Great Oregon Racers

These are some special pictures to me as I have been building Track Roadsters for about the last 17 years. Of the 9 cars I worked on,6 of them saw "track time". The men who built and drove the cars in these pics were and are a great bunch of guys and an inspiration to me. The line up is as follows, driving Don "duck" Collins #44 is Howard Osborne, in the #1 is Ernie Koch, and in the 27 is Len Sutton, both of these cars belonged to my old pal Rolla Vollstedt.Bill Hyde is in his own #23, In the #73 is Max Humm, driving for Don Waters. The #93 is Ben Eyerly driving for another one of my good friends, Jack Greiner, who supplied these pictures. And yes, there will be plenty more on the "Track Roadster Era" on this thread. I am sorry about the lack of pics, I am having trouble getting them to post off of a 'thumb drive', I will get it figured out, be patient, I have got some good stuff to post.

 

Here are the pictures, taken at the "Hollywood Bowl" in 1950 at Salem.

 

For a short time in the early 50's "Portland Meadows" horse racing track held some auto races. On the mile and one eighth track they raced "Big Cars" or Sprint or Champ cars. They also cut in a 1/2 mile track in the infield for Track Roadsters and Hardtops. These are some of the Hardtops, note the grandstand of the "Portland Speedway" in the background.

 

For a brief time in the late 60's there was talk of doing that again but the Medows said no. The cars compact the dirt and make it to hard to groom for the horses.

 

That's exactly how my Dad went. Seems to be a theme with Oregon Racers

 

Dad's was baby blue...

 

Here's a couple pictures of the Homeyer Cleaners Willys, taken last Saturday at the Portland Transmission cruise-in, Bob

 

Thanks for the pics Bob, I didn't get a chance to see it Saturday. Robbie called yesterday morning and told me he was taking it to "Eagle Field" for this weekends race.

 

I'm glad this previously unseen history is being posted! Not just good memories for us old folks, but some heritage for young folks. The pics are great, they need to be seen and remembered.

 

right click *save*
right click *save*

great thread!

 

The Butch Thuney car is from Washington State.It's appearance changed alot from this picture.Red/white/blue with stars and such.I've heard he still has it.

 

This shot was taken at Carrell Speedway, Gardena California, in Oct. of 1948, left to right,Len Sutton Seated, Jack Greiner, Don Waters(car owner), and Rolla Vollstedt, with his hat bill turned up. Len had crashed Rolla's car in qualifications. Don let him drive his, Len ran second in the main to Troy Ruttman in Bert Letner's "Elco Twin". Troy and Len would remain friends for life and both Legends at Indy! Jack Greiner photo, thanks Jack!

 

How about a girl racer, this is Merit Meadows, daughter of Bud Meadows, who owned one of the biggest Pontiac dealerships in Portland. She dominated in the Quarter Midgets in the Portland area. Shown here on a calender for Alpenrose Milk, Alpenrose built and maintains one of the best racing facilities for 1/4 midgets still running today! My old friend Jack Gillis maintained the car for her.

 

The first picture is Rolla Vollstedt and his driver who I think is Ernie Koch, Rolla built this Modified Hardtop around 1956, at first he ran the potent CMC six out of his Track Roadster, then he switched to the Desoto shown here. The other two pics are after he sold the car to Art Pollard, and Art installed a Chevy and later built the new "offset" Supermodified, the only sheet metal left of of the original 36 Willys coupe is the roof. Very competitive car for about a decade.

 

That is a Willys coupe body shell used on those first two photos of Rolla's Modified.

 

The first "Track Roadster" race at Portland Speedway in 1946, the track had just switched from dirt to pavement. The other shot is the last Roadster race in Oregon at the "Hollywood Bowl" in Salem, taken 6-18-1955. More Jack Greiner photos.

 

That was a sad day when Portland Speedway closed.

 

In an earlier post I mentioned Lonnie Gilbertson, he has quite a history of racing in Oregon. In the 60's he had a Dragster with a Nailhead Buick, he hauled it to McMinnville in the back of a pickup. He went on to Stock Cars on pavement and dirt, he also ran a 360 Winged Sprint for a short time. About 10 years ago I fixed him up with one of my Track Roadsters. These are pics of the new Gasser I am helping him with along with some of his yellow roadster. We have been working on projects together for about 15 years now. The Gasser will be ready for next season and he will will be running on Wed nites at PIR, it should be fun! Pictures in the next post.

 

Here are the Gasser pics.

 

The Track Roadster pics, Lonnie in the yellow and my side kick "Dirty Ern" Martin in the blue one, more on him later!

 

What's with the Olds trim(?) on the side of the '55?

 

It is 55 Buick, we will see how it looks with the fenderwells cut out.

 

From what I understand, it did end up closing down. I remember seeing a news story on the TV a few months ago saying the guy who was running the strip closed it down, and the city was trying recoup rent from him after hampering him from making a good go of it.

That's what I recall, but someone from the Medford area might have better info than I do.

 

The Medford track is being run by the same people that operate the Redding,California strip.

 

Eric Black did this rendering of Lonnie's new ride!

 

Now that is cool. Thanks for all the posts man! I'm still looking forward to the Super Ford pics!

 

Eric Black's rendition looks alot like the kits offered by AMT from the mid 60's to very early 70's. The box art alone was worth the price of the kits.

 

Rats. That was gonna be my 2nd guess.

 

Back to Portland Meadows, Ernie Koch drove for Rolla Vollstedt in Track Roadsters, Modified Hardtops and Champ Cars (Silver Crown). Rolla and him raced on dirt and pavment on the west coast and back in the mid-west. Ernie and Keith Randol took the Hardtop to a big race in Canada and won. Quite a career in racing, I would have liked to have met him.

 

Woodburn around 66-67, Ed McCulloch's ride, RCS chassis we think. Don't know who Ed was partnered with on this one, maybe Terry Majors out of Washington. Ron Salisbury's "Rumbler" in the background.