1935, Portland

 From the September 29, 1935 Sunday Oregonian, and the September 29 and 30, 1935 Oregon Journal.

 

Jimmy Wilburn, doing his thing, winning

 From the August 16, 1937 Seattle Star.

ads from 1935

Jimmy Wilburn, who went onto great fame back east, got his start in the northwest. He did make it up to Victoria a couple times to race -- once in 1935 at The Willows, and another time in 1936 for the opening of Langford Speedway.

These ads come from 1935 after Wilburn won the Northwest racing title.

Jeeps....

An exchange from an early episode of the TV series Combat! Keenan Wynn is some bigshot, loudmouth brass and Shecky is a buck private who is supposed to be the jeep driver but the Colonel jumps in the seat.

Keenan Wynn: "Used to race a little before the war. Mostly midgets. You ever drive a midget?"

Shecky Greene: "They wouldn't drive with me, sir. Sorry, sir."

All that to bring out this little item that has one time sprint car champ Jimmie Wilburn lauding the skills of driving a jeep during the war.

northwest racer, Jimmie Wilburn

Because he won so much he got the nickname "Ho Hum", like winning wasn't a big deal.

And he travelled and won. A lot. This win was a Reading, Pennsylvania.

Northwest sprint car champs, part two

Some more big car (sprint car) champions from the northwest:

1933 -- Art Scovell

1934 -- Woody Woodford (got this from Coast Auto Racing, so I think it's confirmed as being correct)

1935 -- (standings with one race to go, Wilburn had a big points lead, information from Coast Auto Racing)

Jimmie Wilburn
Mel Kenealy
Johnny McDowell
Roy Ernstrom
Dave Dippolito
Woody Woodford
??? Webb
Les Anderson
Dude Bailey
Swede Lindskog

big car time

(The photo above came courtesy of the late Don Radbruch, a continuing source of inspiration for me. It is of the great Jimmy Wilburn who got his racing start in the Pacific northwest, even racing at Victoria's Willows in 1935. The clipping is from an old racing publication of that era, Coast Auto Racing.)

The "big cars" -- that'd be "sprint cars" to the rest of us so-called modern kids -- never raced all that much in the Greater Vancouver area. Our loss. (I suppose the racing at Hastings Park in the 1920s could be called big car racing.)

They did make it to Digney Speedway once in 1949 with most of the cars coming from Vancouver Island. (The winner was Bob Simpson in the second Jack Smith built rear-engined car.) Victoria was the hot bed of big car racing in the 1930s into the 1950s. Langford Speedway, about 8 miles north of Victoria was the track and featured some of the hottest shoes that the Pacific northwest had to offer.

South of the border Everett's Silver Lake Speedway, both of the Aurora tracks (Speed Bowl and Stadium), and further on south to Portland Speedway and Portland Meadows plus many other tracks, mostly half-mile horse tracks, featured the big cars.

Seems like I've been in recent contact with a number of descendants of racers from that early era. And that's great. I hope it continues.

Here's one of the mainstays of that big car era with quite a detailed racing biography up to that point of 1949: Art Scovell. (Scovell even made it to Vancouver with the midgets in 1937 for a series of indoor races at the annual summer fair.)