Vintage shots from days gone by!

Second from the left in the photo is motorcycle racing and Bonneville legend Joe Petrali. Petrali was the mechanic on both of the IRC entered Maseratis in 1950. The second car was number 10 and was the ex-Shaw 500 winning car. Petrali did get newcomer Bill Vukovich through his Rookie Test in #10 but the Maserati engine couldn't reach qualifying speed the way the supercharged Offy did in the Banks car. Petrali was also a personal friend of Howard Hughes and was the flight engineer on the Spruce Goose when it made its only flight.
Sometime after the 500 the ex-Shaw car (S/N 3032) was sold and ran in the 1951 500 as the W & J Special. I'm not sure about who the "J" was but the "W" was Roger Wolcott who also hired mechanic Herb Porter. Porter made his debut that May in 1951 as a chief mechanic on this car before working for Wolcott for several more seasons. As for the switch to the supercharged Offy for 1951 driver Johnny McDowell did the work on that himself over the 1950-51 winter in Los Angeles before taking the car back east.

 

It has taken me many, many months (of once a day views) to get through the first 3232 pages of this thread. How wonderful that experience has been. Now, I look forward to being a contributor: now that I have seen what was already posted! Thank you, contributors, for all of your work making this one of the very best online sources of "Vintage Shots from Days Gone By."

 

1913 Grandfather and my Mother

 

\

 

\

 

The first photo is of Mike Salay's (actual name spelling was Szalai) Practice crash at IMS in 1951. A few years back I spoke with his son and he was in the process of restoring both the car and the 270 Offy from it.

And the other photo shows Joe Petrali again. I believe that during his lifetime Joe was the winningest AMA rider of all time. Here's some background on the streamliner that Petrali set a motorcycle speed record with at Daytona Beach in 1937.

http://www.craigvetter.com/pages/Main_Design_Page/Joe_Petrali_Story.html

 

The shot is from circa 1932 and standing to Petrali's left is Art Sparks and on his right is Stubby Stubblefield. Around that time Sparks was doing Hollywood stunt work including some for Howard Hughes' movies. Might have been how Petrali hooked up with Hughes.

 

From "Experiment in Terror"