History Auto racing 1894-1942

Debbs, here he is with Wild Bill in the Case they did one lap of the 1913 Indy 500 in...



T Head posted this nice pic of him earlier in the thread ...



He's listed as competing in a number of races 1913-15

 

debbs, welcome to the HAMB, that second photo that ehdubya posted looks like an Oldsmobile. Bob

 

Two more Peugeot race cars from the 1920's. The #36 may be a team mate to the 337 i posted a few days ago, photo taken the same day at the Dewey Ave. Track in Rochester 1922. If it is in fact a Peugeot it is a different model than #37.The other photo is Zeke Mayer at Pottsville, Pa. June 7, 1924. That was an AAA race, so there may be records somewere.

 

Thanks for the warm welcome .. by the time I knew my gff he was really old but that's definately my gf's and uncle's nose! what a piece of junk the second car looked like! Wow, surprised that thing even started. I know my great grandpa Claude never worked a "regular" job his entire life. He was always a mechanic out of his garage. Anyway the story goes that when they started sending him social security checks he sent them back .. now I don't now the validity of this but dad/uncle swore by it. I do remember him being a crusty old salt ... not the kind of ggf that dangled any grandkids on his knee but not unkind either .. just kind of a gruff guy. My dad told stories of GGF Claude racing out on the salt flats .. I tried to look it up but there were several salt flats for racing. So back in that time period where were the salt flats that they would have raced at?

As a kid I remember GGF, GF, Uncle, Dad always had a car for sale.. wheeling and dealing for extra cash. My GF wanted to race and I believe he might have just a bit but my grandmother, all 4'10" fire engine red hair gave him a good old "hell no"! and he went to work for the railroad but that's a different story

thanks for the pictures guys.
debbs

 

Bob.....It is and the race was in New York State, but I don't remember where.

 

1905 Premier . James Long pics

 

I'm glad this thread got bumped back up. The Premier racer is what started my mania for giant racers. I have pictures of it on my wall that I took 10 years ago or so at Indy. It is why I started building this monstrosity. My car will be a bit more refined, but I wanted a huge engine with wheels (fat guy in a little coat)- I'm a long ways off from completion.

 

Thanks Bob,the Premier is absolutely fabulous. I'd love to hear it make noise, over 200 cubic inches PER cylinder.

 

It appears the standard underlined text for a link is too sublimal so here's the link to T-Head's post again what says who, what and where, this time in bold Dark Orchid... earlier in the thread

 

I came across this pic of Irving Barber dated 1922, the latest picture I'd seen of him was 1917 in uniform. No idea what the car is, it looks like another Carter Bros body. He bought the Beaver Bullet after selling the Eye See Bee to William Weightman in 1916.



<B>Barbe of Crenschlin</B>

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/npcc.07054/

 

We have posted this photo at The Old Motor in hope that someone can ID the driver and car. The car appears to be a well built and attractive lightweight car.

The inscription on the back of the photo states the following; The first winner of the Sweepstakes Cup, winning car and driver at North Platte, July 3, 1920, at Lexington, July 5, 1920. Both tracks were in Nebraska.

Stop by The Old Motor and let us know if you have any information on it.

 

I dropped by "The Old Moter" but it wouldn't except my reply.

King Rhiley won at North Platte, NE on July 4, 1920 but I can't tell if your photo is of him or not.

 

Track Rod, Welcome to the HAMB, I've always liked the look of the "Mid West" (just made that up, unless it is a correct term) Dirt Car from the 1920's. they all look shorter than other cars of the era, the Bobtail cars are in a class by them selves. Great era, with some interesting cars. Bob

 

Thanks so much for the help......

 

The pictures were taken by Leslie Jones, who was staff photographer at the Boston-Herald

For more data click in the link below

http://www.flickr.com/photos/boston_public_library/sets/72157629880902912/

 

Thanks!
There's been some discussion here and elsewhere involving the Readville (Boston, MA.) and Laurel, MD Speedways Note:I agree with Michael it's not Laurel it's Rockingham Salem NH- I'll try and find the posts and add to yours. You've given us some new photos. I'd never seen any photos of the Brockton, MA track and it and Readville were gone by the time I could travel around the Boston area of my youth.

Found one on The Readville photo Pit Lane:


From Michael Ferner. "Those pictures are from September 5 (Labor Day) in 1932. The Al Fraser wreck (that's the spelling I have, no idea which one is right) happened in a support race for "Light Cars", apparently "Modifieds" in an early form. The first two pictures are from the "Big Car" (Sprint Car) race, a 50-miler won by Mauri Rose, the second of his three big wins that year (also Langhorne 50 on Aug 13 and Detroit 100 on Sep 10). There are a couple of interesting Indy Cars in the field: #61 in the first picture is the 1931 (Louie) Meyer/Miller, 4th at Indy in both 1931 and '32 - I don't know who drove it that day. The car in the centre of the second picture (with the boys standing around it) is the 1930 Romthe/Studebaker - "Romthe" was an acronym of six Studebaker engineers who dipped a toe into the Indy water for the South Bend manufacturer. It's possible that the car was driven by Malcolm Fox, who finished second in the race. EDIT: also in the second picture, #47 is the GNH (George N. Howie)/Chrysler, a 1931 Indy Car."
And 5 photos of Readville Trotting Track from earlier times:
http://s1011.photobucket.com/albums/af233/carl44s/preww2motorsports/?start=all

 

Both pictures of Pete de Paolo and his "banana wagon" Duesenberg, 1925. I want to say Rockingham Speedway (too lazy to check )

 

Probably Brockton (MA), Oct 5/6 in 1928. The car is the Duesenberg that Jimmy Gleason led most of the Indy 500 that year, driven here by Bob Robinson if I'm not mistaken. If so, it has to be Oct 5 since Robinson didn't return the second day.

 

Two times Earl Cooper, once Norm Batten and de Paolo again. The dirt track start may be Rockingham Speedway, again.

 

Again, Brockton: #22 is Norm Batten, #1 Ralph de Palma, and #39 Bob Robinson. De Palma won both days.

 

Yes, the car(s) in the Dees book look different - maybe because of the two years that lay between the pictures? And in between, the car looked like this for a time:



Jim, I'd be interested in the article mentioning Burman taking two cars to the track. Could you point me toward it, or send a copy?

 

That one could well be the Rickenbacher/Resta car - and it's still white!

 

Nice power slide!

 

I thought the board track was Laurel at first, I've only seen one picture of Rockingham before and that was just a small section of the banking. It appears they were still racing on the board track circuit long after the boards were gone if this is really 1932...



All the DePaolo pics are captioned DePalma, this one dated october 1928...



The big 1500 px versions at the flickr link are great, thanks ratamahata.

 

Michael someday if I ever find the time I would like to try and figure out the whole deal with Burman. I have not succeeded as of yet. I have referenced the pictures above and after studying the frames, rivets, exhaust pipes shape etc etc I do not believe the two cars in Dees book are the same. i know of the difference in time but to me there are too many differences that don't make sense. I am not a person that has to tidy up all the loose ends to the point of making too many errors. At least I try not to.

What cars he had when is certainly up for debate. At the time of his death according to the LA Times he had three cars that his widow was going to campaign as a tribute to him, all three made in the shops of Harry Miller. One was the car he was killed in and then "the motors of the other 2 cars are copied to a certain extent after the original Peugeot motor and were built by Harry A. Miller". Additionally Burman registered a number of cars for AAA in 1916; his Peugeot with interchangeable liners (347.0 and 294.2), then a Burman special with 292.9 c.i., then a 449 c.i.Burman special was registered by his friend and patron, LC Erbes (whom I believe bought his cars later on and sponsored them and another Burman 449 c.i.car was registered by E.L. Rathburn.

The 449 cars are pre 1915 cars most likely but the 292.9 car kind of gets my interest. I have seen his cars referred to as 347 and 350 ci and then 300 and 293 ci, so the 292.9 rings a bell.

The engines he had Miller build had different plates on the sides (maybe three different sets-would have to check my notes). Additionally I put credence in what Rick says and do not believe this is the Resta car. I have an article where Rick says he got both his and McCarthy's Peugeots from Kaufman and so I do not believe he forgot that when he wrote his autobiography. Maybe McCarthy's car went back but I believe him when he says his car went to Miller. Of course Miller worked on Resta's car but then that is not earth shattering to me. Resta's car was more streamlined and his car was one of the spare team cars from Lyons and they removed the hump for the spare. Every picture I have seen of Resta's Peugeot seems to be a longer or at least cleaner tail.

Somewhere I have notes of trying to figure all of this out with no solid conclusions but finding those notes now are out of the question. I have boxes of half baked excursions through history and not the time right now to do a good job with coming to any conclusions. i guess I keep hoping to find a smoking gun and save me some effort.

I am attaching the article I referred to(Motor Age 7/29/15 p.14). The article says "350 inch Peugeot" and then says "he will drive his 300 inch CAR". That is not a liner switch which the press would love to explore.Since they state car until I find something that would say otherwise I put a certain amount of credence in the statement. Fun stuff indeed-Jim

 

I think Michael is saying the Boardtrack photos are of Rockingham/Salem N.H. which was salvaged for lumber in 1929 then returned to a dirt track, also shown in two of the photos.

From the Oct 12, 1928 race at Salem- look at the dip in the deteriorating track-from Theoldmotor.com

 

Thats my wallpaper for the next 12 months - what an amazing photo!!!

 

thanyou for your retro pics . and how did you get them ? they are consider valuable and appropriately.

 

Jim, thanks for the article! I agree, the wording makes it sound pretty much like he had two CARS.

About the LA Times article and the three cars from the Burman estate: I recently looked into this very closely, and it's pretty difficult to establish the identity of the cars. To make things short, I don't believe they were completely new (as put forward by John Glenn Printz), and I don't think they had been used by Burman before, but this is far from certain. One theory I developed is that one of the cars was the later Newman-Stutz, which appeared in early 1917 with one of the new Miller engines built for Burman, apparently. Popular belief is that the Newman-Stutz had a Wisconsin built engine, going back to a Joe Freeman article many, many years ago. I would LOVE to read that article, as recent research seems to establish that it was actually a Miller engine, similar or identical to the one that went into the Peugeot in 1917!

As for the Rickenbacher/Resta Peugeot, you appear to confuse a few facts: the "spare car from Lyon" and the hump in the tail all refer to the 1914 GP model - the Burman and Rickenbacher/Resta Peugeots were both 1913 models, and had never raced at Lyon! Also, it is well established that there were only three cars built of the 1913 model, and one was extensively rebuilt later that year for speed record attempts at Brooklands; the other two went to America. There is absolutely not a shadow of a doubt that the Rickenbacher and Resta cars were one and the same, because there wasn't a third car of that type any longer in existence. Plus, all the available pictures show the cars to look exactly alike, down to the (unique) colour of the bodywork, and the lineage is well established. Rickenbacher may have been a bit loose in his wording, but neither he nor Harry Miller had the money to buy that car outright in 1915. A sponsor, like Erbes (who had REALLY DEEP pockets) might have stepped in, but there's no reason to believe that unless evidence turns up. I have studied Harry Miller's business in detail, and he certainly didn't have any REASON to even think about buying that Peugeot, unless he would have made that purchase in the name of someone else (which is probably what you are trying to tell me, right? ).