Midgets Are Back, and in a Big Way : RACING’S RETREADS

Midget auto racing, crippled and almost left for dead by television in the 1950s, is undergoing a renaissance of sorts--thanks to the same medium.

During the Depression and the early post-World War II days, when there was little air conditioning and TV was still in the future, many folks spent their long summer evenings watching the midgets. From 1934 to 1948, excluding the war years, there were midget races somewhere seven nights a week from April to November.

Gilmore Stadium, located where CBS Television City now is along Beverly Boulevard, was the showcase for the sport. The track, built around a football field, averaged 10,000 fans every Thursday night.

And every other night of the week, for 40 cents most places, a fan or a family could see racing at Culver City, Atlantic Stadium in South Gate, Southern Ascot, Loyola, Huntington Beach, Saugus, Balboa Stadium in San Diego, Bakersfield, San Bernardino, Colton and even the Rose Bowl and the Coliseum.

On Aug. 17, 1946, there were 65,128 spectators in the Coliseum when Sam Hanks won a 250-lap midget race. It was the largest midget car crowd in history.

Then, like Saturday morning movies and Hula Hoops, the craze faded.

Instead, the people who had watched the little buzz-bombs were sitting at home, watching pictures moving in their own living rooms.

In 1950, Gilmore Stadium was sold and that year’s Thanksgiving Night Grand Prix, won by Bill Zaring, was its last race. Most of the other tracks had already shut down, many to make way for burgeoning housing developments.

The United States Auto Club, formed in 1956, kept midget racing alive, but barely. The late J. C. Agajanian promoted the first USAC midget race in the country at Saugus Stadium.

Coincidentally, Saugus will host a USAC Western Regional race Saturday night on the same third-mile paved oval.

For 20 years, the only midget race of much significance each year in Southern California was Agajanian’s annual Turkey Night Grand Prix on Thanksgiving. On most occasions, when Ascot Park scheduled other midget races, the fields were small and the stands were nearly empty.

Enter TV. ESPN to be precise.

After a couple of years of experimenting with telecasts of midget races from both the Speedrome in Indianapolis and Indianapolis Raceway Park in nearby Clermont, Ind., ESPN decided to expand. It is programing 13 weeks of midget racing, eight at Ascot and five at IRP.

The ESPN shows are produced each Thursday from Ascot Park and are shown live from 7 to 8:30 p.m., with former Indianapolis 500 and Turkey Night Grand Prix winner Parnelli Jones as commentator. The 30-lap main events, part of ESPN’s Caterpillar Thunder Series, are also part of the USAC Jolly Rancher Western States championship series.

The response has been highly favorable.

From the drivers:

“Midgets are definitely making a comeback,” said Rich Vogler, five-time USAC midget champion and a veteran of 18 years of racing in nearly every form of car. “There is no comparison between the atmosphere today and five years ago as far as number of cars, drivers, places to race and media attention.”

From the sanctioning body:

“This year we are getting calls from all over the country from promoters who want midget races,” said Bill Marvel, USAC vice president. “We have 101 midget races scheduled this year, and the expansion into new territory and the exposure on TV has made it much easier for drivers and car owners to find sponsors.”

From race promoters:

“We have about double the number of cars every week that we had five years ago,” said Ben Foote, Ascot Park vice president. “Because we start the program so early (5:30 p.m.) in order to get in the heat races, the crowds have been rather small but already we are noticing that spectators are dropping in from nearby plants. It gives them a chance to have some entertainment while the freeways get unclogged.”

From ESPN:

“I think having midgets on the air is good for motor racing,” said Larry Nuber, motor sports announcer.

“From an excitement viewpoint, if you extract the big-name recognition of Unser, Andretti, Rahal, Mears, etc., midgets offer a lot more entertainment than an Indy car race. If someone turns on TV and sees Rich Vogler flipping in Turn 2 at Ascot and then we close in for a shot of him climbing out of his car, it definitely catches their attention. Things happen a lot quicker, and a lot more often, in a midget race than an Indy car or Formula One race.”

From the fans:

“We close down the shop every Thursday, stoke up the barbecue, and sit around and watch those crazy cats in their open-wheel cars,” said Richard Petty, stock car racing Hall of Famer. “I wouldn’t want to get in one, but I wouldn’t miss watching ‘em.”

Outwardly, midget cars haven’t changed much since the first race was held in June of 1933 in Sacramento. They still weigh about 900 pounds, have a wheelbase around 70 inches and look like scaled down sprint cars.

“They look a lot like they did in the old days, but safety-wise they’re about 1,000% improved,” said Vogler, who has been racing them since 1971. “And they have about double the horsepower.”

Parnelli Jones, who won 25 USAC midget races, including the 1966 Turkey Night race--three years after winning the Indy 500--agreed emphatically.

“The full roll cage makes them a whole lot safer,” he said. “You see a lot more tangles, and more crashes, because the drivers have that cage around them. In my day, if you went on your head, you might be hurting for a month. Or forever.

“Nowadays, it’s almost commonplace. Guys are driving with a lot less respect for what can happen.”

Examples are Parnelli’s two sons, P. J., who turned 20 two weeks ago, and Page, 16. They are both racing, P. J. in full midgets and in the American Racing Series, a training ground for Indy, and Page in the cut-down three-quarter midgets, or TQs.

On April 22, P. J. flipped during a heat in Porterville, Calif., and got stuffed into the wall. Two nights earlier, Page had gone on his head in a TQ race at Ascot.

“Dad called us the Flippers,” P. J. said.

Said Parnelli: “Naturally, I was extremely scared at first, like any other parent, when I saw them upside down. But I’m getting better with time. Those roll cages really help.”

Neither Jones boy was hurt in the accidents.

The little cars generate about 300 horsepower and run between 85 and 90 m.p.h. on the quarter-mile.

“Back when I started, everyone was running Offies (Offenhauser engines),” Vogler said. “Then came the Sesco and in 1973, Red Caruthers brought out the VW for Bobby Olivero and it had 150 horsepower and blew off all the Offies. Now the Cosworth and the Pontiac and the new Aries that I use put out 300 horsepower.

“Sprint car technology has been transferred to midgets and it has made for closer and better racing because there are more cars evenly matched today.”

Controversy never hurt any competition and, as a driver, Parnelli Jones had his share of it. He punched out Eddie Sachs at the Indy 500 victory banquet where he was being honored as the winner, and he was suspended from the first Riverside off-road race by the late Mickey Thompson for allegedly practicing illegally, even though he was the only marquee name in the event.

His older son, P. J., is like him.

Last year, P. J. engaged in bumping and shouting matches with Sleepy Tripp, two-time national champion from Costa Mesa and the dominant driver in the Western States series since it was inaugurated in 1983. After a series of wheel-banging incidents at Reno, Ascot and other tracks, their feud came to a head June 6 at Saugus.

Tripp spun P. J. out and the youngster retaliated by waiting for the veteran, then ramming Tripp’s car. USAC officials suspended Jones for 30 days.

“I didn’t blame Sleepy so much as I did the officials,” Parnelli said. “They let things get out of hand until it was too late. Sleepy is a very good race driver, but he intimidates the officials and the other drivers. P. J. won some races and started to be a thorn in Tripp’s side and he tried to bully P. J., but he didn’t like it when P. J. gave him a pay-back.”

So far this year the feud has not resurfaced and all three, Sleepy, P. J. and Parnelli, insist they hope it doesn’t.

“It doesn’t pay to hold grudges when you race against the same guy every week,” Parnelli said.

Last Thursday, Tripp and Jones finished 1-2 without a sign of a problem. It was Tripp’s first victory on TV.

Having his own son in a race he was commentating on had its embarrassing moment for Parnelli.

After several cars had run low on the track and lost several positions in a recent race, Parnelli said: “That’s dumb. You can’t drive down there.”

Moments later, P. J. took his car down low and, like the others, dropped back.

“That’s not the place to be, for him, either,” Parnelli allowed.

You don’t get rich driving midget cars, unless, like Vogler, you’re on the go all week, every week.

Winning the 30-lap USAC regional main event at Ascot, on the quarter-mile oval, is worth $625. Winning a national on a half-mile track is worth $1,000 or better, depending on the event.

The May 12 Hoosierdome Grand Prix, for instance, will have a $35,000 purse. It will have 33 cars lined up three abreast, like the 500 two weeks later, and will be 500 laps on a fifth-mile paved oval. Vogler will be there.

He may be racing’s busiest driver.

Last week, after flipping in a three-car tangle at Ascot Park, he flew home to Indianapolis to drive a sprint car Saturday night at Rossburg, Ohio; a midget Sunday at Kalamazoo, Mich., and another midget Monday night in Louisville, Ky., as part of Derby Week.

Last year, according to Speedway Scene, Vogler competed in 84 programs at 43 tracks in 16 states with NASCAR sportsman, CART Indy cars, USAC champ cars, USAC sprints, winged sprints and midgets on 28 dirt tracks, 15 paved tracks, five one-mile ovals and the superspeedways at Indianapolis, Daytona, Pocono and Michigan.

He won 23 midget features and two sprint car events.

“I don’t count ‘em, I just show up and race,” the good-natured Vogler said. “Next week I’ll be at Indy (for the 500) with the best shot I’ve ever had there. The Machinists Union has two 1988 Marches, with new Cosworth engines, for me.”

Vogler has driven in the last four 500s, but crashed in three of them and failed to finish the other.

Stan Fox, of Janesville, Wis., is another Indy 500 driver competing in the Thursday night series. Fox finished seventh as a rookie driving for A. J. Foyt in 1987, but completed only two laps last year before a broken half-shaft put him out.

“A. J. is taking four cars to Indy next week and I hope I’ll be in one,” Fox said. “Of course, after seeing me here the other night he might have other ideas.”

Foyt, in town for the Long Beach Grand Prix in mid-April, dropped in at Ascot, where he had won the Turkey Night Grand Prix in 1970 and 1971, to watch the Thursday night racing. Fox, one of USAC’s leading midget drivers, was in Foyt’s Gilmore-Copenhagen colors.

During the main event, Fox spun out--twice. USAC has a rule that if a driver spins out twice in the same race, he is disqualified. This meant that Fox, whom Foyt came to watch, didn’t last long.

“It wasn’t the best night of my career,” Fox said, laughing.