“Back in the Day” – Beuford “Doc” Shanebrook seemed to have competed in automobile racing across a good part of the United States during his career. Born in Illinois and starting his racing career in 1926, Shanebrook made a name for himself when he defeated one of the country’s best Gus Schrader in a “big car” race at Plant Field in Tampa, Fla., in 1936. Big cars or midgets, East Coast or the Midwest – it didn’t seem to matter to Shanebrook, who raced out of Detroit, Michigan most of the time. He was tough to beat at Pennsylvania’s Dorney Park in the midgets in 1939. The tall and lanky Shanebrook came to the Chicago area for a while and raced midgets, competing at Raceway Park and Soldier Field. He won five feature races at Raceway Park in 1947, including the track’s 50-lap Mid Season Championship race ahead of Tony Bettenhausen and Harry Turner. Shanebrook was busy in South Bend, Ind., on July 4, 1947, winning an afternoon “big car” race at Playland Park and then finishing second in a midget main event at the South Bend Motor Speedway that evening. Some of Shanebrook’s racing exploits that year were behind the wheel of his black midget No. 4, which was affectionately nicknamed the “covered wagon.” Shanebrook, a welder by trade, had fashioned a metal canopy over the cockpit of his racer for driver protection. In August of 1947, Shanebrook, not driving the “covered wagon” that night, was involved in a serious crash at Chicago’s Soldier Field and was out of racing for several months. Shanebrook raced AAA big cars (sprint cars) and wound up third in AAA Midwest points in 1950, driving a car he designed and built himself. He was among the entries for the Indianapolis 500 in 1951 and 1952 but did not qualify. As the 1950s wore on, Shanebrook’s racing career was pretty much over by the later part of the decade. Living for a time in Lake Charles, La., Shanebrook passed away in Michigan in 1976 at the age of 69. ***A close-up photo by Ed Kirchner shows Doc Shanebrook ready to go midget racing at Chicago’s Soldier Field in the late 1940s. A photo from the Bob Sheldon Collection shows Russell Mooney sitting behind the wheel of Doc Shanebrook’s “covered wagon” No. 4 at Soldier Field, circa 1948.***
Midget drivers from the Denver area Lloyd Axel left and Bert McNeese came to the track with their midgets on a trailer !
The Jalopy Journal
