Motor Madness

In the sticky, midsummer night air of the U.S. last week the fans were turning out in droves for a new national pastime: stock-car racing. Sheer speed was not the point; nobody was after records. The main idea was to pack 20 or 25 hopped-up cars on a tight, sharply-turned little quarter-mile track, and let them go for the bacon. The result was motor madness --a deafening combination of roaring engines and screeching tires, cars careening against each other or spinning into fences at 60 m.p.h.

In Chicago, where the racing is done mostly in postwar-model Fords, Chevvies and Plymouths, the twice-a-week grinds in Soldier Field have been outdrawing night baseball. In New England, 14 tracks are going full blast, and more are being built. In Southern California, prewar jalopies are preferred, but the idea is the same. With old or new cars, variations of the sport are pulling in customers in New York, the South and the Southwest.

Balance on the Turns. For the drivers, the thrills and spills are chiefly just bitter-hard work, with little reward except for a handful of the most highly skilled. In Chicago's Hurricane Auto Racing Association, a stable of professional drivers, the regulars pour it on five nights a week (Rockford, Milwaukee, Waukegan, Chicago), for a guarantee of $35 a night regardless of where they finish.

Under Hurricane rules (similar to those in other parts of the U.S.), all entries must be postwar cars with reinforced tops. The drivers must be 21 or over, are required to wear safety belts and crash helmets. The cars are known to the trade as "modified," i.e., souped up with high-powered coils and condensers, shaved-down cylinder heads, big-mouthed carburetors, high-lift racing camshafts. Heavy right-side springs and extra-large tires give a bit more balance for the unbanked turns.

The biggest wind in the Hurricane circuit in the last four weeks has been 23-year-old Jim Rathman of Los Angeles. His 1947 Cadillac is owned by two friends who do all the repair work, get 60% of the car's winnings. At Soldier Field one night last week, before a crowd of 31,065 (a 1950 record), Rathman put on his standard performance of winning a good portion of the nightly $1,500 purse.

In the twelve-car, ten-lap first heat, Rathman stuck with the pace for four laps, then gunned and jockeyed his big car into the lead, won by two lengths. In the first semifinal (15 laps) he had a little more trouble. No matter what he did, he was unable to catch a midget red Crosley labeled " 1/2 Pint" which spun into the turns on two wheels, snaked through the bigger cars like a frightened jaywalker, beat Rathman's Cadillac by four lengths.

In the second semifinal, the crowd got the thrills it came for. Tearing along at 50 m.p.h., one car lost a rear wheel, dragged 100 yards on its axle before it stopped. The crash broke the fuel tank, spewed gas along the track. Friction set the fuel on fire, leaving a 100-yd. blanket of flame along the right of way. The driver escaped. So did another whose car later spun out of control at 40 m.p.h., crashed head-on into an entrance gate. A Soldier Field electrician who was caught in the crush was less fortunate; he was carried off with a fractured skull.

"A Couple More Years," The 25-lap final was expected to be a duel between Rathman's Cadillac and Bob Leatherman's half-pint Crosley. It was for a while. Hard-bitten Jim Rathman ("out on the track we have no friends") watched Leatherman "push too damn hard" in the early stages of the race. On the eighth lap, the little Crosley got banged from behind coming out of the south turn, cracked into the retaining wall. Leatherman was lifted out unconscious. With his main opposition out of action, Rathman won handily, pocketed $200 for the night.

For a time, at least, the fans were willing to watch Rathman & Co. put on this kind of show. Racedriver Rathman knew the thrill was bound to wear off. He shrugged his shoulders: "I figure it will last a couple more years, and when the stocks are gone there'll always be something else to race."

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