series with its Engineered for Racing (EFR) turbocharger. BorgWarner’s innovative engineering and materials expertise are race proven, with more than 1.25 million trouble-free miles since 2012, on high-speed oval tracks, road courses, street courses and short oval tracks.

Assembled in Asheville, North Carolina, the EFR turbos provide an unprecedented combination of advanced technologies, including Low-weight Gamma-TiAI (titanium aluminide) turbine wheels and shaft assemblies for quick boost response, patent-pending dual-row ceramic ball bearing cartridges for more thrust capacity, durability and turbine efficiency at low expansion ratios and investment-cast stainless-steel turbine housing for increased efficiency, improved durability and corrosion resistance.

All photographs and information provided by BorgWarner

Twilight of the Hanford Motor Speedway

Part five - the end of the first superspeedway west of the Mississippi

The years of 1967 and 1968 represented the high-water mark in the history the Hanford Motor Speedway, as the 1-1/2-mile paved tri-oval hosted three USAC (United States Auto Club) National Championship races promoted by JC Agajanian which were wildly successful with crowds of over 15,000 reported for each event.  

However, there was trouble on the horizon The state of the art 2-1/2-mile oval Ontario Motor Speedway was under construction 200 miles to the south of Hanford, and USAC’s continued its direction towards corporate partnerships with new road course racing venues.

There were financial problems for the track operator, KS Racing Enterprises Inc. which was locked in an ongoing battle with the track owner B.L. Marchbanks over the contract terms. The disagreement over distribution of the proceeds from advance ticket sales was further exacerbated when KS Racing Enterprises fell behind on rental payments. 

Kalmon “Kal” Simon the President of KS had also lost a lawsuit filed by a Fresno paving company over non-payment for paving work completed at the site during 1967 and 1968.   At the same time, Marchbanks was in negotiations for the sale of Hanford Motor Speedway with American Raceways Inc. (ARI) the owner of the new Michigan International Speedway. ARI controlled by developer Lawrence LoPatin had bought Atlanta Raceway and was in the process of building the Texas World Speedway, but talks on the sale of Hanford progressed in fits and starts.  

The 25-race 1969 USAC schedule originally included two dates for Hanford – the ‘California 200’ scheduled for Sunday April 13, and the ‘California 250’ slated for October 19. That Hanford held onto two dates was a testament to JC Agajanian’s prestige with the other USAC board members, as USAC officials remained deeply unhappy with the primitive conditions at Hanford which used temporary grandstands, concession stands and restrooms. Additionally, in response to new car owners and drivers, USAC required promoters to guarantee higher purses, at least $30,000 against 40% of the ticket receipts in the case of Hanford.   

In January 1969 JC Agajanian announced that the 1-1/2-mile paved tri-oval would host an open-competition supermodified and caged sprint car race on Sunday afternoon February 9.   This event was a follow-up to the success of a pair of ‘Open-Competition Supermodified and Caged Sprint Car 100-mile Championship’ held in the fall of 1968 at the California State Fairgrounds mile dirt track and Agajanian’s Ascot Park half-mile dirt track. Agajanian stated that he expected average lap speeds of over 140 MPH during the event sanctioned by the California Racing Association (CRA) which carried a purse of $10,000.

Among the 100 entries for the 33-car open competition 100-mile race on the “the fastest racing track in the West” included Northern California midget racer Hank Butcher in John Driver’s “Flying Wing” sprint car, the 1963 and 1968 CRA champion Bob Hogle, and Ned Spath in Carl Alleman’s Chevrolet-powered rear engine Huffaker ex-Indianapolis car. Out of state entries came from drivers in New York, Ohio, North Dakota and Iowa, with former Indianapolis drivers Wayne Weiler and Colby Scroggin also scheduled to appear. 

Johnny Parsons, Junior, son of the 1950 Indianapolis champion emerged with the pole position after qualifying on Sunday morning with a lap of 141.546 miles per hour (MPH) in an older converted Indianapolis roadster.  Parsons led the race’s first 16 laps, but dropped out with mechanical problems. Hogle in the Offenhauser-powered Morales “Tamale Wagon” who had started in the 12^th position, inherited the lead after mid-race leader Walter Reiff dropped out. With Hanford favorite Frank Secrist in second place, Hogle made his mandatory pit stop five laps from the end of the 67-lap race, which handed the lead to Secrist, who had not yet made his required stop.

Secrist who had started from the 16^th position brought his car into the pit area with three laps to go, but instead of adding just a few gallons of fuel his crew nearly filled the car’s tail tank. As Secrist lost valuable time, Hogle regained the lead then won the 67-lap race and the $2,500 first-place check with Secrist second half a lap behind. 18 of the 33 starters finished the race, with Dieter Mundweiler of New York in third place in his roadster. Promoter Agajanian had to be disappointed with the crowd of only 5,500 fans for his ‘CRA Open-Competition Supermodified and Caged Sprint Car Sweepstakes.’

For the third annual “California 200’ JC Agajanian dropped ticket prices to $10 for a grandstand seat close to the starting line and $8 for all the other reserved grandstand seats, with $6 general admission tickets available at the gate the day of the race.  He also added a “lead in” event with a 100-lap USAC midget race the night before at the Kearney Bowl in Fresno, an hour’s drive from Hanford Speedway. Some of the lesser-known drivers advertised as last-minute entries for the ‘California 200’ included Leon “Jigger” Siriois, sprint car racers Larry Dickson and Sammy Session and Hungarian-Canadian driver George Fejer in his own Chinook creation.  

Mario Andretti, in the first year of his contract with STP Oil Treatment and car owner Andy Granatelli, qualified for the pole position in the Brawner Hawk III with a speed of 160.115 MPH. Once again, the Joe Hunt Magneto Special a front engine upright dirt car made the starting field after Bakersfield’s George Snider replaced the original driver Greg Weld.   The 23^rd qualifier was Ned Spath in the Alleman Chevrolet powered Huffaker that had competed in the open competition caged sprint race the month on the same track.

Only 25 cars started the race, as the cars entered for Sam Sessions, Larry Dickson, Denny Zimmerman, Bobby Johns, George Fejer and Ronnie Bucknum did not appear, and the Seidelman dirt car driven by midget champion Tommy Copp and Wilbur ‘Wib’ Spaulding’s Lotus both broke in practice, leaving the field one car short.  Even worse for the race promoter, only 12,075 fans reportedly passed the turnstiles; as USAC officials had predicted, without permanent seating and sanitation facilities, attendance figures continued to drop.

Andretti went to the lead at the drop of the green flag and led until lap 70 when he dropped in to make his pit stop. His teammate, Art Pollard in the STP Gerhardt Offenhauser was already in his pit stall and while the crew toiled, Pollard’s car caught fire. The uniforms of three mechanics on Pollard’s crew, Edward “Red” Stainton, Ed Stratton and Grant King caught fire, and Stainton backpedaled away from the fire and into the path of Andretti’s passing car.

After Stainton was struck, USAC officials immediately threw the red flag to stop the race while safety crew extinguished the fire and tended to the injured crewmembers.  Stainton with second degree burns and “critical head injuries” and Stratton and King, with second degree burns, were loaded into the two ambulances on site and transported to Fresno Community Hospital.

With no ambulance on site, the race remained stopped for close to ninety minutes until one of the ambulances returned. The race resumed with Andretti still in the lead, as apparently his car had sustained no damage, and Mario led the rest of the race to claim the victory, his first of nine race wins during the 1969 season. Lloyd Ruby in the ‘Wynn's Spit-Fire Special’ finished second one lap behind Andretti with Gordon Johncock and Johnny Rutherford third and fourth on the same lap as Ruby.  Attrition had been high as only eleven cars were still on course at the finish. No one knew it that day, but fans had witnessed the last race at Hanford Motor Speedway.

In victory lane with a check for $6,900 the winner’s portion of the $30,000 purse, Andretti admitted that Stainton’s injuries “certainly colors the rest of the day.”  King and Stratton were treated and released after treatment of their burns, while Stainton underwent emergency surgery later Sunday night in Fresno, but he passed away from his injuries on Tuesday April 15, 1969 at age 38 and was laid to rest in his hometown of Sanger California.  

Over the months that followed the 1969 ‘California 200,’ negotiations with ARI officials for the sale of Hanford Motor Speedway stalled, then collapsed in early September. Within days of the news of ARI’s withdrawal, USAC Director of Competition Henry Banks reportedly sent a letter to KS Racing Enterprises Inc which stated that Hanford’s seating and sanitation facilities were substandard and had to be upgraded.

USAC also demanded that that the paddock area behind the hot pit area be paved, and Banks’ directive stated that if these improvements were not made, Hanford and Agajanian would forfeit the October 19, 1969 race date. Kal Simon President of KS Racing Enterprises freely admitted that the company “did not have the resources to make the improvements” but reminded listeners that “there was not enough time to make the improvements anyway.”  

USAC subsequently canceled the ‘California 250’ date, however, according to Agajanian, Banks and the USAC board agreed to hold open the spring and fall Indianapolis car dates on the 1970 USAC schedule and would grant him an additional sanction for a stock car date in 1970, provided the facility improvements were completed in time.

Although there was some public outcry that USAC was unfairly punishing Hanford, Deke Houlgate in his syndicated “Motorsports Today” column that appeared in many in California newspapers noted that the Hanford paddock area “comes in two conditions, a quagmire if it has rained or a dust bowl if it hasn’t.” Houlgate also observed that “sanitation, as many Hanford fans will attest, is slightly superior to what is found five miles from the nearest dirt road in the Mohave Desert.”         

 In mid-December 1969, Al Auger’s column in the Hayward Daily Review newspaper reported that Kal Simon, the Hanford track president, announced plans to build a roofed 25,000 seat grandstand “early next year.” Other planned improvements included “black-topping of the pit area, new ticket and entrance booths, press box and parking improvements,” but the article made no mention of any planned sanitary improvements. Promoter JC Agajanian was quoted by Auger that with the Labor Day 1970 500-mile race scheduled at the new Ontario Motor Speedway, “it would be only natural to have a follow-up race at Hanford.” Auger wrote that “this is the main reason for the face-lifting,” which ignored USAC’s September 1970 directive.  

The planned roofed grandstand and the other improvements at Hanford obviously never came to fruition, and instead of a race at Hanford Agajanian promoted a new September date race on the 1970 USAC schedule on the State Fairgrounds mile dirt track in Sedalia Missouri. Though Hanford Speedway sat idle during 1970 significant events occurred behind the scenes and in late August 1970, Jay Kuhne identified as a vice-president and treasurer of Hanford Motor Speedway Inc (HMSI) began to tour the state to promote a stock offering to redevelop the Hanford track.

The traveling presentation road show, complete with artists renderings of the new grandstand and pit area visited Bakersfield, Fresno, Visalia, Upland, Newport Beach, Oakland, Sacramento and San Diego. Kuhne announced that the group planned “to organize the new company with an initial capitalization of $750,000 that would enable us to acquire the existing track free and clear to build a new 25,000 (uncovered) grandstand comparable in spectator comfort to OMS to create new garage and pit facilities layout access roads parking and landscaping “to make it truly and auto racing showcase.”  The new company offered “investment units” of $2,500 each that consisted of 25 shares of $100 par value each to be sold to a maximum of 300 California residents through a syndicate of investment brokers throughout California. 

Along with Kuhne, an investment analyst, other officers of HMSI formed on April 24, 1970 with an office in the Wilshire financial district included Robert Carlin, Los Angeles attorney that specialized in oil and gas law as President, with Patrick Cooney an oil and gas machinery importer as a vice-president and Secretary and Agajanian listed as a vice-president and manager of racing. Kuhne claimed that the USAC board had “tentatively sanctioned” a September 1971 300-mile race “in alignment with Ontario Motor Speedway (OMS)” with promises of a 300-mile USAC stock car race.   Agajanian also suggested that the track could host a 250-mile American Motorcycle Association (AMA) race as at the time Agajanian promoted many AMA events in California.

Kuhn stated in an October 1 article published in Bakersfield California that “we have already reached one-third of our goal and we hope to have the entire issue subscribed before Nov 1.”  An article later in October revealed that sales had reached 40% of the $750,000 goal and a press release listed other members of the Hanford Motor Speedway Inc board that included Bobby Unser, Agajanian, and David Lockton and Chuck Barnes of the Sports Headliners talent agency, with the latter pair members of the Ontario board of directors so their inclusion was identified as part of “planned financial alignment” with OMS.

The 1971 USAC championship racing schedule which was released on Thursday December 12, 1970 listed two dates for Hanford Motor Speedway, with the “Hanford 150’ on March 14, and a “tentative” October 10 date for the ‘Hanford 200.’  An ominous article in January 1971 written by Jim Bryant in the Ontario Daily Report identified Hanford as the possible “first casualty of the Southern California race slate” as the author mused that the area was over-saturated with racing venues that included Riverside International Raceway (an ARI property) and Ontario Motor Speedway which already experienced slow ticket sales.

With the failure of Hanford Motor Speedway Inc. to generate the planned capitalization to buy the track and make the required USAC improvements, the 1971 scheduled Hanford races never occurred, although the Hanford facility was still included on an inventory of USAC sanctioned tracks released in August 1971.  The one-time hoped-for savior of Hanford, Lawrence LoPatin’s American Raceways, Inc. a five-track conglomerate, itself filed for bankruptcy protection during 1971 and was gone for good in late 1972. 

The state of the art Ontario Motor Speedway the construction of which in some ways hastened Hanford’s downfall, hosted its last races in 1980 after a short ten-year run, as ticket sales never met initial estimates to service its debt, and the track finally was demolished in the mid-1980’s. The builder and owner of the Hanford Motor Speedway, B.L. Marchbanks reportedly passed away in 1979, and the remains of the racing facility were demolished in 1984 and the property reverted to farmland.     

The racing at Marchbanks Stadium, whether on the smaller original ½-mile and 1/3-mile tracks or the later 1.4-mile paved tri-oval was always good – attendees recall the three Indianapolis-car races held in the track’s heyday as very competitive events. One may ponder what could have been, but in retrospect, the track’s remote location and reliance on temporary grandstands and sanitary facilities during Indianapolis car racing’s major growth period doomed its survival. Although Hanford Motor Speedway itself is long gone, Mr. Marchbanks will forever be remembered through his membership in the West Coast Stock Car Racing Hall of Fame as a visionary for his contribution that brought to life the first superspeedway west of the Rockies.   

Hanford Motor Speedway‘s heyday

Part four of the rich history of the first superspeedway west of the Mississippi

In early 1964 KS Racing Enterprises Inc. (KSRE) signed a 20-year lease with track builder and owner Bircha Lewis “B.L”. Marchbanks for the facility, which included a paved ½-mile, oiled dirt 1/3-mile and 1-3/8-mile high banked paved tri-oval, on property located southeast of Hanford California. KSRE operated by Kalmon “Kal” Simon and T L “Tommy” Francis renamed the facility Hanford Speedway and aimed to book USAC (United States Auto Club) National Championship Indianapolis car races for the big tri-oval

For the 1964 and 1965 seasons, Hanford Speedway hosted a late season USAC stock car race, but was unable to land the desired National Championship race. In 1966, the facility reached its nadir of racing activity, with no major events reported in news outlets.   

Finally, in 1967 the newly re-named Hanford Motor Speedway landed a USAC National Championship race but only because the race was promoted by Joshua “JC” Agajanian, owner of the 1952 and 1963 Indianapolis winning cars and the West’s foremost racing promoter. Agajanian, a founding USAC board member, famed for his promotion of the half-mile dirt Ascot Park track located at 183^rd Street and Vermont Avenue in Gardena, also promoted annual USAC National Championship races at the Phoenix International Raceway and the California State Fairgrounds in Sacramento.   

The new Hanford Motor Speedway date became part of a four-race western swing that comprised the final two months of the 1967 USAC schedule, along with Phoenix, Sacramento and the addition of a new date and venue for the season finale ‘Rex Mays 300’ booked for the Riverside International Raceway. Agajanian proudly proclaimed that the inaugural ‘California 200’ at Hanford would be the first time for rear engine Indianapolis cars to race in California.  

The initial entry list released in late September listed AJ Foyt, who had won his third Indianapolis ‘500’ in May, joined by Mario Andretti, Bill Vukovich Junior, Roger McCluskey, Jim McElereath, Joe Leonard, Al and Bobby Unser and Gordon Johncock. Agajanian stated that the 26-car starting field would include “most of the Indy 500 field,” and that Parnelli Jones would make pre-race speed runs in the STP turbine car and then would pace the start of the race.

Both the major tire companies conducted pre-race tire testing at Hanford. AJ Foyt in his Ford-powered Coyote tested Goodyear tire compounds and ran multiple laps at 151 miles per hour (MPH). Agajanian, ever the great promoter claimed in newspaper interviews that Foyt told him that “it was the finest track he had ever raced on.” Art Pollard ran the Firestone tire tests in Fred Gerhardt’s turbocharged Offenhauser powered Gerhardt chassis with his faster lap reported as 154 MPH.

Days before the race, the Bakersfield Californian announced that four additional drivers had been added to the entry list – USAC regulars Chuck Hulse, Johnny Rutherford, Ronnie Duman and Wally Dallenbach.

When the gates at Hanford swung open at 9 AM on October 22, 1967 there were 7,000 general admission seats still available at $6.00 apiece. Qualifying runs for the 31 cars entered began at noon with the race scheduled to take the green flag at 3 PM.

Art Pollard in Fred Gerhardt’s turbocharged Offenhauser powered ‘Thermo King Auto Air Conditioning Special’ ran the fastest lap clocked at 154.816 MPH as Gordon Johncock in his similar Gerhardt chassis, the ‘Gilmore Broadcasting Special’ powered by a DOHC Ford engine, ran the second-best lap with an average speed of 154.26 MPH.  Al Unser in the Retzloff Chemicals Lola/Ford was third fastest, with Mario Andretti in the Dean Van Lines Ford-powered Brawner Hawk in the fourth starting position.

Towering above the field of 25 low slung rear-engine cars was the ‘Joe Hunt Magneto Special’ a Lujie Lesovsky built Offenhauser powered front engine dirt car driven by Gary Bettenhausen in just his third USAC championship start. Tommy Copp, Bob Harkey and Sonny Ates failed to qualify, while Bruce Walkup crashed in practice and Dempsey Wilson’s car broke a piston in practice. To confirm JC Agajanian’s pre-race claim that most of the Indy ‘500’ field would be Hanford for the ‘California 200,’ 20 of the 26 starters had competed in the 1967 Indianapolis 500-mile race.   

Race day dawned with cold temperatures and valley fog, but the sun broke through just before the command to start engines. At the drop of the green flag, Pollard rushed into the lead and led the first 108 laps, while challengers Al Unser and Andretti were both eliminated in a first turn crash on the 18^th lap.

Pollard was passed by Joe Leonard in the ‘Vel’s Ford Sales’ DOHC Ford powered Mongoose on the 109^th lap, and Joe led until he spun in turn one on the 129^th lap, which handed the lead to Johncock. Gordon led the final four circuits around the 1-1/2-mile tri-oval to claim his first USAC championship victory and a $15,000 check out of the total $60,000 purse.

Bobby Unser in the Rislone Oil Treatment/Leader Cards Eagle/Ford crossed beneath Shim Malone’s checkered flag five seconds behind Johncock. Lloyd Ruby in the American Red Ball Special was third one lap behind with Foyt fourth and Pollard in fifth position as Leonard recovered from his late race spin to finish seventh as he had lost two laps.

Bettenhausen in the Hunt dirt car finished in 11^th place, five laps in arrears just ahead of McElreath in the second Leader Cards entry which was the final car to finish. The race was completed in one hour 34 minutes and 34 seconds with an average speed of 127.531 MPH for the 201-mile race distance.

Post-race press reports were enthusiastic as JC Agajanian reported gate admissions of $121,000, with the crowd count reported as both 18,000 and 20,0000.  Jack Lattimer with the San Mateo Times newspaper reported the higher head count and stated that “on more times than we can recount, we watched the cars race three abreast” but eluded to some complaints from drivers regarding dusty track conditions that caused several of the cars to spin. 

Lattimer claimed that “when the drivers get the ‘feel’ of the track Hanford is in for some headlines, although a little more time and money must be spent to put the grounds in shape, but the superspeedway is excellent.”  Lattimer claimed that Agajanian told him that he planned two visits per year of the Indianapolis cars in the future. Larry Press’ column in the Bakersfield Californian newspaper reported 18,000 attendees and noted that “seating, concession and restroom facilities all are temporary and there is room for improvement in those areas.” 

True to Agajanian’s promise following the October 1967 race, the USAC championship cars were booked for two races for the 1968 season, with dates that bookended the season with races scheduled in February and November to avoid the intense heat of California Central Valley summers. The 1968 USAC season opener, the second annual ‘California 200,’ was set for Sunday March 17, with reserved seats tickets priced at $10 for those closest to the start-finish line with advance sale seats at the ends of the grandstand available at $8 each.

In the weeks leading up to the race, Bobby Unser tested tires for Goodyear and reportedly recorded a lap in his turbocharged Offenhauser Eagle of 156.069 MPH, faster than Pollard’s 1967 pole-winning speed. Pre-race news articles quoted a press release that stated that “during the winter months many improvements have been made to the Hanford site.

New bleachers were brought in and placed farther from the track for better viewing. Many more restroom and concession stands have also been added for race fan’s convenience.” An article by Al Auger in the Hayward Daily Review claimed that “the track has been completely modernized with a new surface,” but this claim years later remains unsubstantiated.

In qualifying for the second ‘California 200,’ Bobby Unser set a new track record with an average speed of 155.709 MPH which outpaced Art Pollard, Mario Andretti, Lloyd Ruby and Roger McCluskey. Once again, Gary Bettenhausen put the ‘Joe Hunt Magneto Special’ into the starting field, but this time his upright dirt car was joined by sprint car veteran Charles “Sonny” Ates in a Turner chassis front engine upright dirt car and George Benson in the Vince Conze-owned Watson roadster.

The appearance of Conze’s Watson roadster, which had finished second in the 1960 Indianapolis ‘500’ driven by Rodger Ward, powered by a 220-cubic inch Offenhauser engine, marked the final instance of a Watson roadster in the starting field for a USAC race according to author Joe Scalzo.  In a field filled with cars equipped with Offenhauser and Ford engines, four cars powered by stock-block Chevrolet power plants made the 26-car starting field: Ates’ upright front engine machine owned by Hoosier muffler shop chain owner Boyce Holt, and the rear-engine cars of Max Dudley, Dempsey Wilson and Johnny Rutherford in the Jerry Eisert entry. 

USAC sophomore driver Jim Malloy in the ‘Jim Robbins Seat Belt Special’ Vollstedt was the only car that failed to record a lap fast enough to qualify, as Bob Hurt’s entry broke an oil line and drag racer Danny Ongais, in his first Indianapolis-car appearance, crashed the rear-engine Chevrolet-powered Mickey Thompson entry in practice after it caught fire.

The first twenty laps of the race saw furious action at the front, as Pollard, Bobby Unser, and McCluskey each took turns at the point until Unser established himself as the leader. Bobby led until lap 91, then with his pit stop, Pollard and McCluskey got past Unser and the pair exchanged the lead over the next 14 laps.

Unser’s Eagle reassumed the lead on lap 105 and Bobby looked to be cruising for the victory until he spun in traffic on lap 120 and Art Pollard hit the wall in the ‘Thermo King Auto Air Conditioning Special’ to avoid Unser’s spinning ‘Rislone Special.’  Bobby lost a lap with his spin and fell to sixth place with his brother Al and Gordon Johncock at the front of the field.   

Johncock assumed the lead and repelled Al’s late attempts to pass and led the final 14 laps to claim his second consecutive “California 200’ victory. Lloyd Ruby finished in third position, and AJ Foyt fourth as Bobby Unser recovered to finish fifth. Mario Andretti, now a car owner following the death of benefactor Al Dean, started what would be an unhappy 1968 season, a retired early when his Brawner Hawk broke a half shaft after just 40 laps.

Attrition was much less of a factor in the 1967 “California 200,’ as 17 of the 26 starters finished the race, which finished in an hour and 39 minutes with a record average speed of 155.709 MPH. The racing was good with ten recorded lead changes, but attendance was down from the inaugural event, with only 15,000 fans reportedly on hand.

There were apparently no other major races held at Hanford Motor Speedway during the Summer months of 1968, but a major event occurred that did not bode well for the long-term survival of the facility. On July 9, 1968, the sale of $25.5 million in mortgage bonds were completed to finance the construction of the Ontario Motor Speedway. The new facility west of the Los Angeles metropolitan area would feature a 2-1/2-mile oval and infield road course was planned to be the world’s most modern multi-purpose racing facility with seating for 95,000 fans. With the general contractor Stole, Inc. already under contract, the new facility was set to open with a USAC Indianapolis-car race in the Fall of 1970.

In the lead-up to the November 3, 1968 ‘California 250’ race, much of the publicity focused on the appearance of a pair of STP-sponsored Lotus 56 machines powered by Pratt & Whitney ST6N-74 gas turbine engines. The door-stop shaped dayglo red turbine cars had been a sensation in their debut at the Indianapolis ‘500,’ and a turbine car came within nine laps of winning the race.

Two weeks after the ‘500,’ ownership of the turbine cars shifted from STP Oil Treatment president Andy Granatelli to Parnelli Jones and they had appeared in a handful of USAC races, mainly road courses. The four-wheel drive turbines proved to be fast in qualifying but suffered from numerous mechanical maladies and brake problems in races which had limited their finishes.

‘California 250’ ticket prices increased over the Spring race, with starting line area seats priced at $12 each, with outer area reserved grandstand seats $10 and day of the race general admission seats $8 apiece. JC Agajanian who had posted a guaranteed purse of $25,000, featured the entries of three drivers in piston engine cars to battle the turbines – Roger McCluskey, Al Unser and Bill Vukovich Jr.  McCluskey a two-time USAC sprint car champion and Vukovich from Fresno, the 1968 Indianapolis Rookie of the Year were entered in cars powered by turbocharged Offenhauser engines, while Unser was entered in a Lola powered by 750-horsepower turbocharged Ford engine.

There was a three-hour practice session held on Saturday November 2, with qualifying on Sunday at noon followed by the start of the race at 2:30 PM. Defending champion Gordon Johncock crashed in Saturday practice and Pollard in one of the turbines broke a differential and neither car could be repaired in time.  In qualifying, Joe Leonard in the STP turbine obliterated the previous track record with a best lap of 163.093 MPH trailed by USAC points leader Mario Andretti, Lloyd Ruby and the 1968 Indianapolis ‘500’ winner Bobby Unser, as all four drivers posted laps which were faster than the old track record.     

At the drop of the green flag by JC Agajanian, Leonard in the #60 turbine seized the lead and led the first 93 circuits until he pitted for a kerosene fill-up and new tires on lap 94.  While Leonard was stopped, the yellow flag flew which allowed AJ Foyt, Bobby Unser and Andretti to pit under caution and dropped Leonard to fourth place. Unser and Andretti battled for the lead over the next 29 laps before AJ Foyt took the lead for good on lap 132 and led the final 36 circuits.

Foyt’s Coyote crossed the finish line three seconds ahead of Unser with Andretti in third one car length behind Bobby. Leonard wound up in fourth place on the lead lap, the best-ever finish for the STP turbine with Jim McElreath in fifth place three laps in arrears to the winner.

Foyt’s win marked the first USAC championship victory for the turbocharged Ford engine as Andretti’s points lead fell to 72 markers with two races remaining on the 1968 schedule. Post-race newspaper articles  the next day optimistically reported attendance of 15,000, but a later local newspaper article stated that “promoter Agajanian barely escaped with his shirt.”  

In our next installment, we will look at the 1969 season as the 18-year old Hanford Motor Speedway facility began to encounter serious financial difficulties.