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With a written description below by Mavis Shurter of the May 15,1954 race at Orange County Fair Speedway, Middletown, that she dubbed the “NASCAR invasion.” Sonny Strupp running under an assumed name won his first feature at Middletown. Officials refused to pay Sonny the full purse. He went on to become one of the most liked and respected drivers of his time.

On May 3rd, 1954, Mavis began writing to Larry who was working with Harry, Steve and George to qualify the #36 Stone Special at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I have 1 photo of the car with Larry. I pieced together this information from my mother’s letters to my father, which he brought back from Indy. Because she refers to Harry calling Bea which was the name of Harry Hall’s wife, it had to be Harry Hull of Hull Engineering. Last year I found more photos confirming that it was Hull’s #36 Stone Special. I haven’t been able to find out who George or Steve were or if the #36 actually belonged to Harry Hull or who was supposed to drive the car or did. All I know is the story below. I welcome any information.

Mavis’ first letter reminded Larry to have the Indianapolis paper sent to her daily so she could read details coming from the track. A quote from her May 7th letter was this, “I really can’t see why it would make any difference when you had gotten the license, but always seemed money was what they were after.” “…your racing belt must be in your suitcase…”

They had trouble with the Stone Special from the start. Responding, Mavis wrote, “…the way I have it figured–bugs will be ironed out and car will sit on the pole from Saturday’s time trials,”

May 18th letter from Mavis “read that Bill France was thrown out of pits. Is 3A (American Automobile Association) really that afraid of him. There are too many cars for Indy now, why can’t he have some for Daytona?? I have been wondering whose pit pass he had, do you know? Hopefully Marshal (Teague) wasn’t in it and hasn’t gotten himself on the blacklist with 3A.”

May 17th “Hopefully you folks got (bugs)…ironed out and 36 is ready… (her dry sense of humor coming out again) …heard about Jack McGraths time on the radio Sat. – what was holding him back?? Or did he have a tail wind? I am so anxious to get the papers from Sat. and Sun.”

(McGrath set a new track record at 141. mph in the time trials)

Mavis was 7 months pregnant and travel restricted. That didn’t stop her from going to nearby racetracks with their racing friends. She wrote events to Larry: “Middletown…just about everything happened. There were 49 cars…NASCAR invaded…the dust was terrible. (This from a women who had been going to racetracks since 1938 and didn’t complained about dust) Mertz got messed up (hurt) in the consi. “Don got 2nd in the heat with the 75, started 20th in the main” (Don Avery, Mavis’ cousin, driving the Goldsmith/Shurter #75) “In the first lap (Don) got tangled in a wholesale mixup on the backstretch. He got everything through but the rear end, a car that was rolling just caught the rear wheel and, you know – no center section…it broke the front part off where the driveshaft goes in, and of course the right housing. He was a very lucky boy. He followed Russ Dodd through the mess – rather, drove him through and Russ’ car… one side was torn completely off, so Don did well. Bud Marl was in it and flipped…22 was in it, drove over a stone or the bank and tore the steering box out. The two slower cars that started the pileup were demolished…started 30 cars with about 15 new guys in the front. Don told me he had the brakes on from the time he saw it start, but still went all the way through and of course spun when he hit.”

“Ray Brown’s car was acting up and they couldn’t get it running for the start, but by the time they started the second time he was ready. I thought it was his luck to win, but while running second he started breaking up again. Will send the results to you…please bring them back home. “…8 or 9 cars required the hook…most of the fast cars were messed up, except for a few. The guy who won was from NASCAR and he started 4th. He really was getting around…they withheld part of his pay because he was NASCAR and running under an assumed name. His real name is Sonny Strupp.”

(She had developed a good eye for talent. Sonny became one of the most respected and well-liked drivers in Middletown. Mavis watched him win his first feature that night at Middletown and his 37th win years later, placing him in the late 1960’s as the third all time winner behind Ray Brown with 43 and Frankie Schneider with 54 feature wins.)

“Ray Brown’s car has (painted on) ‘Equipped with Frank Delroy’s Speed Parts’…it sure runs for three or four laps then sounds like they slipped some non-speed parts in…when they get it ironed out, it will really move. R-5 is running good too and he showed Brownie he couldn’t cut him off in the turns. He almost fed Brownie some fence twice. You know how Brownie does on the outside, cuts down in front as soon as he gets alongside…R-5 was right there both times. Hatcher in the channel job did the same thing to Brownie. They made him put fenders and all on – so it looks sort of like a M.G. now.”

“Glad..you were with Art (Cross) at his home. I don’t know his wife but saw him talking to her the day he and Bill S. (Schindler) were fooling (at a NE track).”

Although all the guys were revved up about trying to qualify their cars for the Indy race, I suspect there must have lingered a sadness, an emptiness, because Bill Schindler wasn’t with them in Indy as he had been in 1950, 51 and ‘52. In 1952 he had finished 14th in the Indy 500, He was driving the Stevens-Offenhauser and finished on the same lap as the winner, Troy Ruttman. A few months later he was killed at the Allentown track (Pa). There, Art and Larry had competed against Bill, grabbed food and drink, teased and joked and maybe got a little mad at each other throughout the years. Larry and Mavis were thankful they weren’t there that day. They were turning 37 years old and had experienced a lot of injury and death: but racing was in their blood.

My mother writing about Schindler and Cross fooling around reminds me of two of my father’s stories. Out on the track, drivers were serious and focused, but off the track many had a wild hair. Larry and Mavis were rained out at the Danbury, Ct. track. They drove to the Rhinebeck Speedway in NY to watch the races, knowing they would be too late to compete. In between events, Al Keller was in a fooling around mood and spotting Larry, drove up to him and told him to hop on for a warmup lap. Some friendly sportsmen jibes were exchanged as Larry climbed on the vacuum tank (which was also used for towing). The small open cockpit midget was barely big enough for one grown man. Al went fishtailing in the loose dirt out of the pits before sliding onto the track which he sped around for the most part on two wheels. Larry was holding on the roll bar behind Al’s head for dear life. Quite succinctly, Larry said, “Al scared the shit out of me.”

Indy, a few years later: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis taking breaks from their movie set at the Indy track, could sometimes be seen showing off for the drivers and pit crews. In one of the few photos Larry took, they are fooling around in Johnny Parsons #69 Indy car. Dean is sitting on top of the back of seat while “driving” Jerry’s ears. Larry said he should have held on Al’s ears, “Maybe he would have kept all four wheels on the track.”

Back in West Shokan, Mavis wrote Larry in reference to her pregnancy, “I’m ok.”… “My bedfellow kept me awake part of the night” Referring to her size, “Good thing we took out the petition between the living room and kitchen so I can get in there”… “don’t worry, I’m rugged, enjoy yourself”

One day in the Indy pits, a driver took Larry to meet Bill Vukovitch. When the friend tried to introduce Larry to him, Vukovitch dismissed them by uttering, “I know too many god dam people now.” Mavis had first recorded watching Vukovitch drive after the WWII racing ban was lifted, at Saugus in California when the track announcer and news people was calling him “Bukovitch”, which he quickly corrected. Attitude aside, in a few days he went on to win his second straight Indy 500, setting an averaging track record of 130.84 mph.

Horribly, for him and his family, his friends and fellow drivers, Bill Vukovitch was killed in a terrible fiery crash the next year leading the 1955 Indy 500 race. It would have been his history making third consecutive 500 win. Two old buddies of Larrys, Art Cross and Al Keller were in the race. Al was involved in the wreck. Art was leading but dropped out with mechanical trouble. Bob Sweikert won that year. McGarth broke his own previous 1954 track qualifying record running 143 mph. He admitted to scaring himself. There was lots of talk about safety

Mavis writing on May 27th “Sorry it couldn’t qualify…I couldn’t give up – was hoping it would on Sunday…you must be disappointed and disgusted. The Novi gang had a bad one too. I still think they should qualify with the same gear they run with. Don’t see the point in quailing 139(mph) and running 129(mph) through the race.”

Back home, July 13th, Larry is on a lumber mill equipment purchasing trip with his father Jesse when Mavis gives birth a baby girl. Mil and Joe Goldsmith accompanied by Joe’s cousin (I can’t remember his name) visit Mavis in the hospital. Joe’s cousin asks how Racine is doing. He gets blank stares and asks, “You are going to name her Racine, aren’t you?” My mother looked from one set of smiling eyes to another and said,” Yes, absolutely, Raecine it is.”

I’ve silently thanked that man many times through the years, particularly after I grew old enough to ask my mother the name she had picked for me? (No, I’m not going to tell you.)

10 years later. 1964

A deeply disturbing horror my parents and I witnessed initiated positive changes in safety equipment. In the later years, most all of our racing crowd of friends and relatives were infield people which meant at the big tracks like Indianapolis and Daytona, we watched the races from the infield of the racetrack, not the bleachers or grandstands. For various reasons, very few friends could go to the 1964 Indianapolis 500 mile race so for the first time I was sitting in the bleachers between my parents on the front stretch, just out of turn four. Everyone that knows racing, just sighed and/or flinched, but for those who don’t know the history: our location put us in front of the worst crash in Indy history. Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald lost their lives in a crash involving 5 other drivers. MacDonald hit the concrete wall and burst into flames with Eddie right behind, sliding into him and catching on fire. Before the flames and smoke mercifully blurred the scene, we saw other cars crashing and sliding into the smoke but couldn’t tell how many were in the fire that had engulfed the first two drivers. All was fire, black smoke and radiant heat: sounds of horror and grief. My father had competed against Eddie and although Eddie was quite a bit younger, my parents had known him from around 1949/50 onward. I felt like I knew him because of my parents’ stories and the open smile he turned on a shy small girl. The grief quieted, turning into a shocked silence throughout the bleachers. We pivoted from diverting our eyes and senses to staring numbly into the black bellowing smoke. It was a long race; a sad, quiet, long sit in an arena of noise.

Arguably, specifications, regulations and track changes for the protection of drivers had not kept up with the increase in speed. Because of the changes in priority to safety and the development of more protection including stronger, more durable fuel tanks and cells which came about because of that crash, many lives have been saved.

A.J. Foyt went on to win that Indy 500, though the win would always be marred with tragedy. I had just reached the age to realize some of the perils of my parents love of racing. I don’t want to get into a continuing human nature debate between the dichotomy of people who are racing fans because they love the thrill of speed; the excitement of hot competition in sleek racing machines with an outrageous engine: from the people who are attracted to racing, supposedly because of the accidents. This fact is based on Indianapolis Speedway history: A record number of dedicated race fans who had annual seats overlooking that horror of 1964, did not return in subsequent years.

Prior to that day, too young to understand, I remember being at races when quiet would wake me from a sleep secure with the familiar roar of engines. I’d look up at my mother and see tears glistening or silently sliding down her cheeks. Race cars were stopped on the track with men in small clusters around each car: waiting. I knew there was nothing wrong with my father because she was there with me. Unlike the few times I’d wake up to my ‘aunts’ alongside of me instead of my mother. They were my parents’ best friends; my ‘aunts’ in the grandstand with my mother and their husbands, my ‘uncles’ in the pits, crewing for my father. I was never worried or scared. I don’t know whether it was because of their influence on me as the generation from the Depression and WWII, or, simply, because I was a child brought up in racing. I guess we all trusted in Larry’s best, or, for the best. That was the word my mother used when I was watching my father and a fellow racer maneuver for 1st and 2nd place. Frustrated, I yelled, “I wish he’d spin out!” She grabbed my hand, took her riveted attention from the track and staring into something deeper than my eyes, said, “don’t ever wish bad on someone else, only wish for your dad to do his best.”

It is a way of being worth remembering. And repeating.