Mavericks rev up for ‘little Indy’

Long before there was Freedom Fair, Tacomans celebrated the Fourth of July holiday by flocking to the Tacoma Motor Speedway to watch the likes of World War I flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker and car designer and racer Louis Chevrolet.

Such was the case on July 4, 1919, when an estimated 35,000 people jammed into the grandstands south of town and stood around a two-mile oval wooden track to watch Chevrolet win two of three races and set a speed record of 105 mph.

Rickenbacker refereed that particular race. But three years earlier – before he went off to war and shot down 26 German airplanes and balloons – he was the winner of the Tacoma race.

The speedway existed for a decade while the auto industry was still in its infancy. It was built on the south side of Steilacoom Boulevard, across from Mountain View Cemetery, on land now home to Clover Park Technical College and the Lakewood Industrial Park.

The track brought the great names of auto racing to Tacoma to compete for cash prizes in the Montamarathon, an adjunct to the Montamara Fest, a citywide celebration that featured fireworks at what is now the Stadium High School Bowl.

Among the racers were Indianapolis 500 winners Ralph DePalma, Tommy Milton, Howdy Wilcox, Jimmy Murphy and Gaston Chevrolet, Louis’ brother. They were joined by Barney Oldfield, Jerry Wunderlich, Cliff Durant, Peter DePaulo, Ralph Mulford (the reputed winner of the first Indy 500), Teddy Tetzlaff, Tom Alley, Harry Hartz and “Coal Oil” Johnny Carlson.

“The boys all liked to come to Tacoma for its hospitality and the salmon fishing in the Narrows,” race car driver Joe Thomas recalled in an Aug. 18, 1959, interview in The Tacoma News Tribune.

THE BEGINNING

Thomas, a Washington native born in 1890, was in his 20s when he was a headline racer at the Tacoma Speedway.

The track held a race every year from 1912 through 1922, and was known as the “little Indianapolis of the West.”

In fact, the first Indy 500 in 1911 inspired Tacoma businessmen to sponsor their own race. They saw how more than 80,000 people ponied up $1 apiece to watch these men of daring race around the Indianapolis track at speeds of more than 60 mph and decided to capitalize on the new craze.

The 1912 Tacoma race was held on a dusty 5-mile track on 240 acres of prairie more than a mile from the nearest road. It was won by Tetzlaff, who, according to news accounts from the time, “drove his massive red Fiat to victory in the 250-mile free-for-all event at the impressive speed of 66.06 mph, after dodging cows, dogs and horses for three hours and 47 minutes on the improperly fenced track.”

The 1913 race was run under similar conditions. But after the second year, a group of Tacoma businessmen began planning a permanent track that “promises to be the fastest track in the world,” according to an Aug. 17, 1913, article in The Tacoma News Tribune.

The new course’s track was built with 2-by-4 studs laid on edge with sand poured between them to create a smooth surface. It was 30 feet wide in the straightaways and 60 feet wide on the curves, which were banked.

It cost $100,000, had a grandstand to seat 10,000 and parking for 216 cars. At the time, there were only 6,000 cars in all of Washington state.

The track opened in time for the 1914 race and a crowd of 30,000 saw the race, double the attendance of the 1913 event. Three years later, Rickenbacker won the 1916 event, a 300-mile race held in August, with an average speed of more than 89 mph.

The war years took their toll on attendance, but unlike the Indy 500, the Tacoma Speedway kept operating in 1917 and 1918.

Attendance rebounded for the 1919 event, largely because Rickenbacker had returned as a war hero. A banquet was held to honor him as America’s top flying ace.

An even larger crowd turned out for the 1920 race – some 40,000 – partly because the grandstand had been rebuilt to accommodate 15,000 spectators in covered seating. Airplanes and a blimp circled overhead.

AN EXPENSIVE FIRE

The grandstand had to be rebuilt because a “firebug was thought to have started a blaze in the old stands three months before the race,” according to James E. Burkey Jr.’s book, “Whoosh Went the Cars.”

That fire proved to be the demise of the track. There had been no insurance on the original structure, so the investors had to dig into their pockets again to rebuild the grandstands and part of the wooden track.

Attendance dropped to 20,000 in 1921 and to 16,000 in 1922.

“Meeting at the close of the 1922 season, the Tacoma Racing Association, with Walter Baldwin as president, decided that dwindling gate receipts, mounting costs and the financial setback from the expensive fire of 1920 made it impossible to continue,” Burkey wrote.

That was it for the speedway.

News accounts from the time said the millions of board feet of lumber were sold off. The site of the track later became part of the Mueller-Harkins Airport. The airport land was acquired for the Pacific Naval Advance Base in 1944 and, still later, part of the land was bought by the Clover Park School District.

In the 1960s, some of the property became the Lakewood Industrial Park.

During the track’s decade of operation, four people were killed and five hurt, including a carpenter who crossed the track while a racer was conducting a test drive. This was an era of two-man cars, a driver and a mechanic.

Before winning the 1919 Tacoma race, Louis Chevrolet had parted company with the automaker that still bears his name. He died in 1941, nearly penniless.

Rickenbacker lived to be 82. He raced four times in the Indy 500, but finished only once, in 10th place. He bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1927 and ran it for 15 years, but sold it before World War II. He went on to help create Eastern Air Lines.

Joseph Turner: 253-597-8436

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This is one of a series of stories appearing during The News Tribune’s 125th year. Every Sunday we take a look at what happened during the same week sometime in the past 125 years. To suggest a week or an event for an upcoming story, e-mail your idea and any details to randy.mccarthy@thenewstribune.com.