Autograph Collection
About My Autograph
Collection....
In 1957, my father took the family to the Hatfield Speedway, to see the ARDC midgets on the fast half-mile asphalt track. Living in Philadelphia, Hatfield was reasonably handy, about 20 miles away, making it a short ride, and probably the shortest we would make over the years. It was an experiment to see if the family like races, the noise wasn’t too obtrusive, to endure etc. To me it was spectacular. Noise, movement, color… excitement, names to learn, numbers to memorize… Bill Randall won that night, in the Darell Villa number 83 a gun barrel blue Kurtis Offy with gold leaf lettering. The experiment worked. Racing became a weekend activity.
My next race was the Trenton 100 in September of 1957. It was the first race on the now paved mile, overcast and the first hint of autumn chill. Johnny Thomson on the pole in the DA Lubricant number 10, Pat O’Connor in the Sumar number 12 would wage a wheel to wheel battle over the last twenty laps, with O’Connor winning by a car length and averaging 100MPH for the race. I believe this was the first pavement race to make that average, the first race was earlier that year at Langhorne when Johnny Thomson accomplished the feat. It was going to be a long winter before my next race.
The idea of an autograph book was probably my mother’s. She purchased a leather bound book with about 50 pages in it. My father was into photography, so as I acquired the signatures, he would take the pictures. The primary camera for the photographs was a Rolleflex. It shot 2 and on quarter inch square film and with a look down viewfinder worked tremendously well at Williams Grove by holding the camera above the pit fence and you look up like a periscope. That way the fencing was never in view. If you look at the Williams Grove pictures you can understand the aspect better understanding that. The Rolleflex was not good for action shots however. But back then everybody took 8mm motion pictures for action.
As we became more
familiar with racing, the camaraderie of the other fans sort of grew into
a weekly family reunion. Reading,
Pa, Williams Grove, Langhorne, Trenton, Old Bridge, N.J. Freeport, NY,
Danbury, Ct, Bloomsburg, Pa, Wall Stadium, Municipal Stadium, Eldora, New
Bremen, Dayton, Winchester, Kokomo, Anderson, Joliet,
Springfield, Milwaukee, Terra Haute, Indy, Indianapolis Raceway
Park, Indianapolis Fairgrounds, Manassas, Olive Branch, NY, Flemington,
Lincoln, Hagerstown, … ARDC, USAC, IMCA, URC….Knobbie tires, no roll
bars, Cromwell Helmets, driving in T Shirts. The best track for French Fries (Williams Grove), Lemonade
(Flemington), Wursts, hot dogs and beer (Milwaukee hands down), best steak
house (Babe and Jim’s Springfield, Ill),
all this came with the journey of the autographs.
I hope you enjoy this view of the past; I appreciate Mr. David Zortman’s effort in bringing forward the way it was in racing long before the corporate sponsorship took control a racing and the best drivers were defined by their skills not sponsorship mavens.
- Jim Nise
To view the entire collection, click here to begin. To view a specific driver, click on their name in the list below to go directly to that page.
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