Don--I saw my first midget race at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1946. The first races were on asphalt, and I believe all the races in '46 were flat and on asphalt. In 1947 or '48, they put up a board track, which was removable for other Coliseum events. I believe they ran only one or two years, and not after '48, but I never personally saw any races on the boards. TV was just coming in then, and I think some of the boardtrack racing was televised on the local stations. Ralph L. Seifer, Long Beach, California
Maz--If I'm not mistaken, that's Tom Hanlon with Dick Lane. Hanlon was on KNX after Steve Allen with The Midnight MerryGoRound. He was also on camera in as the announcer in a racing movie, I believe which included Mickey Rooney.
Shelby and a partner (I think Lew Spencer) left the LaBrea location,they moved to El Segundo. The LaBrea location was just around the corner from where my folks lived while I was going to USC. There's a right jog onto Edgewood and that turns into Highland. Their shop was just on the radius of that jog. I never was in that store, but Shelby was there for a couple of years, as I recall. After the GT40s were finished racing, Shelby took over a showroom on Sepulveda which had been previously occupied by Ira Escobar Ford. Escobar had moved south to Manhattan Beach. I went in the showroom on one occasion, and they were almost giving away the cars. They were clapped out racers, and I don't recall the $4000 price someone mentioned earlier, but it was someplace in the vicinity of that figure. I had just unloaded a '62 Porsche that I bought new and obsessed and fussed over for years while living in an apartment, and what could I do with a race car with no bumpers, no A/C and the usual ailments?? As Maz said, "Who knew???"
Just behind the parking lot, the partial view of a two story building and the cupola at the south corner shows the Los Angeles Examiner at 1111 South Broadway. I worked on the prep sports section at the Examiner from 1948 to 1951 when I graduated from Manual Arts. Worked there as a copyboy until I finished college in 1955 and got drafted. The building is still there, but I believe it has been vacant for years. (I just took another look at that picture, and realized something more about it. Note the three people standing in the street. They're in a painted island in the middle of the northbound lanes, waiting for the electric streetcar. People boarded and disembarked from that island and never gave it a thought. I did that, too, when I was a kid. Now it looks so quaint, and you have to wonder why in hell nobody ever seemed to get nerfed three or four blocks down the road when they waited there for the trolley. After a while the local transport majordomos made a major "improvement" in pedestrian safety and modified the painted island by pouring 3-4 inches of concrete and I guess they figured the increased altitude made the would-be riders sufficiently visible to the onrushing cars. It was a different time back then.)
The Thorne Engineering shop in Burbank, circa 1938. Joel Thorne was the heir to the Chase Bank & Pullman Railroad Car fortune....At the age of 10 he inherited the sum of $38 million after his father's death. (that's 38 mil Great Depression value!) Joel entered several Indy cars as an owner and he also drove and finished in the top 10 on a couple of occasions. The Land Speed Racer was built to one up the German Auto Union juggernaught, but the war got in the way and it never ran in anger.....Thorne was also a Hollywood movie stunt pilot, and was killed in a plane crash @ Burbank Airport in 1955 at the age of 41.
Is the well dressed African American gentleman "Stretch" Saunders? I am sure that the curly headed number 8 in the T-Bird uniform is "jammer" Ralphie Valaderez. Where is Shirley Hardman and the Texas Outlaws?
Speaking of Joel Thorne....whenever I see or hear about Joel Thorne, I immediately think of Art Sparks. 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..I hope you enjoy it-All the best-W.S.
continued.... Well, I hope you enjoyed the LA based story of the legend of Art Sparks as written by another legend, the great Joe Scalzo. All the best-Mark
Bottom Line is I Don't Know. But I won't let that slow me down too much. In those years, almost all the car stuff was at the Pan Pacific.
Fantastic story, Mark. Thanks for sharing that. And thanks for starting this conversation about Thorne and Sparks, Ed. Good to see you back stirring the pot. And there's Earl Muntz popping up in the story, it's only fitting. Especially like the story of Kelly Petillo winning at Mines Field with Tak Hirashima riding along as the mechanic. "Petillo had had to charge up from the back after a pit stop and flailed so hard that one of his elbows once struck poor Hirashima in the jaw, knocking him out for three laps." Poor Hirashima was probably leaning over checking a gauge. Great stuff.
My name is Dan and I just noticed your posting although it was a long time ago. They DID have Board Track racing at both the Coliseum and the Rose Bowl. There is a book entitled "When the Coliseum Roared" that documents the racing there and I have a program from the Rose Bowl Board Track dated August 20, 9146.
No, the question should be, "why is Rob Halford from "Judas Priest" wearing a hat and glasses like this guy at MacArthur Park?"
From left to right Walt Disney,Perry Beck(My Uncle) and Unknown man.They engineered the train to it's final resting place at the LA County Fairgrounds where it now resides at the train museum.
Forget the bikes, look how nice the 101 was, now it's all crappy like all the other freeways in SoCal. California Gold has become California Lead.
Nope... Also I've been looking for any picture of George Sutton Ford Dealership in Inglewood, Ca. as well, my A was purchased there in 31... Good Luck...
Man this is a good thread. I roll thru alot of LA and boy has it changed. I would like to have grown up in old LA, it looked fun and open spaces every where.
What was left of Tony Capanna's Hot Rod City in the mid 80s Sepulveda Blvd Torrance, CA http://www.wilcap.com/webdoc7.html In 1967 I went there to get a 1955? AH 100 drive shaft mated to a Chevy 4 speed. The AH cost me $550, the 327 and trans was $125 out of a junk yard and the drive shaft cost $20 for the machining. The place was bustling with hot rod shops and activity.
The Jalopy Journal
