I must preface this missive by saying that, just for the happenstance of my parents renting a house next to Art Sparks back in the late forties (when I was 10 years old), gives me no unique insight into the genius of the man. In fact, when I was a kid, I had no idea that my playmates dad was anything but a gruff old (he probably was in his thirties) guy, who worked on machinery in his shop behind his house. I've only, in recent years, reading the research of others, learned of the man's exploits. In fact, the first thing I'd heard or thought of Art Sparks, in years, was in the late eighties; when, in the pilots lounge in the Salt Lake City Air Terminal, I read his obituary. So, the following information is from sources other than my own. Art and Joe Petrali got on their motorcycles, and came to SoCal, from Sacramento, in the early part of the twentieth century. They got jobs as messengers for the Los Angeles Times. A fellow worker of theirs told them of the great money to be made in doing stunts for the movies. That endeavor worked great until Art broke his back, dropping off an aircraft landing gear into the water. He and Joe went into the racing business, which, in the twenties, money could be made. Art built a Ford Model T to run on the dirt tracks that abound the Los Angeles area. They teamed up with Paul Weirick, as Weirick had access to a garage to work in. They built cars powered by Ford four bangers. The Fords could many times, beat the Miller powered cars that began to show up at the tracks. In fact, I think because of less friction of three mains, the Fords could pull the Millers out of the turns. And, because of the three mains, the Fords, sooner or later would blow the bottom ends out. Legion Ascot came into existance in the mid twenties. Sparks and Weirick were there with competitive cars. They ran mostly flatheads on their engines, but, in the early thirties, they began to go for overheads. Art made an F-head, that apparently was not too successful. I think they may have tried one of the Miller/Schofiel DOHC; but, their main effort was taking the 4 cylinder Miller Marine 151, punching it out to 220 c.i.d. The 220 was the engine used in "The Catfish". Their first effort at Muroc Dry Lake failed, in that they had too tall a ger; and the compression was too high for the gasoline. They carbed the engine for alcohol, changed the gearing; went back and set some international Class C speed records. That year, when they took the car to Indy, it never ran amongst the leaders. And, though they won a 100 mile dirt event shortly after Indy, Sparks and Weirick, not liking the car, sold it to Fred Frame. Frame, along with Harry Hartz, fitted the car with a 255 Miller. A Miller 200 was put in the car for the 1934 Indy race, which it didn't finish. The car next appeared in 1936, powered by a DOHC Cragar Ford. The car failed to make the field at the 1937 Indy, using a Brisko engine. In 1938, for the single seat rules, the original "Catfish" shell was taken off, for a conventional setup. That car, unfortunately crashed during the race. Though the chassis was rebuilt and modified; and a new car emerged; there was so little left of the original "catfish", that we can forget about finding much. I'll try to return later with more.
Hi - The book mentions Bob Swanson in several places starting with his midget days at Gilmore Stadium.Then it talks about Swanson driving in the 1937 Indy race in Paul Weirick.s "Poison Lil" and the relief driving for Ralph Hepburn to help Hepburn's 2nd place finish. Art and Paul had separated before the 1937 race. Paul Weirick continued to run the Poison Lil car. There is a photo of the car in the book - it looks like El Centro in 1938 when Rex Mays was driving it. The caption says the car ran from 1937 thru 1941 with drivers including Rex Mays, Joie Chitwood, Duke Nalon and Emil Andres winning championships in the East and Midwest. Since Art Sparks moved on to the Thorne-Sparks team there is no more mention of Poison Lil. There is a photo of Bob Swanson's 1939 Indy ride, the 16 cylinder Sampson using the Lockhart twin 91 inch Miller engines. Hope that helps - Don
Thanks Don! Is Poisin Lil and the Gilmore #33 one and the same or was Lil a Big Car (sprint car today), I've seen mention of Pioson Lil over the years but don't hava a photo. Best wishes, Bob
Bob - I am not an expert on Big car racing so someone else may have better info. Looking at The Legion Ascot book and Speedway indicates that up into 1936 the Sparks - Weirick team campaigned a 2 man car ( no. 33 ) and one or more 1 man cars ( what we would call big cars or sprint cars ). The car entered at the 1936 Vanderbilt Cup was the 2 man car.which Rex Mays failed to qualify after hitting the wall on the 2nd turn. The book says that Art saw that the Europeans were technically advanced over the U.S. stuff and decided that he needed to build a new car. But Paul Weirick wanted to continue to run the cars they had ( they were about broke ). As a result Paul bought out Art's share and Art proceeded to build the famous Big Six race car. Paul raced the 2 man car ( no. 33 ) at the 1937 Indy race. The book says that Bob Swanson was hired to drive the "Poison Lil" for the race. But I believe that the "Poison Lil" was the 1 man car that Paul (and Art ) had campaigned with good success at Ascot and also around the country. There is an indication that the 269 inch Offy in the 2 man car came out of the "Poison Lil" machine. I believe that after that the 1 man car was used to win the championships mentioned before. Apparently "Poison Lil" was built by 1931. I have no idea of how many times it was wrecked or rebuilt so the question if the 1941 car is the same car as the 1931 car is not a question that I can answer. Perhaps the name just transfered from car to car. Don
Thank you Rockerhead, tracing car histories is a big part of my race car interest. The cars from the 1930 got fixed and reused had had a long life. That stretched Midget that Bob Swanson drove in the Vanderbult Cup Race is one car I'd like to learn more about. Racing a 91CI engine against the best Europe had to offer must have been something. Nouvolari found a translator to tell Bob Swanson he was the greatest driver he had ever raced against.
Junior and his sons run Dreyer Cycle in Indy, Junior also does a lot fo restoration work, he is doing some work on a Mercedes for the IMS museum right now. He has a few vintage cars too
I've always considered Art Sparks to be a gen-u-ine American legend because from Hollywood to the Dry Lakes to Indy, he did it all and was successful to boot.The following images are scanned from my aged and yellowed copy of the July 1966 edition of Car Life Magazine. The article is written by the great Joe Scalzo and is filled with a veritable who's who of AAA, USAC, Dry Lakes, and even Hollywood legends. If you take the time to download the pix and read all ten pages you too will come away with a greater appreciation of a unique character and like I wrote earlier, a genuine American legend. I'm sorry the images are so poor, the pages are quite yellow now...I hope it is still legible to you. If it doesn't read well on your monitors, try printing it out... After seeing Ryan's article, I've been meaning to dig out this old issue, sorry it took me so long to get around to sharing it with you all...I hope you enjoy it-All the best-W.S. I hope you enjoyed the article; Art Sparks was one of a kind!! -W.S.
THANK YOU! Would you please post a copy of the magazine cover, all my magazines are filed by memory not date, I need a look at the cover to find my copy. Bob
Thanks again, I know I don't have that issue. Car Life was a great magazing had a lot of detailed coverage of cars that were restored at Harrah's, plus all the early racing features.
Threads like these make joining the hamb all worthwhile.I am not up in years enough to have seen any of these beautiful race cars but through pictures and stories from people like you guys I can learn about it know.Thanks!!
W.S. Thank you for passing along the info, I'm a Thorne Engineering fan (Thorne/Sparks Indy and LSR) Old Dawg I've got to pick your brain about Art! Ryan Thanks for the starting of the thread and being the keeper of the forum! tt
Just ran across this yesterday while looking for info on another HAMB post. The Catfish at Muroc part of a Fred Frame article in the June 1934 issue of Popular Science monthly
I'm pleasantly suprised to see this thread revived. The "Catfish", as has been described in many writings (including "The Miller Dynasty" by Mark Dees), was apparently a disappointment to Sparks and Weirick. They sold it, the engine was changed; then, I think the body went. And, finally, it went, as most old races cars have done, to the "four winds" in parts and salvage. That's one of the reasons I'm sceptical about any old race car that's touted as an "original". Several of my friends, who've been in racing since we were teenagers, when talking about originality of racing cars, always ask: "original to what time, place and race?" One said, "Shucks, If I didn't change something from Saturday night to Saturday night, we wouldn't be competative! And, pretty soon, what we had originly was gone!" And, of course, when a race car changed hands, as the "Catfish" did, the new owner always has to add his own changes to make the thing go and handle the way he wants it. The buddy of mine that's reconstructing a Lola T-70 Spyder in the old Art Sparks garage, had to ask the new owner/collector to what version he wanted the car restored. As Bruce was the crew chief when the car was brand new, he presided over every change in the car, until George Follmer rolled it up in a ball at Riverside. Bruce built a car for Follmer that was based on a Lotus 23, with a Porsche engine. After many changes, the car, at the hands of George, won the USSRC, beating the early Chaparrals. Last year, the "orignal" car went to auction (I don't know if it sold), sans the engine (which was unique). It did have a later Porsche engine. The body panels were wrong; and, even the graphics weren't right. Oh well, maybe somebody rolled off a turnip truck, spewing money; and bought it.
Old Dawg, I agree with your views on race car restorations, some had very rough lives, and have more replaced/remade parts than original bits. I don't mind seeing a clone of a car as long as the owner is honest about it. The Packard Gray Wolf is a good example, seeing a 100% replica vs. photos is impressive. If the Catfish body ever turned up making a roller out of wouldn't be a bad idea.
Thanks for posting that Joe Scalzo story. Joe was one the best features of the now defunct OpenWheel magazine, haven"t enjoyed his work in quite a while.
Hugh, Joe Scalzo is alive (not that there's any question) and well, in Sierra Madre, CA. He's sequestered himself for a couple of years, working on a book about Mickey Thompson. When I ran into him at a local jazz club last month, he told me that the Thompson manuscript has morphed into a work encompassing the age and times in which Mickey, and others lived. You may, or may not, have seen his las book: "Los Angeles, the City of Speed".
More Catfish...truly iconic. I believe some period cast iron toy racers used styling cues in their design? Also, I do believe the car did some speed record work or at least testing, as evidenced by the third photo.
The car with the original body did run in a AAA sanctioned race at the Danbury Fair in Danbury,Ct. I remember a photo on the history page years ago. If I did clip it out it was misplaced a long time ago.
WOW! Welcome to the HAMB MrJereMoose, when did Ken part with The Cat Fish? Selling that car for $100.00 was one of my mistakes years ago. Bob
What IS that? Looks like a rail midget, with what they called a "fishtail". The frame looks similar to that of a late twenties Essex. It's hard, by these photo, to get the scale.
Scroll down to post #20 on page one and there is a photo of the car back in the day. Powered by a stroked Harley - Davidson Knucklehead. Bill Schindler drove it to an East Cost Championship in the early 1940's I believe. Originally built by Pop Dryer in INDY, it has a Dryer Wiggle front end. Neat setup with two long leaf springs and cut up Model T Ford axle ends. Bob
Great shot of the V8-60 Midget, another car that I owned for a while, before your Dad restored it. All the pre 1940 Midgets were neat one of a kind builds, with great details. Be sure to find the cageless midget thread here on the HAMB. Bob
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