| Society of Landspeed Racing Historians Newsletter #6 070918 | ||
|
|
SOCIETY OF LANDSPEED RACING HISTORIANS Newsletter #6
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
President's Corner:
The cool thing about being a Sherlock Holmes is finding
unknown treasures. I recently came across a
bunch of photos from the '30's taken at the lakes and among them were some results. I checked Dean Batchelor's American Hot Rod book as a cross referance on the event date and surprise, it wasn't listed.
I've found another piece of our missing history. There
were 37 cars, the entrant's name, type of motor,
head used and speed listed. WOW! We now know Sam
Hanks drove a Model A with a Riley C head to a
speed of 95.47 mph on June 30, 1935. Jim Miller
The "Catfish"
was a Land Speed Racer first, by Jim Miller
(clicking on Catfish go to photo)
Art Sparks and Paul Weirick were roundy-round racers. They
had this idea of building an Indy car to end all. In
the early '30's streamlineing was all the rage so Art and
Paul had the body of their radical new racer designed by
students at Stanford University as a class project. A
scale model was built and tested in the school's wind
tunnel.
The car was finished just in time for the '32 500 but a
little problem existed, finding a sponsor. Enter Earl B.
Gilmore. To get his sponsorship all they had to do was
break the American four-cylinder speed record of 144.89
mph. They put a little Gilmore product in the caster oil
and went to Muroc. The car ran 148.218 in the kilo and
147.355 in the mile on May 16. The car was now officially
a land speed record holder so it got the money to go
to Indy. Called the Gilmore Special, the fish shaped car
with its dorsal fin quickly got dubbed the "Catfish." The
story's not over. The car was a dog on the racetrack so
Fred Frame came along and bought it for $6,500. He
then cut a deal with Union Oil to go after the World and
International Class C records again at Muroc. So in
April '33 the car did just that by setting International
records in the kilo, mile, five and ten mile. Driver Fred
Frame
hit 151.1 for the flying mile. It also broke the World's
record for 50 kilos and 50 miles. Back on the race tracks
the car was still a flop and was finally destroyed in a
crash in '38 but you can't take away the fact that it set
some
land speed records at Muroc.
Photo caption: Front view of the Sparks-Weirick
"Catfish" freshly painted before leaving for Indy
around May 17, 1932 after setting speed records at
Muroc on the 16th.
Editor's notes: The following email is
condensed from the original and comes from Curt Rigney, who was
the Ad-
vertising executive for DRIVE magazine, before it was sold to
APG. I've asked Curt if he has a catalog yet, in
case he possesses some books of interest to the landspeed
racing community.
1) I've purchased an online book business.
I've acquired just around 17,000 books of all kinds. I have just
over 7100 listed through a listing program that then
uploads my books to the likes of Amazon, Alibris and
Abe Books. They in turn list the books online, take the
credit card payment, send me the order, I ship it
out, they deposit the monies into my account (including
the shipping costs) and everyone (hopefully) is
happy. The other 10,000 or so, I need to go thru and see
what can/should be listed. This is going to be a
rather large chore. But somebody has to do it. What I
don't want I can donate to charities, jails, and
prisons. There is always someone out there that will take
them. I find my books through auctions, yard/
estate sales, books my family and friends don't want
anymore, etc. It's fun to see what's out there. I've got
rare books that date back to the 1800's. These sell a
little differently, like on E-bay or something similar.
If you have any old automotive books you don't want, let
me know. Curt Rigney
2) Is it too much trouble to resend the 2
and 3 newsletter in the email form? I notice that I don’t have
it up
on the net – some weird things are happening on this
computer since I did some different settings. Will be
going back and changing them again. I have set up a index
page for members to go to to know where the
newsletters are.
http://www.oilstick.com/sportsfans/site.htm Evelyn
Roth Evelyn: They're on the way to
you. Thank you for making your website available to us.
3) Good Stuff. Keep it up. Name is Eric, not
Erich. Thanks. Rick Rick: Correction
made.
Editor's notes: One of the main purposes of the
Newsletter is to encourage research and publication of books on
landspeed racing. Many of us have already written and published
something. We would like to hear from you.
Send us a short description of your work and where we can purchase
it. If you are a publisher or printer, let us
know that too. The newsletter is for just such a purpose.
Upcoming events:
4) Automobile Club of Southern
California Annual California Hot Rod Reunion, Oct 12-14, 2007,
Famoso, CA.
5) John Force Holiday Car Show benefiting
the California Highway Patrol's "CHiP's For Kids" toy
drive. Sunday,
Dec 2, 10am-4pm, bring a new $10 unwrapped toy for
entrance. 850 hot rods/street machines on display. Top
NHRA drivers, Speed Freaks Radio personalities. See
www.JohnForceRacing.com for details. (Craig Hoelzel)
6) Dan Gurney's Eagle Racing Cars; The Technical History of the Machines Designed and Built by All American Racers. By John Zimmermann. 11x9 inches, 210 pages. See www.bullpublishing.com
7) Skip Gacksteter, passed away
September 1, 2007. At Echlin, he formed a trackside
group of Field Engineers
to support Accel racing activities all over the country. Services are pending. (from Bob Falcon)
8) Barney Navarro Celebration of Life,
Oct 13, 2007, 11am at H&H Flatheads, 4451 Ramsdell
Avenue, La
Crescenta, CA 91214. The memorial will be outdoors
and informal.
(Donna Navarro)
9) Cruisin' For a Cure -
September 22nd at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Costa
Mesa from 7 am to 5 pm.
More information at
www.cruisinforacure.com or
714-803-9216.
(Debbie Baker)
10) "Toyota: 50 Years in America –
Motorsports Milestones," at the Wally Parks NHRA
Motorsports Museum,
Pomona, CA. Exhibit will continue through January, 2008. (Bill Groak)
11) An Evening with Carroll
Shelby, at the Petersen Automotive Museum,
L.A., CA. November 8, 2007, 6PM.
Dinner, film, interviews included in the annual
Racing Tribute at the Petersen. Call Trena
Pitchford at 323-964-
6306 for
reservations.
(Tom McIntyre)
12) Please add me to the email list for
future newsletters. Jack Dolan forwarded the earlier ones
to me.
Thank you. Mike Kelly Mike:
Welcome to the Newsletter.
13) If you can, please send me the
LAND SPEED RACING HISTORIANS NEWSLETTER. Haven't seen
you
for quit awhile. Kind of laid up with bad leg and
knee. I like to keep up with what you guys are doing.
When I worked for Computer Science corp, we made a
history of Muroc racing. I gave your dad my copy
for him to copy and I am sure he did. Lots of
good information on people and history of muroc racing
before WW2. If he can't find his, I have a copy I
could loan you for research. Hope to hear from you
Willard Ritchie Willard: I've added you to the list and will send you back issues of the Newsletter. Welcome.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Members: Henry Astor, Glen Barrett, Warren
Bullis, Gary Carmichael, Jack Dolan, Ugo Fadini, Robert Falcon,
Rich Fox, Glenn Freudenberger, Bruce Geisler, Stan Goldstein,
Walt James, Wendy Jeffries, Mike Kelly, Dick
Martin, Ron Martinez, Tom McIntyre, Don McMeekin, Tom Medley,
Jim Miller, Don Montgomery, Mark Morton,
Louise Ann Noeth, David Parks, Richard Parks, Wally Parks, Eric
Rickman, Willard Ritchie, Roger Rohrdanz,
Evelyn Roth, Ed Safarik, Frank Salzberg, Charles Shaffer, Mike
Stanton, Doug Stokes, Bob Storck, Al Teague,
JD Tone and Jack Underwood.
|