American Taste In Racing by tallpindo

Writers • Sports • posted on May 27, 2017

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Description

Indy reminds me that I have only seen a ¼ mile circle track stock car race at Owendale. I did listen to the radio program barely in fringe reception from Indiana. I am a media Indy fan. I recognize the voice of Freddy Agrabajian immediately. From Hot Rod magazine, I recognize A. J. Watson as the innovator of the Roadster era. There in that inland part of Los Angeles the car builders rushed to meet qualification week and carburetion trials. Then as the race day approached I began to see blurbs about J. C. Agajanian, a team owner. The neighbor girl that invited me to Miss Rushton’s dance school now has a new challenge. Her father is taking the whole family to watch “the greatest spectacle in racing.” They are hoping that Billy Vukovich will win. I did not know about the Armenian purges. I did not know about the Armenian “John” books more distant than the Apocrypha. I did know about the dog catcher and that I must keep our dog out of his hands. He got run over b y a speeding car coming into town exactly at the corner where Macalister’s house was because one of his eyes had been scratched out by Flannnery’s cat. Listening to the program I learned some of the terms for the track and the race engines and the cars. Almost all the cars had Offenhauser engines, nicknamed Offy. They chortled deeply as they ran down the chutes from the straight to the turn and bellowed as they exited on the run to the straight. First was the start. Noise swept in and swept out as I waited for the green flag. The reception was almost terrible. I was no longer in a parade from city hall to the state police post at the out skirts of town. I did not decorate my uncle’s tall tricycle I had borrowed from my grandfather’s attic with red white and blue paper streamer. I could go to the cemetery for taps and the rifle salute. Now as the time approached noon it was one hour earlier in Indiana. Some years I would not be able to decipher the radio program. The second year, Billy Vukovich was killed and my neighbors were sad. I could still look in as I found a plastic kit of the Belond Exhaust Special with lay down Offy. Jim Rathmann had driven this to victory. Roger Ward was close behind. Hot Rod explained that Fred Offenhauser was gone and through some legal actions the partnership of Meyer-Drake had taken over the legacy. Car builders could still get engines as short stroke types were tried. There were several sizes for everything from midgets to Championship cars. The midgets I saw later had V-8 60 Ford engines and one Rambler American flathead six. They all burned alcohol not gasoline as the stock cars on the same track each week did. Several times a car would lead the race and then be missing on the next lap. Freddy Agrabajian would send his associates to find out what had happened as the car reached the pits. His corner watchers would report if it was still on the track broken down or wrecked. “A ten-cent washer has ended the run of a truly noble run,” would be the result in more than one instance. Specifically, one of the STP turbine cars ended this way in the years after the legacy Granatelli Novi V-8 supercharged cars had made their race leading sprints and broken. As I was digging deep for the name of Agrabajian in my memory to write this I dug up Ara Parsegian. Nope, sorry, that is a football coach. Carl Yastrzemski? Nope not Armenian and a baseball hitter maybe on one of my baseball cards. The ultimate obscurity came one Memorial Day in downtown Long Beach. Champion spark plug rep Bobby Stralmann invited Russ Schleeh and his girlfriend Mary to join him and his wife at a theater where they were going to project the TV coverage of the race on the main screen. I was invited to see the coverage for the first time and to bring along my girlfriend Sharron. The projection on the screen was huge and quite bright. That also meant it was rastered into noisy chunks and the girls were like staring into bright sun how they glared and grumbled. Did we see the start? Did we see the first turn? That’s about all and Sharron wanted to leave, Immediately!!