In the late ’40s, Southern California was the hotbed for hot rod roadster racing on the oval bullrings. Here’s some great old footage showing the incredible action. Watch this.
We don’t know a whole bunch about this wonderful old film (if you do, feel free to school us) except that it reportedly was filmed in 1947 at Corona Raceway, the famed old dirt track near Riverside, California. The cinematographer was Elmer Dyer, a specialist in action and aerial films, who apparently shot these raw, silent sequences in 35 mm for a project that was never completed. (We haven’t changed a thing except to add an audio track, “Wherever We Go” by Dink Farklebrink.)
We do know from the information slates inserted in the scenes, never edited, that the drivers include Bill Bass, Fred Pope, Connie Wiedel, and Jim Rathmann, who later found fame as the winning driver in the 1960 Indianapolis 500. The cars are stars, too: awesomely modified Model T, Model A, and ’32-’34 Ford roadsters. The hot rod racing scene in Southern California was incredibly competitive, producing many of the top drivers, builders, and mechanics in professional racing over the coming decades. And when you watch the incredible action in this clip, you’ll understand why. Please enjoy.
Chevy can brag all they want about their 38 NASCAR manufacturer titles, American racing was built on the back of Ford Motor Company.
Cool find.
While I applaud some of their nod’s towards safety, I’m not too certain some of those roll bars would do much in a roll over.
Thanks MCG, great video. Just some observations of a weirdo (me). Racing in it’s simplest form, I’ll bet some of these guys had $100 bucks in these machines. Look in the background, how how unpopulated the area was, can you imagine what that track was like when it rained, although it looked pretty dry, look at the spectator stands, protected by plywood and 2×4’s, and some of the “push trucks”, someone had a pretty new GMC, lot’s of smoking cigarette’s and not one overweight person to be seen. Keep ’em coming.
Every time I click on this site, I have the same thought, I LOVE THIS PLACE !!
I’m guessing this is half mile track. It appears that they are turning in the range of 23 second laps. This give them an average speed of somewhere around 80 mph. Considering the equipment and what highway speeds were at the time, I’d say this is pretty impressive.
They say if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes, I can believe it, if you weren’t leading on that track, all you saw was dust!
Too bad it was a silent film, would have loved to hear those old engines at full song!
I’d bet a lot of those tires were hand cut.