Vintage shots from days gone by!

Early 50's San Francisco street scenes from Dad's camera

 

Rootie, that's O'Connor standing alongside the Engle-Stanko Kurtis 4000 and he was the assigned driver in 1953. But offhand I don't recognize the driver sitting in the cockpit in a photo that almost looks like it was taken on a Qualification day. Do you happen to know who the other driver is?

I believe this car was sold to Pete Wales right after Indy and he ran it off and on through the 1959 season. However, it only qualified for the 500 one time and then just barely as it was the car that Ed Elisian made his "midnight run" in while qualifying for the 1955 500. He ended up spinning the car as he tried to stop at the Vukovich crash site. The car showed up again some years back near the Illinois/Wisconsin border in an amazingly intact shape with almost all of the original parts stored with the car. There had been some changes made to the frame in places because someone apparently wanted to convert it to an SCCA road racer with a stock block type engine and different suspension; this was sometime in the 1960s I think. The last I heard the plan was to restore it in its 1955 Ed Elisian Indianapolis configuration.

 

That's Bob Sweikert in the car. Even though they were tough competitors on the track they were good friends otherwise. I suspect Sweikert was trying to help the rookie O'Conner get dialed in as they were having trouble (and didn't) getting up to speed. As you know that was a common practice among the drivers back in those days.

 

Not sure of the date or manufacture of the truck, but do know it was fitted with balloon tires to get around in Egypt in the 1930s. Belonged to the Shell Oil Company and driving it is my former neighbors husband, an explorer for the company traveling the world looking for oil reserves.

To move on to the next location, the truck is being loaded on to the Felucca, the common working boat of the Nile River.

Can someone please ID the truck?



Thanks.

 

A few shots from Briggs Cunningham's garage while racing at Elkhart Lake, September of '58:

 

That's a 1939 Ford 1/2 Ton pickup I suspect

 

If I remember correctly, Branson was racing at the same race that Jud Larson was killed in; Don was killed a few months later at Ascot in a crash that I saw...didn't see the actual crash, just the dirt flying everywhere and that awful silence that often follows a fatal crash...I think that J.D. Atkins was the other guy who died in the Branson crash...some blamed it on the bad lighting in turn 4, because the light there would get caked with dirt...never forgot it, never wanted to see another fatal....

 

If the Engle-Stankey car became Pete Wale's Lutes Trucking car, It was involved in the Van Johnson fatal at Williams Grove, with Joe Barzda in it. July 1959.

 

Looks like Popeye cruising along I94 in Detoit.

 

George Washington High School in San Francisco - 30th Ave gate at Anza St..My dad worked in that first doorway on the left from 1962-87.

 

Branson finished 2nd at Reading when Larson and Riegal died. Dick Atkins was the other driver who died at Ascot. There's been speculation for about 50 yrs. as to what happened to Branson but quite a few claim they saw him slump over the steering wheel and then drive straight into the wall without attempting to turn like he had a heart attack or something. In those days race car drivers being killed was commonplace and no autopsy was performed, so nobody will ever know exactly what happened.

 

\

 

Old Yeller II and III were used in the filming of Viva Las vegas.






Mart.

 

This is the turntable hotel! And is still there as a car parking garage.

 

You are correct, Jim. It is the same car.

 

Rootie.

Is that Pete Clark standing between Mr. Offenhauser and Rex Mays?

 

No, that's Bob Swanson he was a hot shot midget driver back in the 30s.

 

Rootie, thanks for photos, during the 60's downunder in Australia we were visited by some US midget drivers, BobTattersall, Dick "Jet" Brown. Leroy Warriner etc, do U have any US photos of them racing .