Q ïṡ ḟöṛ Qüäṛẗëṛ⸚Ṁïḷë
𝕗𝕣𝕠𝕞 𝔸 𝕥𝕠 ℤ… ℙ𝕖𝕓𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝔹𝕖𝕒𝕔𝕙 ℝ𝕠𝕒𝕕 ℝ𝕒𝕔𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝟟𝟝𝕥𝕙
On the hallowed lawns of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 1950, don’t mention quarter-mile oval racing. Oh no. Infra dig. But up the road the California hot-rodders were taking on the sophisticats from Europe, the Jaguars, Ferraris, Porsches, Allards and MGs. There is evidence even that some of the MG drivers cut their teeth on the ovals, even for the fun of it an to win some prize money. Al Moss, race driver and car dealer whose fabulous home movies of the Pebble Beach Road Races and others we have edited as reels on our social media, became interested early on in competition. In 1949 he entered his MG TD in races organized by the California Sport Car Club at Carrell Speedway, a dirt oval in a Los Angeles suburb.
On the California Specials side of the track, Chuck Manning’s highly regarded sports-racer specials frequently competed on 1/4-mile ovals. During the 1950s, these lightweight, low-slung, aircraft-engineered specials did very well against all-comers.
Photos at the Menands Raceway (aka Empire Raceways) near Albany NY, a 1/4 mile paved oval track from 12th of June 1947 till 2nd of September 1963, give the evidence. Here is a photos of John Streets racing the Schaghticoke Manning there in 1956. There is another, probably of Wally Chapman, it’s original builder, testing it wearing no helmet. Read more at the well-researched article “Where’s Wally” on our web site https://dmtrg.com/wheres-wally/. The driver of the 1952 Schaghticoke Manning Special at the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion next week at Laguna Seca will be its habitual guest driver Marcus Bicknell who raced for seven years on ovals in the UK, Superstox and Pick-ups, alongside his road circuit campaigns in Mallock Clubmans slicks’n’wings cars alongside Rob Manson.