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GARDNER FAMILY LEGACY by Norm Bogan |
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Among the racers from southern California, is a family that has been involved in racing for the last seven decades and now going into the fourth generation. The Gardner name is well recognized in open wheel racing on the West Coast and throughout the country. As I prepared for this story, I met with family members and pored over old photo albums and scrapbooks. As we thumbed through the pages, much recollection and a number of stories unfolded. It started with a family of six brothers from Denver, Colorado. There was Elmer, Ray, George, Chet, Paul and Dean. Ray, Chet and Dean became drivers, while Paul served as a mechanic. They competed in the local area at tracks like Overland Park in the Denver area and spread throughout the Rocky Mountains and the Southwest, spending time in the west Texas oil patch, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico and Arizona. Ray started racing in 1922 in the Denver area. In 1927, he won the Bisbee Cup at Douglas, Arizona, taking home the $200 prize money and a beautiful trophy, still held by the Gardner family. Moving to Los Angeles in 1928, Ray raced on the URA Blue circuit (Offies), staying on the West Coast and capturing a hundred-mile sprint show at Oakland in 1939. Ray also drove in a number of the Mobilgas Economy Runs in the forties and fifties. An outstanding mechanic, Ray maintained his own equipment and made many journeys to Indy, beginning with Chet in the early thirties, later becoming a Chief Mechanic at Indy with drivers like Johnny Mantz. He also served with Bobby Strahlmann on Hart Fullerton’s champ car with drivers like Marshall Teague and Jimmy Reese. As a riding mechanic for Chet, Ray noticed that the right rear spoke wheel was flexing with the side loading, he motioned for Chet to pull in and exited the car, never to ride again. Hailing from Long Beach, Chet ran Indy and also Legion Ascot, at a time when top movie celebrities had their pictures taken with their racing heroes. Beginning a racing career in 1924, he scored a clean sweep on the mile track at Abilene, Texas in 1926. Observing photos of the event, Chet is using so much “Body-English” to help corner the car, leaning out of the left side of the car, that you cannot see him in the cockpit. First attempting Indy in 1929, he ran seven times between 1930 and 1938, gaining three top ten finishes with his best, a fourth place in the 1933 “500”. An unwanted distinction was gained in 1930, when Chet spun out on the first lap of the 500, becoming the first driver not to complete a lap. In 1933, Chet was the Midwest Big Car Champ and in 1934, the Dixie Champ. A dislike for the mid-western banks, found Chet racing at the Altoona, Pa. board track and Roosevelt Raceway in New York, home of the famed Vanderbilt Cup, a three-hundred mile race with the top drivers from throughout the world. An innovator in the sport, Chet ran the first radio-equipped car in 1933 or 34. Known as King of the Money Winners, he was an early Outlaw. Injured in a flip at Mines Field in 1934, Kelly Petillo took over the reins at El Centro, at the race where we lost Ernie Triplett. Chet Gardner collected his final checkered flag at Flemington, New Jersey on September 3, 1938, when he swerved into the fence and overturned to avoid a child who had wandered onto the track during qualifying. This evasive action was probably due to an earlier crash at Legion-Ascot, which caused a board from the fence to come loose and strike a child, resulting in a fatal injury. Dean bought Al Thompson’s outboard midget, installed an Offy and started racing at Gilmore in 1938 or 39. Racing out of Huntington Park, notoriety was gained with some of the classier tow cars, first a ’37 Lincoln Zephyr and later a ‘41 Plymouth woody. Purchasing Paul Swedberg’s Offy after the war, he took both cars and ran the Midwest circuit with Aaron Woodard at the wheel of the second car. They returned to the west at the end of the 1946 season to run fall races at Atlantic and Southern Ascot speedways. Late in the year, Dean drove for driver turned promoter Karl Young at the South Mountain Speedway near Phoenix, where a crash ended his life. Ray brought along the next generation with his sons, Raymond, Howard and Jack. Howard and Jack started their racing careers as Soap Box Derby contestants, becoming racers in the post-war era. The roadsters were just getting started, running weekly shows at Bonelli Stadium, Carrell Speedway and Huntington Beach. Howard became a charter member of the CRA in 1946, making his debut on Labor Day, competing with the likes of Troy Ruttman, Manny Ayulo, Pat Flaherty, Jack McGrath, Andy Linden, Jim Rigsby, Bob Scott and Don Freeland. Running steady through 1965 and occasionally into the early seventies, he amassed more than thirty feature victories. One win, that stands out was a sprint victory at Phoenix in 1955 driving for Don Blair. Accumulating his vacation time from his position as a Toolmaker at Douglas Aircraft, Howard made mid-west sweeps during the 1956, 58, 59, 60 and 61 seasons, always stopping at St Paul, where he held the six-lap track record. Time was also spent running an URA midget against the likes of Ruttman, Bill Vukovich, Allen Heath and Bobby Ball. Eventually he decided to concentrate on the roadsters. Now residing in Bakersfield, you’ll often see Howard at open-wheel events in the southern San Juaquin Valley and the central coast. Traveling throughout the country, he has visited many historical sites and backpacked from Mexico to Canada, also spent time on a Department of Agriculture Big-Horn Sheep program. Jack started racing with the CRA in 1948 in a car that Howard had driven. Drafted for Korea and stationed at Camp Cooke (Vandenberg AFB), he would get off on Sunday to race a Dodge roadster for Manuel Madera at the old Buellton track and occasionally at Porterville. After winning his first feature in November 1950, he was told that Howard had also scored his maiden win on the same day, in Fresno. While Jack served in Korea with a tank battalion, Howard became one of the stars of the CRA. Returning in 1952, Jack qualified for the Trophy Dash in eight straight events and won five. Serving as his crew, were former dry-lakes racers Don Corwin and Bill Lykes. Capturing the 1954 CRA championship, followed by Nick Valenta, Johnnie Wood, Johnnie Pauelson and Rosie Roussel, he carted off the Champion’s trophy, along with a $100 check. When CRA became a sprint circuit, both Howard and Jack moved to the sprinters. Howard bought a body from Emmett Malloy and had Eddie Kuzma build a frame. Jack bought his Dad’s Kurtis midget after Frank “Satan” Brewer crashed it at San Bernardino and stretched it to become a sprinter, driving Lester Robertson’s Merc until his car was ready. In 1956, Jack took the sprinter back to the Midwest to compete, on tracks like Anderson, Salem, Cincinnati and Reading, where he ran with the legendary Tommy Hinnershitz, winning the stock block feature, while Tommy claimed the Main Event. Returning to California, he sold the car to Red Amick and retired from driving in 1959. Jack Gardner was born in Los Angeles in 1928 and has resided here all his life, except from age five to eleven, when he lived in Douglas, Arizona. He worked for years as a plumber, putting in long hours to support family and racing. Residing in Garden Grove, Jack and Maryann have four children, Jack Jr., Jeff, Jimmy and Jennifer. The boys are all involved in racing with Jack Jr. taking a turn at driving in the late seventies. Jack Sr.’s hero was the former shoe for his dad, Johnny Mantz, because of his versatility, enjoying success in both open wheel and stock cars. Favorite tracks named were Manzanita, Carrell Speedway and the old Bakersfield (Oildale) track, in its earlier configuration. Now, he shares the maintenance chores on the racecars with his son, Jimmy. Another of the Gardner clan to spend time in a racecar was Howard and Jack’s nephew, Gerald Clark, who raced in both midgets and sprints and ran on the Pennsylvania circuit for a time. The Gardner family has been known for building their own chassis, first, in 1975, the Shrike and now the Sled. They want to acknowledge Bob Sorrel, who along with Judd Phillips and A.J. Watson constructed the first four-bar sprint car. Bob spent many hours teaching the boys how to build the chassis, not only for strength, but how to hang the bolt-on parts for the optimum handling characteristics. Sorrel also spent time with Bob East, teaching him many of the secrets of chassis building. Another interesting sidelight of the chassis building was a youngster named Clark Drake, who lived with Jack Sr. while attending junior high school. Clark would ride his bike to school and have Jimmy stop by the school, toss the bike into the pickup and then head off to the racecar shop, where they developed a unique quality-testing program, building a miniature chassis about the size of a TQ. To test their design, they would take the chassis down the highway at sixty miles per hour, throwing it out of the pickup. After examining it for frame stress and any broken welds, necessary improvements would be incorporated. The Gardner boys grew up with many friends, who also shared their love of racing. Some have worked with the team for years, such as John Hagaman, who started at Hallibrand, sweeping floors, then becoming a machinist and later running the shop. Charlie Zabinski traveled west from Ohio with an old friend of the Gardners. Liking what he saw, he returned home to gather his belongings and moved to southern California. In addition to working with the team and driving for them briefly, he has worked in their plumbing business for nearly twenty years. While building their own chassis, they also built their own engines, but now get their horsepower from Shaver engines. Gardner cars have been competing for many years with hired drivers, many on their way to the Hall of Fame. Brad Noffsinger won CRA championships in 1986 and 87. Others who have strapped into the sprinter are; Clark Drake, Jimmy Oskie, Max Sweeney, Tom Roa, Eddie Wirth, Brad Marvel, Ronnie Rea, Rip Williams and John Andretti, who won his only sprint car feature at Santa Maria. Also taking a ride in the Gardner car are Bubby Jones, Dean Thompson, Rick Goudy, Gary Patterson, Billy Boat and Jordan Hermansader, who became the 1998 SCRA Rookie of the Year driving for the Gardner team. Since 1984, Jack Jr. has operated a plumbing business known as Gardner Pipe and Mechanical, specializing in large-scale commercial work. Most of their work is new construction and remodels for the various supermarket chains. With the closing of Ascot in 1990, the Gardners decided to back away from racing and concentrate on their business. By 1996, they had fielded a Silver Crown car and the following year returned to the sprint car wars. With the CRA, the Gardner team had forty-seven feature wins, sixty-two trophy dashes and ninety-two fast times, eighty-seven by Noffsinger. The team campaigned in 1997 on the USAC trail in Indiana. Bill Rose scored their first win at Paragon, during Sprint Week. Later, Cory Kruseman set a track record at Kokomo and J.J. Yeley scored a win at Kokomo, both in the Gardner machine. During a brief run in the USAC Silver Crown tour, Cary Faas set quick time and finished fifth at Eldora. Currently, Gardner Motorsports campaigns two racecars with drivers, Rickie Gaunt and Troy Rutherford. A third car is provided for Noffsinger, who runs occasionally. The team is self-sponsored, with a little help from Beach Billiards and Doug’s Auto Body. Plans for the future include developing another Silver Crown operation, and to put together a pavement car. Currently, the team has two cars running in the top ten in points and a third in the top twenty-five. This
is a family with a long history devoted to racing.
They have experienced both glory and tragedy, but have persevered and
still present a threat to win at each and every race.
By the way, more Gardner boys are just around the corner, so the legacy
continues. |
