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Racers At Rest
The title “Racers at Rest” is copyrighted by author Buzz Rose and
Rose Racing Publications and is used here with their permission.
Volume III, Issue 2
---
November 2013
Under the Auspices of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame - Knoxville, Iowa -
MICHAELIS, HEID, SOULES
ALL GET MARKERS!
I N S I D E T H I S
I S S U E :
Sam Dickson
2
List
5
Transition List
6
Profile: Cox
7
Matt Heid
8
Alton Soules
9
Next: Clark
14
Profile: Beckett
15
F
rom all accounts, driver Harry
Knight and his riding mechanic, or “mechanician” as
those daredevils were known, should
have been cleaned up, packed, and
ready to leave the Columbus (Ohio)
Driving Park long before Ralph Mulford crossed the finish line after the
200 mile grind on July 4, 1913.
Knight, 23, and Michaelis, 19,
were at least 50 miles behind Mulford
when Mulford reached the threequarter mile of the race. Pesky engine problems had plagued the
Knight & Michaelis machine, a Kinnear “Rovan” Special, and dropped
them so far back in the standings that
they had been officially declared out
of the race. What prompted them to
take their machine back onto the race
course and into the abyss?
The best guess is simply that
they were racers and there was still a
race underway. What racer worth his
salt would have just walked away in
that situation? Certainly not Knight
and Michaelis.
In the end, it wasn’t engine
problems that ended their day and
their lives, it was a tire failure. Roar(Continued on page 2)
Racers At Rest is published
four times a year and is
available free of charge as a
digital newsletter.
To subscribe, send an email
request to
[email protected].
Racers At Rest welcomes
your comments, articles,
and photographs. Send
submittals, questions or
comments to [email protected] or by post
to the Editor.
Mike Thompson, Editor
135 Heatherwoode Blvd.
Springboro, OH
45066-1579
In this undated photo, driver Harry Knight poses with his riding mechanic,
presumed to be 19-year-old Milton Michaelis. Both men died July 4, 1913
at a race in Columbus, Ohio.
S E E H E I D PAG E 8 / S O U L E S PAG E 9
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Volume 3, Issue 2 - November 2013
(Michaelis - Continued from page 1)
ing into the first turn on the
one-mile dirt track, the right
rear tire on the Kinnear exploded. The machine turned
over twice before landing back
upright.
Mechanician Milton
Michaelis was thrown from the
car on its first roll-over. Knight
was pitched out on the second
roll and ended up on the surface of the track where he was
run over by a following racer
who couldn’t see Knight’s
prone body because of the
dust. Knight died instantly;
Michaelis was rushed to the
Protestant Hospital in Columbus where he passed away several hours after the accident, a
result of a fractured skull and
“concussion of the brain.”
At the time of the accident Michaelis had been working for Harry Knight’s brother,
Forest, assisting in their car
rental business at a hotel in
Atlanta, Georgia, though some
sources show his home as
Clovis, New Mexico. And
though service as a riding mechanic was a well-established
path to becoming a racing
driver, there is nothing in the
surviving record to indicate
that Michaelis harbored such a
desire.
Milton Michaelis was
born in Michigan and following
his fatal accident his body was
returned to Adrian, Michigan,
for burial in St. Joseph’s Cemetery. And that’s the first lucky
thing to happen to Milton since
(Continued on page 3)
Page 2
ANOTHER RIDING MECHANIC STILL WAITING...
SAM DICKSON
Driver Arthur Greiner and riding mechanic Samuel Dickson (just
barely visible on the other side of the steering wheel) are ready
to face the 500 mile test that was the 1911 Indianapolis 500, but
their race would end in an accident just 30 miles into that event.
Greiner was injured in the crash but Sam Dickson was killed instantly. Dickson thus became the Indianapolis 500’s first fatality. Sam’s final resting place in Rosehill Cemetery in Chicago remains unmarked after more than 100 years.
S
am Dickson, like Milton
Michaelis, was a riding
mechanic plying his dangerous craft at the dawn of the
auto racing game in the United
States.
Fate, and the knowledge
that his best route to becoming
a racing driver was to serve as a
riding mechanic, brought him to
the first running of the Indianapolis 500, May 30, 1911, to
team with Arthur Greiner in the
#44 Amplex. (That’s Dickson,
face partially obscured by the
steering wheel, posing with
Greiner at the speedway in the
photograph above.)
Greiner was not the
original driver tagged to drive
the huge Amplex. That honor
went to New York City’s Walter
Jones. Unfortunately, Jones became unavailable (the story behind his disappearance is
muddy, to say the least) so
France’s Gaston Morris was installed in the driver’s seat. Unfortunately, in practice nine
days before the big race, Morris
blew a tire and crashed into the
backstretch wall. Morris suffered internal injuries and broke
numerous bones. The accident
didn’t do the Amplex any good
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
(Continued on page 3)
Page 3
Racers at Rest
(Michaelis - Continued from page 2)
that fateful July 4th weekend in
1913. Why? Because Adrian,
Michigan, just happens to be
the home of John Morton.
It seems that John is
also a member of the National
Sprint Car Museum and Hall of
Fame and through the
NSCM&HOF he read about the
Racers at Rest project. When
he scanned the list of racers
without markers he happened
upon Milton Michaelis and
noted that Michaelis was buried in St. Joseph’s Cemetery just
down the street, so to speak.
That a Michigan lad, a
racer, rested in an unmarked
grave and had rested there for
almost 100 years seemed like a
crime to John and he resolved
to do something about it.
Together with friends
John set about spreading the
word about the Racers at Rest
(Continued on page 4)
The July 4, 1913 program at
the Columbus Driving Park
was Milton Michaelis’ final
race.
(Dickson - Continued from page 2)
either.
With some effort the
Amplex team was able to unmangle the #44’s frame, but
finding a driver took a bit more
time and effort.
Enter Joe Horan, a riding
mechanic like Michaelis and
Dickson, with a dream of being a
race driver. The Amplex folks
decided to let Joe get a few practice laps in another of the team’s
entries. Things did not go well.
On one of Horan’s first
laps of the speedway he spun
coming out of turn 4 and
crashed hard into the inside
guardrail, breaking his left leg
and leaving Amplex with a second broken race car and no
driver for the #44, a car that was
now getting a reputation as a
cursed machine, a “hoo-doo” car.
And that’s how Arthur
Greiner ended up in behind the
wheel of the #44. Greiner was
an experienced driver and manager of the Falcar racing team
that was to compete in the 500,
Unfortunately Greiner’s cars
weren’t ready in time and he
pulled their entries. The Amplex
team heard that Greiner was
available, wired him with an offer, and Greiner was quickly on a
train from Chicago to Indianapolis.
It’s not clear whether
Greiner and Dickson had ever
driven together or even knew
each other before Greiner arrived in Indianapolis. But there
is some evidence that on the
morning of the race Dickson was
feeling uncomfortable.
In a 1980 newspaper
interview, Edward Towers, 92
and the last living participant in
that first 500, claimed to have
been approached by Dickson on
the morning of May 30, 1911,
who told of a sleepless night and
a bad premonition about the
events about to unfold.
Though Towers brushed
him off, Dickson’s anxiety turned
out to be well founded. Greiner,
it seems, had turned so many
laps practicing in the unfamiliar
car the morning of the race that
the decision was made just before the start of the race to
change the right rear tire.
In fact, the change was
made so close to the starting
time that the lugs weren’t fully
tightened. Greiner later admitted that a fan had yelled to him
as the cars filed onto the track
that his right rear wheel was
wobbling. More than that,
Greiner reported that he could
feel a vibration through the
steering wheel. His pit crew
gave orders that Greiner was to
make one lap then stop at the
pits so that the wheel lugs could
be tightened.
Perhaps Greiner fully
intended to comply with his
crew’s instructions, or maybe he
thought that the risk was overblown. In any event, once the
race was started Greiner began a
charge through the 40 car field,
passing cars right and left. Until
the 13th lap.
Coming out of the turn
just 30 or so miles into the
marathon the right rear tire and
wheel fell off the Amplex #44.
The car swerved into the infield
and began a series of end over
end somersaults. Greiner was
thrown out of the car, according
to some reports still clutching
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
(Continued on page 4)
Volume 3, Issue 2 - November 2013
and his group to pass
the hat at a weekly racing event.
The hard work
and dedication of John
and his crew has paid
off, and Milton Michaelis, the nineteen-yearold who gave his life for
his love of automobile
racing, now has a proper
marker after a wait of
100 years.
But wait; there’s
more. After their successful fund raising for
Michaelis’ maker, John
Morton noticed that
there was another
Michigan racer on the
Racers at Rest list, Matt
Heid.
(Michaelis - Continued from page 3)
project and collecting money for
a proper marker for Michaelis.
Oakshade Raceway in
Wauseon, Ohio allowed John
And so John and
his friends kept the fund
raising going and in time
collected enough additional money to place a
marker on the final resting place
of Matt Heid.
Those of us on the Racers at Rest committee salute
John and his crew for their dedication and commitment to helping see
that racers like
Michaelis
and Heid
receive
proper
markers
for their
final resting places!
Page 4
(Dickson Continued from page 3)
the steering wheel.
Dickson was not nearly
as lucky. He remained in the
car and at the end of one somersault the heavy Amplex racer
pounded the hapless riding
mechanic into the ground, killing him instantly.
At the time of his death,
Dickson was working for the
Simplex Motor Car Company.
He’d started there in 1908 as a
mechanic at $1.50 and hour.
He must have been spectacularly good because after a single week on the job he got a
raise to $2 an hour, the same as
common laborers could expect
to earn in a 10-hour workday.
A year after being hired, Dickson was offered the top job at
the company’s Boston branch.
After his death, Sam
Dickson’s body was returned
to Chicago where it was interred at Rosehill Cemetery,
and there it has rested for over
100 years with no stone to
commemorate the life and
death of Samuel Dickson, riding mechanic.
Sam Dickson was not
the last man who would die
during the running of the May
classic at Indianapolis, but he
was the first. It is more than
shameful that his mortal remains rest in an unmarked
grave over a century after his
passing.
(Much of the information included here on the events
leading to the Greiner/Dickson
crash as well as the lives of
Greiner and Dickson are taken
from Charles Leerhsen’s book
“Blood and Smoke,” 2011,
Simon and Schuster.)
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Page 5
Racers at Rest
RACERS WITHOUT MARKERS FINAL REST
W
ith this issue of the Racers at Rest newsletter we have to add three additional racers to our list. Harry
Cox and Alexander Dion, riding mechanics, and Jack Kemp all died in open wheel race cars and none
have yet to receive any sort of stone or plaque to mark their final resting places. Milton Michaelis and
Matthew “Matt” Heid have been moved to our Transitional List on page 6.
DRIVER
Atwood, Irwin
Baker, Oscar "Kenny"
Bottorff, Seveica.O.
Brayen, George
Brucks, Sherman
Christensen, George
Cipelle, Steven "Dutch"
Clark, Loren "Red"
Cox, Harry
Craft, George "Jimmy"
Crane, Harvey
Dickson, Samuel
Dillman, Howard T.
Dion, Alexander
Eldred, Gilbert
Eldridge, Lynn
Ferch, Walter "Speedy"
Flagstead, Harlsten
Fleming, Walter
Ford, Leslie
Govin, Leroy “Roy”
Hahn, William Robert “Bobby”
Harris, Lawson
Jacobs, Sam
Kelly, Frank
Kemp, Jack
Knox, Francis Marion "F.M."
Lafon, Clyde
Lehmann, Curt A.
Maben, Curtis "Curly"
Miller, Lee
Morris, Chester N. “Chet”
Partin, Athur
Reid, Gordon
Searcy, William “Bill”
Shelly, Howard
Spanglo, Charles "Dutch"
Van Drake, Owen
Van Steenberg, Harry "Van"
Villa, Chester A.
DIED
CEMETERY
LOCATION
5/30/1935
7/28/1935
11/3/1919
9/9/1934
9/9/1928
4/22/1929
8/18/1939
6/13/1935
5/26/1932
2/3/1924
10/16/1920
5/30/1911
10/28/1922
9/24/1922
10/1/1921
10/15/1930
7/4/1923
9/4/1928
9/13/1930
5/3/1931
6/29/1939
5/25/1934
9/20/1939
8/25/1911
9/9/1933
5/24/1925
6/11/1933
8/20/1927
10/12/1957
8/21/1954
9/11/1938
6/26/1949
10/11/1936
4/20/1952
10/12/1946
9/1/1947
7/19/1925
9/5/1923
8/11/1925
9/25/1920
Rural Cemetery
Mountain View Cemetery
Evergreen Almeda Cemetery
Wallkill Valley Cemetery
Greenwood Cemetery
Calvary Catholic Cemetery
Wichita Park Cemetery
Valhalla Memorial Park
Memorial Park Cemetery
Oak Hill Cemetery
Mount Hope Cemetery
Rosehill Cemetery
Evergreen Memorial Park
Holy Cross Cemetery
Oak Ridge Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Forest Home Cemetery
Alliance City Cemetery
Grove Hill Cemetery
Elmwood Cemetery
St. Paul’s Cemetery
Forest Lawn Cemetery
Crown Hill Cemetery
Spring Grove Cemetery
Holy Name Cemetery
Inglewood Park Cemetery
Summit View Cemetery
Holy Cross Cemetery
Calvary Cemetery & Mausoleum
Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park
Woodland Cemetery
Forest Hill Cemetery
San Jose Cemetery
Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Forest Park Cemetery
Evergreen Washelli Memorial Park
Saint Marys Cemetery
Bayview Cemetery
Mount Hope Cemetery
San Luis Cemetery
Oswego, NY
Altadena, CA.
El Paso, TX.
Walden, NY
Hamilton, OH.
Galveston, TX.
Wichita, KS.
North Hollywood, Ca
Indianapolis, IN
Belle Plaine, IA.
Logansport, IN.
Chicago, IL
Tucson, AZ
Malden, MA
Sandwich, IL
Los Angeles, CA.
Milwaukee, WI.
Alliance, OH
Oil City, PA
Centralia, IL.
Mt. Vernon, NY
Glendale, CA
Indianapolis, IN.
Cincinnati, OH
Ebensburg, PA
Inglewood, CA
Guthrie, OK.
Akron, OH.
St. Louis, MO.
Seattle, WA.
Quincy, IL.
Pewaukee, WI
San Antonio, TX
Glendale, CA
Houston, TX
Seattle, WA.
Champaign, IL.
Necedah, WI
Logansport, IN.
San Luis Obispo, CA
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Volume 3, Issue 2 - November 2013
Page 6
RACERS AT REST TRANSITION LIST
W
e offer this “transitional” list in order to give our Racers at Rest project supporters a clearer idea of
where we are in our efforts to ensure that the graves of all open-wheel racers who died behind the
wheel of a race car are properly marked..
The racers listed here fall into five categories. Three of the racers currently have a family marker but
no individual markers. Since their graves have at least some identification these racers will be addressed with
individual markers after the other racers’ resting places have been marked.
We have tracked five other racers to cemeteries but their precise resting place within the cemetery is
unknown at this time. We will continue to search for the location of their grave sites though the chances for
success appear slim.
Finally, ten of the racers have completed the Racers at Rest process. Markers for Joe Russo, Billy
Winn, Earl Farmer, Bill Heisler, Billy “Coal Oil” Carlson, Curtis “Cyclone” Ross, James Shorb “Speedy”
Lockwood, Alton Soules, Milton Michaelis, and Matt Heid have been placed at their gravesites.
DRIVER
DIED
Brown, Walt
Carlson, Billy “Coal Oil)
Davidson, Jay
Farmer, Earl
Garringer, Cecil E. “Bobby”
Goveia, Sabino
Heisler, Bill
Heid, Matthew “Matt”
Lockwood, James Shorb
Mancuso, Frank
Michaelis, Milton
Robinson, Clarence
Ross, Curtis “Cyclone”
Russo, Joe
Speth, Al
Soules, Alton
Webb, Louis E.
Winn, James M. “Billy”
7/29/1951
7/5/1915
9/5/1934
2/1/1931
7/28/1940
6/29/39
5/15/1932
6/29/1949
3/1/1935
6/19/1934
7/4/1913
10/10/1915
7/30/1949
6/9/1934
5/31/1953
10/1/1921
9/2/1940
8/20/1938
CEMETERY
St. Charles Cemetery
Calvary Cemetery
Oneonta Plains Cemetery
Inglewood Park Cemetery
IOOF Cemetery
St Paul’s Cemetery
Inglewood Park Cemetery
Mt. Ever Rest Cemetery
Woodlawn Cemetery
St. Peter Cemetery
St. Joseph’s Cemetery
Barnett Ridge Cemetery
Wesley Chapel Cemetery
Mt. Olivet Cemetery
Fairmount Cemetery
Inglewood Park Cemetery
Cloverdale Cemetery
Mt. Olivet Cemetery
LOCATION
Farmingdale, NY.
E. Los Angeles, CA
Oneonta, NY.
Inglewood, CA
Montpelier, IN
Mt Vernon, NY
Inglewood, CA
Kalamazoo, MI
Santa Monica, CA
Danbury, CT
Adrian, MI
Barlow, OH
Columbus, OH
Detroit, MI
Davenport, IA
Inglewood, CA
Cloverdale, IN
Detroit, MI
Notes: (1) Family marker is in place at gravesite.
(2) Location of gravesite within the cemetery is unknown.
(3) Order for marker has been placed.
(4) Markers have been completed will be placed when weather permits.
(5) Markers have been placed! Process complete!
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
NOTE
1
5
2
5
2
2
5
5
5
1
5
2
5
5
1
5
2
5
Page 7
Racers at Rest
FROM THE ADRIAN DAILY TELEGRAM
1913 R A C E C A R M E C H A N I C ' S D E AT H M A R K E D
W I T H N E W G R AV E S T O N E
One hundred years after
his death, a race car mechanic's
previously unmarked grave now
has a marker, thanks to the efforts of an Adrian businessman.
Adrian native Milton Michaelis
died July 4, 1913, at the third
annual 200-mile motor car race
in Columbus, Ohio, after the car
in which he was riding blew a
tire and flipped. The race car
driver, Harry C. Knight, 23, and
known as the "hero of the Indianapolis Speedway," was killed
almost instantly. Michaelis, 21,
died a few hours later. Known as
a 'mechanician' at the time,
Michaelis was buried in an unmarked grave next to his father
in St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery
off Oakwood Avenue.
His story became a
source of intrigue for John Mor-
ton from Continental Service,
who is also a member of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame
and Museum.
"The whole story intrigued me," Morton said, after a
race car historian who competed
in the 1960s and 1970s started
researching race car drivers and
their mechanics who died starting in the early 1900s. For the
first 10 years of motor car racing, drivers had a mechanic on
board to speedily tend to repairs
while on the track.
"He stumbled on the fact
there are 50 or so buried in unmarked graves," Morton said of
the historian's efforts.
With that, members
started a program to raise funds
to place markers on unmarked
graves. And as it turns out, Mor-
ton said, one of those graves was
in Adrian.
Morton started soliciting
funds in February through the
Racers At Rest program to help
pay the $900 for the marker and
its placement. Thanks to "lots of
generous people," the stone was
set on June 8.
"Finally, he is a racer at
rest," Morton said.
And Morton isn't stopping with Michaelis' marker. He
is helping to raise funds for a
driver buried in Mount Ever
Rest Cemetery in Kalamazoo.
Driver Matthew Heid was killed
June 29, 1949.
By Dan Cherry
Adrian Daily Telegram
P RO F I L E : H A R RY COX
W
e have no way of
knowing whether
driver Benny Benefield
and his riding mechanic Harry
Cox gave much thought to the
history of their “Jones & Maley”
Duesenberg when they pulled
out onto the Indianapolis Speedway Thursday, May 26, to practice for the 1932 500-mile classic. In the same car the previous
year, in practice, driver Joe Caccia and his riding mechanic rode
the Deusey over the outside wall
and into eternity.
But given the car’s history it would have come as no
surprise to those railbirds who
believed in cursed or “hoo-doo”
race cars when Benefield and
Cox climbed the wall coming out
of the first turn, soared into the
trees, then falling and rolling
over.
Benefield was injured;
Harry Cox was killed.
Harry Cox was born and
raised in Indianapolis and was
apparently a Sergeant in the
Indiana National Guard at the
time of his death.
Cox is still in Indianapolis, his mortal remains resident
at Memorial Park Cemetery, and
for the past 81 years, while almost 40,000 race miles have unspooled over at the Brickyard,
Cox has rested in anonymity in
an unmarked grave.
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Volume 3, Issue 2 - November 2013
Page 8
M AT T H E W “ M AT T ” H E I D G E T S M A R K E R
O
wosso Speedway started
life in 1939 as a 1/4 mile
dirt track and so it remained until auto racing was
ended at the start of the U.S. entry into WWII. Oddly, the track
remained active during the war,
but not as a speedway. Instead
the track became a Prisoner of
War camp.
In 1946 the track was reopened as a 1/2 mile banked
dirt track. One of the drivers
who linked the old and new
Owosso was Matthew “Matt”
Heid, a veteran dirt track driver
who had been at his craft for
some ten years piloting midgets
and roadsters.
Heid, married with four
children, had known success at
Owosso. On Wednesday, June
22, 1949, Heid won the night’s
feature in his souped-up Ford
roadster. That probably explains his confidence going into
the following week’s Wednesday
program at Owosso.
On that night, June 29,
Tom Cherry made an appearance at Owosso. Cherry was a
famous roadster and sprint
car driver
whose resume
included many
wins at the
most fearsome
of Midwest
high-banked
tracks including Winchester
Speedway and
Ft. Wayne
Speedway in
Indiana, and
Before Adrian, Michigan businessman John
Dayton SpeedMorton and his friends got involved this was
way in Ohio.
Matt Heid’s final rest, shown here with the red
If the
flowers.
promoters
hoped that Cherry’s presence
to that and would beat Cherry
would boost attendance they
and win the race just as he had
were sadly mistaken. The day
won the previous week.
was rainy and miserable and
Almost as if scripted for
fewer than 700 fans filed into
a television melodrama, every
the track.
other competitor in that final
As expected, Cherry
race of the evening either
served up a beating for the
crashed or dropped out leaving
Owosso regulars that night and
just Cherry and Heid to settle
going into the final race of the
things.
night Matt Heid stepped up and
Going into a turn, Heid
vowed that he would put a stop
made a move to pass Cherry, but
his roadster slipped up and over
the edge of the track then rolled
down the 20 foot embankment.
Matthew “Matt” Heid died at the
track.
(Left) The marker for former
Kalamazoo resident Matt
Heid looks different than the
others that the Racers at Rest
project has placed. In Heid’s
case, this type of marker was
required by the cemetery to
match those surrounding
Heid’s final rest.
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Page 9
Racers at Rest
A LT O N E D W A R D S O U L E S G E T S M A R K E R
In the previous issue of this
newsletter we told the story of
Alton Soules. To celebrate the
recent installation of Soules’
marker we are recapping the
prior article here.
A
lton Soules, born April 13,
1893 in Toledo, Ohio,
served his apprenticeship
as he came up through the racing ranks. Before landing in the
driver’s seat, Soules had served
first in the pits for his famous
uncle, Charles Soules, then later
as his uncle’s riding mechanic, or
“mechanician.”
In the years leading up
to 1921 Alton went on to serve
as the riding mechanic for other
wheelmen, drivers like Eddie
Pullen, Joe Thomas, “Wild Bill”
D’Alane, Hughey Hughes, and,
most notably, Omar Toft.
With
Toft behind
the wheel,
Soules raced
at Indianapolis, Uniontown, Cincinnati, Sheepshead Bay,
Omaha, and
Ascot, but in
1921 Soules
decided that
the time had
come to try
this hand at driving. He immediately began to show promise.
On June 18 on the boards
at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Alton brought his Frontenac home
fifth against some of the best
drivers of that age. Then, in just
his third race as a driver, on the
mile-plus board track, Cotati
Alton Soules (right) is shown with his riding mechanic Harry
Barner in this undated photograph believed to have been taken
sometime in 1921.
Speedway at Santa Rosa, California (sometimes also referred to
as the “Santa Rosa Speedway”)
on August 4, 1921, Soules ran
neck and neck with leader Eddie
Hearne for 45 laps before suffering a broken connecting rod that
ended his day
On the strength of those
two showings, Soules was heavily promoted in advertising for
the October 1, 1921 “Raisin Day”
150 mile race meet set for the
one-mile board track at Fresno,
California.
The promoters signed
contracts with 11 racers and the
organizers expected another
three or four to show at the last
minute. That didn’t happen; just
nine cars started the 150 mile
grind and Soules and his repaired Frontentac was among
them.
Soules started strong,
but on the 75th lap disaster
struck and, according to contemporary reports, Soules and his
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
(Continued on page 10)
Volume 3, Issue 2 - November 2013
(Continued from page 9)
riding mechanic and the big
Frontenac rocketed out over the
top of the southwest turn and
tumbled some 50 feet to the bottom of the banking.
Some motorsports historians are now reporting that Alton Soules died instantly, but
that is not the case.
Soules was rushed to a
nearby hospital where he was
prepared for surgery to repair
the damage he suffered in the
accident. Omar Toft, Soules’
friend and the man Soules had
ridden with in so many national
events, reported that he spoke
briefly with Soules while the injured driver was being prepped
for surgery.
Toft asked Soules what
had caused the accident and,
according to Toft, Soules replied
that he couldn’t understand
what had happened but thought
that perhaps a steering knuckle
had broken.
It came as something of a
This photograph of Alton
Soules was taken in July 1921
at the Tacoma board track.
shock to Toft and the rest of the
racing community when Alton
Soules, 28 years old and in his
first year as a race driver, did
not survive the surgery and died
October 1, 1921.
Page 10
list rest now in anonymity with
little record of their passing and
no one left to remember their
exploits. That’s particularly true
with this particular accident at
Fresno Speedway on October 1,
1921.
Soules for example was
never listed on our Racers at
Rest list of racers without markers until our last issue. Why?
We couldn’t find out where
Soules was buried and, as a result, couldn’t determine whether
or not his final resting place was
marked. Once we found him and
confirmed that he had no
marker, we were able to order
and place his marker.
We have often remarked
that most of the racers on our
Here’s the before and after photos from Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood, California. In the
photo at left Soules’ final resting place between the two somewhat sunken stones is unmarked.
Soules’ marker is shown on the photo at right after being places.
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Page 11
Racers at Rest
FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK
W
e got a lucky break
when Adrian, Michigan
businessman John
Morton read about the Racers at
Rest project. To back up a bit
more, I guess that you could say
we actually got lucky when John
decided to join the National
Sprint Car Museum and Hall of
Fame, because it was a press
release from that organization
that introduced Morton to the
Racers at Rest project.
Now clearly John is not
the first person to read about
this effort to place markers on
the graves of open-wheel racers
who died behind the wheel of a
race car but never received a
marker for their final resting
place. But what he did after
D O N AT E !
T
hinking of donating to
the Racers at Rest project? We need every dollar bill that you can spare!
Mail your donation to
National Sprint Car Museum
P.O. Box 542
Knoxville Iowa 50138
and make your check payable
to the “National Sprint Car
Museum.”
In order for your donation to go to the Racers at Rest
project, you must write “Racers
at Rest” on the memo line of the
check.
Thank you in advance
for your kind support of this
very worthy project!
reading about the project
definitely sets him apart.
When John saw that
one of the racers on our list,
Milton Michaelis, was resting in St. Joseph’s Cemetery
right there in John’s home
town of Adrian, Morton decided that he would take it
upon himself to do something about that.
He began by recruiting a group of friends who
are also racers and fans.
John’s son Jeff was joined by
John’s cousin Marvin Pifer.
Friends Lon Fox, Bruce Stuart, Calvin Davis, Tony
Simpkins, and Art Horn
signed up to assist. They
individually contributed to
the fund and then expanded
their fund raising efforts.
We need to send a very
special salute to the owners/
promoters at Oakshade Speedway in Wauseon, Ohio, Pam and
Terry Hendricks, along with
their staff and of course the fans
there. The management at Oakshade does not, as a matter of
policy, allow charities to “pass
the hat” at speedway events.
But when Morton and company
explained the purpose of the
Racers at Rest project the speedway immediately joined the effort and allowed John and his
friends to solicit donations from
the fans.
And folks certainly contributed generously to the project. Before long John had collected enough to purchase and
Michigan businessman John
Morton.
place a marker on Milton Michaelis’ final resting place.
Somewhere along the
way John noticed that there was
another Michigan racer on the
list, Matt Heid. So Morton and
his group continued their fund
raising until they had enough
money to purchase and place a
marker on Heid’s grave.
When I commented on
the extra effort John simply said,
“Hey, us Michiganders have to
stick together.”
N
ow your current Racers
at Rest committee members might be...um...older and a
bit slower than we once were,
but we certainly did not just ride
into town on the turnip truck.
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
(Continued on page 12)
Volume 3, Issue 2 - November 2013
Page 12
EDITOR’S DESK - CONTINUED
(Continued from page 11)
After seeing what a great
job John Morton did organizing
his own R@R effort and then
managing to raise enough funds
to take care of both the Michigan
racers on our list, we weren’t
about to let John slip away from
us.
With some very gentle
persuasion and with just a tiny
bit of arm twisting we have convinced John to join the existing
Racers at Rest committee--Don
Tash, Steve Estes, Jim Thurman,
and me--to help see this project
to completion.
Welcome aboard, John!
L
ast month we offered, for
the first time to donors,
Racers at Rest decals.
The decals (an example
is shown below) are a supersized 8” x 5” and feature
“Speedy” Ferch from our Racers
at Rest list. Speedy has come to
represent all our racers from
that earlier time who risked all
for their love of the sport.
C O N TA C T U S
H
ave a question or some-
Speedy began his career
thing to share with the
as a motorcycle stunt man and
members of the Racers
racer before switching to autoat Rest Committee? Don’t hesimobiles and losing his life in just
tate to contact us!
his second race.
Speedy is shown in a
photo provided by his family after one of his motorcycle racing
accidents, head wrapped in a
huge bandage, hat perched atop
the bandages, rumpled tie, oil
stained pants, cigar clamped
firmly in his teeth, “unbeaten &
unbowed.”
Here’s how to get your
own decal:
(1) Make your check out
as you normally would to
“National Sprint Car Museum”
and write “Racers at Rest” on the
memo line to make certain that
your donation goes into the right
pot. We’d like a donation of $12
or more for each decal since the
(Continued on page 13)
RACERS REST PROJECT
[email protected]
NATIONAL SPRINT CAR
MUSEUM
&
HALL OF FAME
TOM SCHMEH
Curator
[email protected]
DON TASH
Show Low, Arizona
[email protected]
(602) 791-3983
STEVE ESTES
Troy, Ohio
[email protected]
(937) 339-2784
JIM THURMAN
Palmdale, California
[email protected]
JOHN MORTON
Adrian, Michigan
[email protected]
(517) 404-5524
MIKE THOMPSON
Webmaster/Newsletter Editor
Springboro, Ohio
[email protected]
(937) 550-4067 (Office)
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Page 13
Racers at Rest
(Continued from page 12)
decals cost us a bit more than $2
each.
(2) Mail your check to:
Mike Thompson, P. O. Box 1036,
Springboro, OH 45066.
(3) I will mail your decal
to the address on your check (or
other address that you provide)
and forward your check on to
the National Sprint Car Museum.
All costs connected with
the decal including all postage
costs are donated by me and
Steve Estes. No donated funds
are used!
But wait...there’s more!
S
teve and I recently had a
small quantity of nifty Racers at Rest t-shirts produced for
our appearances with the R@R
program display and there are a
few left over. For a donation of
$25 (or more of course; no penalty for being more generous!) I
will mail you one of these shirts.
The
shirts feature
our own
“Speedy” Ferch
on the front
and the list of
racers waiting
for markers on
the back.
To get
your R@R tshirt follow
these directions:
Our newest R@R committee member, John
Morton, owner of Continental Auto Repair in
Adrian, Michigan, used to race dirt late models with his son, Jeff. Of late, father and son
have been spending time with their vintage
race cars including this beauty captured by
photographer Scott McIlwain at this year’s
Winchester Speedway Old Timers Reunion
gathering.
(1) Call
me, Mike
Thompson, on
my cell phone
at (937) 2195851 to make
sure I have the
size you want and if I do I will
hold the shirt for you until I receive your check.
(2) Make your check out
as you normally would to
“National Sprint Car Museum”
and write “Racers at Rest” on the
memo line to make certain that
your donation goes into the
right pot.
(3) Mail your check to:
Mike Thompson, P. O. Box 1036,
Springboro, OH 45066.
(4) I will mail your shirt
to the address on your check (or
other address that you provide)
and forward your check on to
the National Sprint Car Museum.
And, as a bonus, if you
order a shirt I will include a
decal with the shirt!
WARNING: I have just a
limited number of shirts and
only in sizes adult medium,
adult large, and adult x-large.
We have no plans to produce
more of these shirts so if you are
interested better strike while
the iron is hot!
Here’s what the Racers at Rest T-shirts look like. That’s “Speedy”
Ferch on the front (left) along with the list of racers resting in
unmarked graves on the back (right). Very few are available.
Better act NOW if you are interested!
I
hope that those of you who
receive this newsletter via
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Volume 3, Issue 2 - November 2013
(Continued from page 13)
subscription in .pdf format are forwarding it on to your family and
friends. One of the things that
we have learned as this project
has unfolded is that you can
never predict where help will
come from or what form that
help will take.
Of course we continue to
take subscriptions. An email to
[email protected] with
the word “subscribe” in the subject line will ensure that the subscriber receives every issue on
the day that it is published.
In the meantime, thanks
for sharing your newsletter with
others!
W
e don’t take advertising
here in the Racers at Rest
newsletter (though perhaps we
should to raise additional funds
for the project) but we have to
once again send a warm thank
you to Susie and Stan at Kemp
Monuments in Inglewood, California. (310-673-3707). Susie
has a deep connection to our
sport as documented previously
here and she and Stan and the
rest of the staff at Kemp have
bent over backwards to help us
place markers on our West Coast
racers in unmarked graves.
They have been exceedingly generous in giving their time and
expertise and have been very
kind in their pricing. On behalf
of the committee and all those
who support the Racers at Rest
project we thank them from the
bottoms of our hearts!
I
f you’ve not yet had an opportunity to donate to Rac-
Page 14
ers at Rest, please take a minute
in the next couple of days to
write out a check and sent it
along to the National Sprint Car
Hall of Fame & Museum.
If you have already donated, we thank you, but just
remember that there is no penalty for repeat donations.
Every donation, large or
small, is helpful and 100% of
your donations go to placing
markers on the graves of our
fallen heroes. There are no deductions for administrative costs
or other expenses.
Until next time, thanks
for your continuing support of
Racers at Rest!
Mike Thompson
Editor
NEXT ON THE LIST: LOREN “RED” CLARK
L
oren “Red” Clark was California-born, but lived most
of his life in Texas, and
that’s where he was first drawn to
the racing game.
He was also a pilot who
wasn’t afraid of taking a risk here
or there, and that’s what the Hollywood movie industry was looking
for in the early 1930s. It was that
combination of flying and racing
that pulled Red back to Los Angeles.
On the afternoon of June
12, 1935, Red was at Legion Ascot
practicing in the #7 Speedway
Special owned by Harry Jacques.
He was soon doing stunt
flying for the movies and spending
his free time at the fabled Legion
Ascot Speedway. He started driving at Legion Ascot during the
1933 season and did will enough
to finish seventh in the 1934 Pacific Coast Championship.
At the hospital doctors
determined that Clark had suffered
a broken leg and unknown internal
injuries, but was expected to survive. The doctors were wrong.
Loren “Red” Clark died the evening of June 13, 1935.
He left behind a wife and
For reasons that have been
lost to time, his racer shed a wheel
and went out of control. Clark
smashed through the guardrail and
down the embankment, and when
the machine finally came to a halt
rescuers quickly arrived and
dragged the driver to safety.
three small children.
The track survived Clark
by barely six months. The deaths
of popular Al Gordon and his riding mechanic Spider Matlock on
January 25, 1936 closed the speedway.
Loren “Red” Clark’s final
rest in Valhalla Memorial Park,
North Hollywood, California remains, 78 years after his death,
unmarked. But not for long.
When contributions to the
Racers at Race fund permit, Red
Clark will be the next to receive a
marker for his final rest.
You can help. See page
11 for instructions on how to donate to the Racers at Rest project!
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber
Page 15
Racers at Rest
HERO’S GRAVE PROPERLY MARKED
P R O F I L E : L AW R E N C E E . “ L A R R Y ” B E C K E T T
(Of late, in each issue of this
newsletter, we’ve been covering the story of a hero of the
Roaring Road who was fortunate enough to receive a
marker for his final rest from
family or friends at the time of
his death. Ed.)
T
here are those who would
argue that Larry Beckett
came by his love of speed
as a result of his day job; he was
a motorcycle policeman in Dayton, Ohio. He found auto racing
when he was assigned to work a
race track.
In any event, Beckett
was in his mid-twenties when he
tried his hand at driving a race
car and he soon found he was
good at it, so much so that he
soon left his policeman’s motorcycle behind and began racing
full time.
For over 15 years
Beckett pounded around Midwest speedways primarily in
“big cars,” what
are today known
as sprint cars, but
he sometimes took
rides in midgets as
well. He is best
remembered for
the white #15 car
he built and campaigned for some
five years for
owner Jack
Sheppard of
Tampa, Florida.
In early August, 1939,
Beckett found himself in Washington D.C. for an AAAsanctioned midget race at the
almost brand new Capital
Speedway, a 1/5-mile dirt oval.
From all accounts the
new track was pretty primitive.
The drivers complained about
the poor lighting, particularly in
the south turn. Between the
dust and the lighting, visibility
was at a premium.
In the first of the two 15lap semi-final events of the evening, Beckett was leading the
field into the south turn when
his midget
clipped
one of the
hay bales
that lined
the inside
of the
curve.
Beckett’s
midget
began a
series of
somersaults that
threw Beckett from the car and
onto the track.
Beckett was rushed to
the hospital with a concussion
and possible skull fractures. He
lingered there long enough for
his wife, Dorothy, to arrive from
Dayton. Larry Beckett died of
his injuries at 2:30 p.m. August
9, 1939, the day after the midget
race.
Lawrence E. “Larry”
Beckett rests now in Dayton’s
Memorial Park Cemetery.
(Photos provided by Larry
Beckett’s grandson, also
named Larry Beckett.)
Honoring Our Racing Heroes in Their Eternal Slumber