Great Oregon Racers

Don't know if this is of any interest, but before it became PIR it was called Vanport raceway. In the late 40s it was a military housing area that got flooded out and abandoned and then in the early 60s they held sporty car races on the former streets of the area. Anyway, here's some scans from a old mag. of one of the first sporty car races held there.

 

We used to go out there at night and drag race before it was ever a legal track. The cops usually showed up and ran us out, but towards the end they started writing tickets, and then not long after that it opened up as a legitimate dragstrip.

 

Bruce, I am going to see Larry this morning, I will see what he has for pictures. It was a fun car to watch, 6.00 rear gears, 4 speed, and leaving the line at 10,000 and shift at 9,500!

 

I just received a packet of pictures and entry lists from Portland Speedway from a guy I met at the "Old Timers" picnic last summer. His name is Ralph Hunt, he has a vast collection of good stuff, it includes Track Roadsters, Midgets, Hardtops, and Stock Cars, from the 40's and up. We will start with Hardtops, and once I get confirmation on the suppliers of the material, I will give credit.

 

Gotta love the IH L-series push truck!

 

More

 

Cool! Larry built the engine in my '54 project. Anxious to fire it up at his shop soon.

 

Some more

 

The # 2 was driven by Ray Chase!

 

Kenney Goodell's '68 Mustang Funny Car is currently for sale on the Seattle Craigslist.

 

The Hardtop pictures and programs are from the collections of Jack Corley of Gresham, Oregon and Gordy Rivenburg of Vancouver, WA. I am indepted to both of them for sharing their collections and knowledge. Both agree that we need to share what we have with others and encourage fellow enthusiasts to share as well an Marty's "Great Oregon Racers" website.

 

Welcome aboard Ralph, and thanks to Jack and Gordy for the pics and programs, I have seen the rest of the collection and it will be great to share with everyone. Former Oregonian Gary Reynolds started this thread and I thank him for it, as posting on here has been fun for me!
This picture has a special meaning to me, it was taken at my most favorite automobile gathering, "Portland Transmission Warehouse", in 1998. It was a fantasy of mine to get to know the men who raced the real "Track Roadsters" in the 40's and 50's, when I started building the current ones we have today. In the shot Len Sutton is behind the wheel, behind Len, is John Adams, who served as President of the "RRAO"(Roadster Racing Assn of Oregon) and sometimes announcer for the races. Many of you will remember that John and his wife Gloria,ran the "Portland Swap Meet" for many years. Behind me is Jack Greiner, who campaigned 3 different roadsters between 1947 and 1955, the end of roadster racing here in the Northwest, Jack also supplied many of the pics I have posted. The other pic is a repro of the plaques for the club.

 

It's for sale for $4,600!!!
No kidding? I hope Walt Austin can buy it and restore it!

 

Yesterday I received a call from my nephew Lonny, he informed me of the passing of Jack Frost, last night I got in touch with Jack's son Lenny. Lenny an I had a long talk about Jack and his drag racing career, as a builder, owner, and driver. My first memory of Jack was in 1961, he was racing his 57 Corvette, with a blown small block Chevy, sponsored by "Fields Chevytown", the Chevy dealer where he Worked. In some earlier posts, I have mentioned the Corvette with 10,000 RPMs lettered on the front fenders. In a time before "burnouts" and starting line showdowns and antics, all you had was an opponent, a flagman, and a finish line. Jack would never fail to steal the show, with the scream of his engine, and the excitement of what would happen on the run, whether it would throw the blower belt or blow something up, or just haul ass to the finish line! We lived 7 miles from the McMinnville Dragstrip, on Sunday mornings you could hear some of the cars running, it wasn't hard to tell when Jack made a pass, he was in class all of his own. Jack followed the Corvette with a 41 Willys coupe, it ran an injected 327 and a 4 speed, and later on he switched to an injected 427 and Turbo-Hydro, and ran it on gas, alky and nitro. With "Match Racing", wild burnouts, and starting line shows, he was clearly the "Master". We got to know Jack in the 70's when we were all running at the "Sand Drags". Jack and his son Lenny went nostalgia racing in the 90's, with a "Fuel Altered" with a blown SBC that ran 6.26 @ 203 mph, and then they switched to 526 Hemi and ran 6.01 @ 234. Lenny proved to to be a "chip off of the old block" in the driving dept, and with Jack doing the tuneup, they were quite a show on the match race circuit, racing my old friend Buzz Peck, around the Northwest. There will be a remembrance, bench racing, party on Jan 5th at the American Legion Hall #14, 4607 N.E. St. James rd, Vancouver, Wa. 983663. It will start at noon and run until ? Come if you can, Lenny said they will have some home movies of the racing, to watch. Jack passed on Friday 11-23-12, he would have been 83 on Jan 9. RIP old friend.

 

I first saw Jack at Fontana Drag Strip in California in 1959. He was running a 56-57 Corvette for Ernie Porter Chevrolet in Pasadena. It had a blown small block and was a real show piece (performance...not appearance). He brought the Corvette in on the back of the first ramp truck I ever saw, '41 Chev with ramps up over the car, painted white and lettered to match the Corvette.

Years later I would meet up with Jack while living in Portland. He was running a Willys out of John Smeds' shop (the first car I lettered in Oregon). Later John built a tube chassis for the car, set the motor back a bunch and ran the BBC on fuel. I painted that car kind of a pearl vibrating PINK and lettered "Frost Bite" on the doors. The pink paint actually glowed!

One day Jack came by my shop to have some lettering done on something. Walking around the shop while I was working. He came up to me and said "For five bucks I'll tell you how to drop thirty pounds in five minutes?". I didn't answer. He continued to roam. Soon he returned and said "Well I see you aint gonna bite on that one, so I'll tell you for free. YOU BUY A BIGGER SHIRT!"

Not a cornerstone joke for the Improv, but pure Frost. I did several t-shirts for him over the years and his directions were always the same..."Do what ya think will make me famouser." Quite the character!

 

Don, This is probably one of those shirts, Left to right, Jack, Whitey Jensen, and Ron Hawes.

 

Someone was looking for Ron Salsbury fueler picture, late sixties in Calgary , Alberta.

 

That is one of the shirts, I did the CTA one too. Ray VanDorn, Roger Simonatti and I put on the CTA reunion twice.

 

Is/was this the owner of Vic's Auto Parts in Gresham, Oregon? My Dad worked for Vic's during the time they transitioned from the "old" store to the "new" store next door. That was in the mid '60s. I was only 8 years old or so, but I can remember when Vic got his new front engined dragster. His first FED seemed like it was a rail with body work only around the rear with 'Big Daddy' emblazoned on either side of the body. Main color was blue. The "new" dragster was still a FED, but it had a complete body and was painted a metal flake gold. These are the recollections of nearly 50 years ago, so if anyone has any info or stories on this man or his cars, I'd love to hear them. Wasn't his wife's name Etta or something like that? I can remember visiting my Dad and I thought it was strange that a woman would be working in an auto parts store (for some reason). Seemed like she really ran the place and my Dad had a lot of respect for her.

BTW, my Dad worked 19 years for Fancher's Auto Parts when they were down on Main and Powell in Gresham before they widened Powell. Dad told me there were many old car parts down in the basement that got buried when the tore down the south side of the street. Kinda like what happened when they filled in the 12 Mile Auto Wrecking yard that used to be next to Linsky's raspberry fields on 223rd. It was an old gravel quarry that got used as a wrecking yard. If I remember correctly, there are many cars crushed and buried way under the buildings that reside in that place today.

So much for my first post!
Steve

 

Related to the belated Tik Tok... if you get to the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, visit the transportation exhibit. It was eerie. I was in DC on business and a friend and I were killing some time at the end of the day. We were looking at one of the exhibits that had cars from the 40s/50s and I told my friend it felt like deja vu... the intersection they built into the display seemed so familiar. Then I looked up and the scene on the wall has the Tik ToK in it. The intersection depicted in the display is the Burnside/12th/Sandy intersection looking east down Burnside past the Tik Tok. Made my day, anyway.
Steve

 

Thanks for the info on Vic, these are pics of Vic's dragster in 1967, taken at Madras, it looks like a "Jim Davis" car. The dragster that Vic raced earlier, looked similar to a Chassis Research K88. I remember in about 1965 at McMinnville, they brought Vic and his dragster to the Base of the timing tower for a birthday celebration, they announced he was "68 years young". Vic had installed a "Hydro" trans in the car (without a neutral safety switch), when the party was over, with him sitting in his car, he started it up, (in gear), nearly running some of us over in the process. He was extremely well liked, and even set a national record, with Ron Hawes at the wheel, I believe.

 

I just received some more "Hardtop" pics from Ralph Hunt, #26 is Art Watts, 33-36 Willys with early Studebaker V/8 for power, the chassis and "loop style" roll bar looks a lot like it could have been a Track Roadster in a former life.
#10 is listed as Dick Braniff, Essex body with a Hudson 6, #27 Is the same car and the newspaper article is on Dick, in the northwest SPEED NEWS from Nov. 1953. If one of you out there could blow up the article for us, it is a good read!

 

Here are 3 more, #16 is Granny Earp,in the group they have, a "man who wears a star", #12,Unknown, #W6 is Dan Graves a Washington car, Y-block powered and one of the coolest trailers around!

 

More great pictures Marty! That Texaco guy in uniform brings back memories! I remember working for an Atlantic Richfield station in 1968, and wearing a real uniform. Seems those days of gas jockeys wearing uniforms is gone for the most part!

 

Val, Did you notice the guy was wearing a gun!

 

Danny Graves was a good friend of mine.
He was 1954 NASCAR late model sportsman series champion.
He moved up to the cup series in 1957 & 1958 and had one pole start and won one race but his car owner was not too bright and couldn't put a car under him that would finish.
I don't remember the details on the W6 car...it was a consistent winner though. He built the trailer.
Danny Graves was his racing name. His real name was Frank Danley.
In later years he had an auto repair shop with his brother in Seattle.
He was killed in a bar fight in 1965.
Quite a bit of info is available on him with Bing or Google search.

 

Here is a early photo of Bob Beal at Woodburn

 

No! I guess he's not a gas jockey if he's wearing a gun! Must be pit crew security!

 

I just got these shots of Len Sutton with the 54 Lincoln he drove in the 1954 "Pan American Road Race". Len crashed it in practice dodging some cattle in the road. He suffered a broken vertebrae and had to be flown to a Mexico City hospital. He was transported in a DC 3, arranged by Bardahl,one of the sponsors of the car, along with Francis Lincoln Mercury of Portland. A member of the Francis family furnished these photos.

 

One of our members (RDR),sent me a pm, he thinks Granny Earp was from Lebanon, I do remember Albany racer Virgil Hanson, talk about him.