History Putting a Face with a Name: Cars and Drivers in the 1950s

Here's the rest. I ***ume the last one is of a later street roadster he had.

Mick

 

Thank you so much for sharing these photos. When I spend a chunk of time in deep research on a person, I sort of get really involved in their lives. To then get the gift of some more images like these, is like a Christmas gift of sorts. I've examined each minutely to see what else it tells me. I was especially interested in the Mas Okumura truck used as a tow for Muck's roadster. I've been compiling drag racing results for Nisei drag racers in the 1950s. The involvement of Japanese Americans in dry lakes racing is well known, but their activities in drag racing is little known. So, I'm at the beginning stages of research to tell their stories. I haven't found Mas Okumura being involved in drag racing, so I became curious about him. I think he may have been Masanaga Okumura, a WWII vet who died in 2017 at age 96. I also love the color photo of Muck, seated in his roadster #22G, with his four buddies at Saugus. That is a great photo and shot of a young Steve Muck.

 

I imagine many states have similar digitized photo collections - in Minnesota the historical society has a large collection of photos of all kinds of places and people at mnhs.org, and photos in their collection that aren't yet digitized can be reviewed in person at their facility. Automotive related pictures (especially hot rod related ones) aren't as common, but I've found a few gems by browsing around and playing with search keywords. No matter where you live it's worth investigating what your state has available.

 

Bert Kesler and Dean Gammill
and Their Funky Flip-Top Crosley Rear-Engine Sidewinder​

This photo appeared in the August 1957 issue of Hot Rod in an article en***led “Sidewinder from Mattoon.” In bold print directly above this photo, the staff editors wrote: “About the time you know you’ve seen it all, up pops . . . .” The article text then goes on to describe this unique race car: “In search of a stable ch***is with the least drive train friction, Bert Kesler and Dean Gammill positioned Olds V8 transversely in tube frame, eliminated driveshaft by coupling the engine to the axle with two huge gears. Thus the name ‘Sidewinder.’”

I first stumbled on this runty Crosley when I was compiling my pre-1971 rear-engine dragsters website. It’s a real pip-squeak. This rear-engine Crosley coupe was the very first sidewinder drag car in drag racing history. Owners Kesler and Gammill hailed from Mattoon, Illinois.



My rear-engine dragster website is called “Early Rear-Engine Dragsters: A Sampling of Cars and Drivers before 1971.” I created the website in attempt to demonstrate that Don Garlits was hardly the first person to race a dragster with an engine in the rear. Not by a long shot. On that website, I identified and wrote about over seventy rear-engine dragsters that I found in the decade of the 1950s alone. There were also many more in the 1960s, too. I have already written profile stories about several rear-engine drag racers on this “Putting a Face with a Name” thread. They include Hollish Brothers, Stan Lomolino, Ed Garlits, Bill Willett, Emmett Cull, Manuel Coehlo, and Creighton Hunter. Now, Kesler and Gammill, with their rear-engine Crosley will be another pair of racers from the ‘50s to write about.

I guess I have a thing about the rear-engine cars. Whatever. They are part and parcel with my fascination about drag racing’s first decade. I could write about these racers and their cars until the cows come home. There is an almost unending supply of them—and so little time.


Bert Kesler and Dean Gammill were business partners in a speed shop in Mattoon at least by 1950, if not before. They rented a building owned by Clarence Scott to run South Side Speed Shop. Unfortunately, a fire in late April 1950 destroyed the hot rods in their shop. In this photo, Dean Gammill inspects the damage to his midget race car. The young men were able to remove all the motorcycles in the shop during the fire, but all the hot rods and race cars were a total loss. The fire caused an estimated $3,000 damage. This photo, with the ***le “Hot Rods Burn Up in Mattoon," appeared in the Decatur Herald & Review (4/27/50).


The fire was personally disastrous for both men. They needed to find other jobs to make a living. Gammill found employment in a Mattoon camera shop. In this photo, he is seen at the counter of the camera shop, selling tickets to an appearance of the Harlem Globetrotters at the high school gym. It was a benefit to raise money for the Mattoon Little League baseball program. The photo was printed in the Mattoon Journal-Gazette (12/20/54).


Bert Kesler was married with a family to support. He got a job driving and maintaining school buses in Mattoon. This photo showed him making some engine repairs on a district school bus. It was printed in the Mattoon Journal-Gazette (8/21/53).


Kesler and Gammill started their racing careers with stock cars. They raced at the nearby Coles County Speedway in Charleston in 1949-52. The oval dirt track at Charleston was convenient for them, being just 18 miles due east of Mattoon. This speedway racing program cover dates to 1950.

Kesler began racing stock cars in 1949. At the race on August 8, 1951 at the Charleston oval, stock car racing fans elected Kesler to reign as “King for the Night.” He sat in the press box during the race, chowing down on a chicken dinner with all the t*******s. He was awarded a $50 wris****ch and third place money for each of the night’s races, in lieu of him not competing. The newspaper report of this race stated that he was just an “average” stock car driver who raced about three nights each week at various cities on the circuit. At that point, he had demolished six cars in the space of three years of racing stock cars.


In addition to running at Coles County Speedway, Gammill also raced at Illinois oval tracks in Mount Vernon and Urbana. This is a 1951 program cover from a race at the Champaign County Fairgrounds oval track in Urbana. Kesler also raced at other Illinois oval stock car speedway tracks in Macon and Lincoln.


In November 1953, the Blockbusters Hot Rod Club was formed in Mattoon. Gammill and Kesler were vice-presidents of the club when it was first organized. The club was comprised of almost 40 members in its first year of operation. They had a club house located east of Mattoon where they worked on their cars and held barbecues and parties.

One of the primary goals of the club was to secure a place to race. Members had to go far from Mattoon to race their cars. Bert Kesler drove to a race held on November 15, 1953, near St. Louis to run his stock ’51 car. The race was sponsored by the Automobile Timing ***ociation of America (ATAA). He got a first-place trophy for Cl*** E stock cars, turning 80 mph.

In this photo, members of the Blockbusters who raced at the 1955 ATAA “World Series of Drag Racing” event held at the Lawrenceville Municipal Airport, posed for a photo in front of their race cars. They are, from left: Jim Zike, Bob Chaney, Harold Hornbeck, Jack Ganley, Gene Harpster, and Bert Kesler. Chaney’s roadster is on the left behind the car club members and Kesler’s altered Crosley is to the right of Chaney’s roadster.

The 1955 “World Series” event was the second national event put on by the ATAA. At the first event in 1954, also held at Lawrenceville, Blockbuster member Bob Osborn was the sole club member to win a trophy. He had a channeled ’32 Ford coupe powered by a ’53 Dodge engine.


Although Kesler and Gammill no longer had the resources in their speed shop to build a race car, they got a ’39 Crosley into which they dropped a Merc flathead engine. In this car, they situated the engine smack-dab in the center of the frame, with the driver sitting right behind it. They had the novel car ready in time to race at the four-day 1955 ATAA “World Series” event held at the Lawrenceville Municipal Airport from August 17-21. When they raced the Crosley at the “World Series,” they had replaced the Merc flathead engine with an Olds V-8.

They named the diminutive car “Lil Stinker.” With 25 members of the Blockbuster car club entered in the Lawrenceville event, the Mattoon Journal-Gazette sent Warren K. Moody, their staff photographer, to take photos and report on the race. Lawrenceville was not far from Mattoon, just 85 miles southeast. The newspaper devoted full-page coverage of the race, illustrated with eleven photos in its August 27, 1955, issue. Although the quality of the digitized photos from this newspaper reproduced here are admittedly poor, they do***ent the accomplishments and activities of the Blockbuster racers. In this photo, Kesler is seen kneeling next to his “pet.” That is how photographer Moody phrased it in the accompanying descriptive text. Kesler’s “pet” referred to the “Lil Stinker” skunk painted on the hood of the ’39 Crosley.


Kesler bolts off the line for a speedy run at the 1955 “World Series” event. For a national event, there was limited bleacher seating. Spectators lining the track were also very close to the racing strip without the protection of any barriers whatsoever.


Kesler, sporting an impressive beard, accepted the Grizzly Brake Linings trophy for winning the A/A cl*** at the ATAA “World Series of Drag Racing” event at Lawrenceville Municipal Airport from 1955’s Miss Illinois USA, Diane Daniggelis. His speed of 117.493 mph established a new record.


Bob Chaney was another Blockbuster member who raced at the 1955 Lawrenceville race. His roadster was powered by a rear-engine ’48 Merc flathead. Lawrenceville was his first outing for the new car. He broke the previous year’s record running in the Open Cl*** but lost during an elimination round. On July 10, 1955, Chaney clocked 100.80 mph at Rankin Drag Strip. In 1956, he put his Merc engine in a ’30 Ford roadster and ran in the A Hot Roadster cl***.


Earlier in the year, Chaney raced a different car, albeit also a rear-engine “job.” His roadster was one of the rear-engine cars that I included in my rear-engine dragster website. This is his entry on my website. The Mattoon Journal-Gazette (5/17/55) printed this photo of Chaney in his modified roadster after running in a race at Lawrenceville on May 15, 1955. Chaney won his cl*** with a time of 14.2 seconds.

The caption under the photo said that Bert Kesler was at the Lawrenceville spring race with a new “rail job,” but he had the misfortune of blowing his transmission. Was Kesler’s “rail job” possibly the ’39 Crosley minus its body? I don’t know. Such is the challenge of writing about cars and drivers in the 1950s with limited do***entation.


There is video footage of the 1955 “World Series of Drag Racing” event attended by Mattoon racers Bert Kesler and Bob Chaney and other Blockbuster club members. Neither Kesler nor Chaney appear in the video, but there are some cars that both may have raced against in the footage. One of the racers at the event was Jack Ensley. He was from Indianapolis and was a member of the Lawrenceville Hot Rod Club. He raced a Kurtis-Kraft sports car, winning the X/A cl*** with a speed of 102.47 mph. He won two trophies at the event. He can be seen at the 4:42 minute mark in the video. He was on camera for twelve seconds. He is seen grabbing the brake handle, cigarette dangling from his lips, as he p***es the cameraman on his way to the starting line to make a run.


After his cl*** win at the 1955 “World Series,” Kesler raced his Olds-powered “Lil Stinker” ’39 Crosley a couple of times at drag races held at Parks Metropolitan Airport, across the river east of St. Louis, in Illinois. On October 16, 1955, he set a new strip record in his cl*** of 116.3 mph. Dean Gammill raced in a ’27 Ford Model T at that same race, taking a trophy in his cl***.

With his success at the 1955 “World Series” race, Kesler, with Dean Gammill as his pit crew, decided to tow his “Lil Stinker” ’39 Crosley to Daytona Beach to race in the ATAA-sponsored drag races during Speed Week in late February 1956. They were sponsored by the New Car Dealers ***ociation of Mattoon, which helped pay for their journey and stay at the event. “We’ll be entering two events,” Kesler said, “the quarter-mile drags and the one-mile acceleration test.”

Kesler clocked the second-fastest speed of the drag race meet. The drag races were held on the sand at night. He won the Holley Carburetor trophy for the fastest speed in the coupe-sedan cl***, clocking 109.091 mph. He used a 1949 Olds V8 in his ’39 Crosley.


Near the end of Speed Week on Saturday night, February 26, 1956, the National Guard was called in to quell a riot involving thousands of rowdy, rock-throwing hooligans. The lawless incident drew the attention of the public in newspaper headlines across the nation. This is a page from the Orlando Sentinel (2/27/56) showing photos of some of the riotous activity. Many people got the mistaken idea that it was the racing hot rodders who were involved.

When Bert Kesler returned to Mattoon after his record-shattering performance at Daytona Beach, he was interviewed by Al Drattell, sportswriter for the Mattoon Journal-Gazette. Although elated at his own success, Kesler was more interested in telling what happened and who was really involved in the riot—and it wasn’t the racers.

“The incident that took place had absolutely nothing to do with the ATAA organized drag races,” said Kesler. “During the time that they [the riots] happened, we were holding official drag races at another part of the area and to our knowledge, none of our men were involved.” At the end of the organized races on the beach, Kesler and Gammill heard that they would have trouble getting back to the mainland. “There are four bridges leading to the mainland, and we managed to get over the first one. When we got safely across and back to our room, we heard the details about all the things that were happening. The drag races weren’t involved in any way, and we want the public to know that.”

This Daytona Beach riot did nothing to help improve the public perception of drag racers and racing—it hurt it. In the 1950s, organized drag racing faced an uphill battle to change its public image. Wally Parks and the NHRA spent considerable time and effort in public relations work to that end.

I can speak from personal experience about that. My parents viewed my interest in going to the drag races at Pomona and Fontana with displeasure. In their minds, drag racers were nothing but a bunch of grease monkeys and ne’er-do-wells. In our clashes over the subject, I used to counter their comments with ridiculous come backs. I used to see **** Taylor, a Pasadena dentist, racing a Corvette at Pomona. On that flimsy piece of evidence, I used to tell my parents, that from my view, it was doctors and lawyers who I saw racing at the drags. They got a good laugh out of that. I know that some medical doctors raced their fancy, expensive sports cars at the races occasionally, but I’d be hard-pressed to identify any lawyers who raced. My arguments were weak and ineffectual. Just the laughable blathering of a dumb teenager guided more by p***ion than sense.


Kesler was partial to Crosleys. After his win at Daytona Beach, he put his ’49 Olds motor into a 1946 Crosley in the summer with intentions of racing it at the NHRA national championships in Kansas City, Missouri. This photo of Kesler’s second Crosley drag car appeared in the August 1957 issue of Hot Rod. Kesler is on the left, Gammill on the right.


Kesler and Gammill got their rear-engine sidewinder Crosley completed in time to compete at the 1956 U.S. Nationals in Kansas City. Although they didn’t take home any trophies, they garnered a lot of attention. No drag racer before them had built a dragster or drag car with an engine mounted sideways. They were the first.

I clipped this photo from a frame in a movie that was taken of the 1955 race that can be viewed on YouTube. It is en***led “1956 NHRA National Championship Drags Kansas City.” The Crosley makes its first appearance in the film at the 5:25 minute mark. It can be seen for ten seconds, parked in the pit area. Its second appearance begins at the 15:12 minute mark, being towed back to the pits after a run. That segment lasts for seven seconds.

This footage is important in that it is the first color photo that I found of the race car. There have been several black and white photos of the car that appeared in hot rod publications, so there has always been a question about the color of the car.


Lacking any extant color photo of the car, Jungi Nakamura (Jnaki) took a best guess that the car may have been painted dark purple and yellow. It looks nice with those colors—and maybe should have been painted that way. But, as the 1955 YouTube video shows, it was painted midnight blue and white.


As I was finishing my research for this profile story, I stumbled on a color photograph of the Crosley on Facebook. The metadata accompanying the photo mistakenly identifies it as a photo taken at the 1955 ATAA “World Series.” That is incorrect as Kesler raced his ’39 Crosley at the ’55 “World Series” event, not his ’46 Crosley. I don’t have a Facebook account, so I got my youngest son, who does have an account, to send it to me. This further confirms the car’s paint colors and was a great research find.


This photo of the Crosley sidewinder appeared in the January 1957 issue of Rodding and Re-Styling. The photo was taken at the 1956 ATAA “World Series.” It appeared in an article en***led “Roundup of the Rods at the World Series of Drag Racing,” by Al White. The caption under the photo read: “This odd creation is the Sidewinder, owned by Dean Gammill and Bert Kesler of Mattoon, Illinois. Dean and Bert have run machines at all these World Series events. The complete rundown on the Sidewinder’s unique running gear will appear in next month’s Rodding and Re-styling—don’t miss it!”


As promised in the previous issue of Rodding and Re-Styling, Kesler and Gammill’s ’46 Crosley sidewinder was featured in an article en***led “Geared to Go” by Al White in the February 1957 issue.


The August 1957 issue of Hot Rod featured Kesler and Gammill’s ‘46 Crosley sidewinder in an article en***led “Sidewinder from Mattoon.” There were numerous photos of the unique car in the article, some of which have been preserved and shown here in their original photographic form.


The caption under this photo that was published in the August ’57 Hot Rod reads: “Engine compartment hood happens to be rear section of coupe, swings up and clear. Part of the all-tube frame can be seen. 330-inch Olds sports Effingham cam, tube pushrods, magnesium rockers, JE slugs, Grant rings. Quarter-mile speed: 103 mph.”


The caption under this photo that was published in the August ’57 Hot Rod reads: “’40 Ford gearbox (turned sideways to simplify shift linkage) and hydraulic clutch piston are shown. Hefty gears give 4:1 ratio in high. Swing arm bearing pivots on axis of drive from gearbox, insuring gear mesh during normal wheel travel.”


The caption under this photo that was published in the August ’57 Hot Rod reads: “Still barely recognizable is a ’46 Crosley two-door body with aluminum nose. Willys front axle is drilled for lightness, controlled by torsion bars, home-built shocks.”


The caption under this photo that was published in the August ’57 Hot Rod reads: “Solid rear axle rolls in large bearings welded to a swinging arm (identical to a motorcycle rear suspension unit). A leaf spring is seen below axle. Notice safety wheel clamps attached to backing plates.”


The carbureted sideways-mounted Olds in the Kesler and Gammill Crosley coupe used a set of gears to drive the rear axle. It has the distinction of being the first sidewinder-engined car in the history of drag racing. Later sidewinders used a chain, so this drive setup was also unique in that respect.

In 1957, the ATAA “World Series of Drag Racing” event moved from Lawrenceville to the Quad City Drag Strip in Cordova, Illinois. Kesler raced his sidewinder Olds-engined ’46 Crosley in the A/A cl*** at that event and won with a speed of 116.88 mph on August 25, 1957. His number for that race was 79.


This is a 1946 Mattoon High School yearbook photo of Dean Gammill, taken when he was sixteen years old. After high school, he became an electrician. He got married to Patricia Latch at Daytona Beach during Speed Week in 1956. They moved to Norwalk, California, in 1959. He became the owner/operator of an electric company in Whittier, California. He and his wife divorced in 1980. Dean Paul Gammill died in 2005 at age 75.

After graduating from Mattoon High School, Kesler got married in 1943 to Nina Ferguson. He served in the Army for two years in World War II. He worked for the Mattoon school district as a school bus driver and mechanic for all his working life. John Herbert “Bert” Kesler died in 1973 at age 50.

These two men from Mattoon paved the way for later sidewinder dragster drivers/owners/builders including Jack Chrisman, Paul Nicolini, Harry Duncan, Joe Mailliard, Lowell Lister, Oscar Taylor, Chuck Jones, and a number of others.

 

I have a copy of that issue of Hot Rod. I remember when I first turned to the page with the sidewinder Crosley and I wondered where they got the gears from. I could imagine them going through some industrial junkyard looking for machine parts and coming across them in a pile of rusty s****.