finishing "a long look back", Old Car Illustrated

The last couple pages of the Old Car Illustrated story:

a long look back, Old Car Illustrated, part two

More from Old Car Illustrated:

a long look back, Old Car Illustrated

Old Car Illustrated's series on open wheel racing:

Did I post this before?

Not sure. If I did I didn't label it properly. From the Johnny Wright/Dick Downes collection.

From The Willows in Victoria back in 1935.

1935 Willows program

A few pages from the 1935 race program. The race was held at The Willows in Victoria.

These pages include the autographs of Mario Bianchi and Jimmie Wilburn.

a couple more old photos

Two more photos. Group shots from what might be Vancouver, WA. Bagley Field. In the 1920s/30s?

when in doubt, link (yet again)

Another from the Modern Mechanix blog, "New Racing Cars do Four Miles a Minute." Author of the story, Ray Kuns was famous back in the day for his informative publications on racing. Here's another link concerning Kuns. And a couple photos from that link:

when in doubt, link

Here's an old 1931 racing article from the Modern Mechanix blog about "Playing the World's Most Dangerous Game", dirt track racing.

More information on Robert M. Roof can be found here.

Clarence Eckert collection

I recently scanned some photos I've had for a while. Stuff Don Radbruch sent to me. First one is Mario Bianchi at Silver Lake Speedway, near Everett, WA, August 1934. More to come.

Mario Bianchi by Pike Green

One of my favourite people that I came to know early on while doing this racing history stuff was Pike Green. Pike grew up in Victoria, BC, Canada, was a "pit kid" at Langford Speedway during the 1930s, raced midgets, sprint cars, stock cars and what have you during the 1940s and 1950s, boats in the 1960s, and then, (deep breath), started writing about the people he knew and things he had seen in the racing world in the 1970s for the now lamentably defunct publication Racing Wheels.

And if that wasn't enough in the mid-1970s Pike started (with a little help from friends) Golden Wheels, a vintage car club which still exists today. In its early days Pike would give honorary memberships in Golden Wheels to those who had helped build the sport in the Pacific Northwest.

I can't find my mid-70s Golden Wheels membership roster right at the moment (figures!) but if Mario didn't join he should have. And, of course, Pike knew that Mario Bianchi's story was worthy as he had definitely been a pioneer of the sport.

I believe the story reproduced here comes from July 11, 1973. It's a photocopy of some yellowed pages that Dick Downes, a friend of Don Radbruch, had clipped out and saved and then shipped to me because he thought I should have them as I was interested. Racers have to be the most generous people in the world. So for Dick, Don, Pike and all the rest here is just a small sampling of what racing was like way back when.