11 replies to this topic

[alfredaustria]

Chuck Weyant celebrates his 90th birthday today (April 3rd).

[D-Type]

I had to look him up. According to Wikipedia Chuck Weyant is the oldest living Indianapolis veteran.

Happy birthday to a grand old man.

[sramoa]

I made a short bio about him in AAA Dirt car Researcher Project FB site!

[Richard Jenkins]

Chuck sadly died today.

[Collombin]

He must have been the oldest living driver to compete in an Indy 500 from its WDC era, a rapidly dwindling band these days - who is left? Foyt of course, Paul Goldsmith, beyond that I can't think of any others still around.

Edited by E.B., 24 January 2017 - 19:37.

[Richard Jenkins]

Don Edmunds is still going

[B Squared]

From IMS and Donald Davidson:

http://www.indyracingmuseum.org/news/

[Michael Ferner]

If the past is the father of our times, and we're all the fathers of the future, it follows that at least some idea of the character of a person can be gleaned from looking at that person's father, and his son. Rube Weyant was a small time racer in Illinois during the thirties, forties and fifties, making the news only now and then. Not a lot is known about him, but he ignited the spark, he passed on the benzene flowing through his veins, not only to Chuck, but also his younger brother Gene, and through sisters Lilian, mother of legendary Midget builders and racers Rusty, Chuck and Keith Kunz, and Jo Ann, mother of Sprint and Midget racer Jerry Russell - somehow, Midget racer Duke de Rosa is also related, but I don't know how. Of course, it doesn't stop here, as Gene's son Scott and Russell's son Steven also race, as do Chuck's son and grandson, Tony and Evan (Pennsylvania's Muss Weyant, however, is no relation). Tony Weyant, Chuck's oldest child and only son, was easily the most successful of the lot, a leading Illinois Sprint car driver throughout the eighties and nineties, with many feature wins in the Tri-State area of Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, as well as Missouri. Maybe because his father gave him more than just the genes to go fast - he was named after Tony Bettenhausen, Chuck's great idol and mentor, and a friend.

Bettenhausen's death at Indianapolis in 1961 had a profound bearing on Chuck Weyant's career, as he couldn't stomach losing his old friend. "The only time I ever really had tears roll down my eyes is when Tony got killed", he once confided. "Every time I went by that spot it tore me, because I knew he was done for, hell of a deal" He stopped chasing that dream of making it in the big time, and concentrated forthwith on the "doodlebugs", the Midgets that had always been Bettenhausen's first love, too. Later in the decade, he was lured back to the Big cars during the new era of the Super Modifieds and Super Sprints, but on July 24 in 1971, it all ended at the small local track in Macon/IL, when somehow he lost control of his Super Modified, ran into a wall and was very seriously injured. He recovered completely, but never raced again, instead concentrating on helping his son Tony, who'd raced motorcycles for a while, make the transition to car racing.

His own career was late in getting started because of the war - he'd purchased an old rail-frame Midget while still in his teens, but had to wait until 1945 to exercise it. By the following year he began having success, driving for other owners, and by 1947 he was a regular frontrunner at the local tracks, making trips to Chicago, Wisconsin and Indiana. 1948 saw him compete (and winning) in an Offy Midget at Champaign, Fairbury, Farmer City, Lincoln, Macon, Shelbyville and Springfield, the busy life of a top Midgeteer during the heyday of the little cars. It's nigh impossible to keep track of all the action during those years, but Chuck won the championship of the Coles County Speedway in Charleston/IL in 1949, and quite likely a few more like that. He was, without question, one of the leading independent drivers of the area, and during 1951 he decided to throw in his lot with the AAA, the leading National racing club, where he quickly found success, too. Of course, the main reason for making that move was the eligibility for the Indy 500, and Chuck made sure that all the car owners knew he was available next May, and when Michigan's Bill Boyd was fired by the team of the Terre Haute Plumbers and Steam Fitters Union (a forerunner of sorts for the eighties Machinist Union team), Weyant slipped into the old homebuilt racer that hadn't made the field in four years of trying, only to spin during his "rookie test" - tough luck!

During the summer of 1952, Chuck Weyant really made his presence felt on the AAA Midget circuit, with a run of top three finishes that culminated in his first win at Milwaukee, August 7, in a borrowed car from his old friend, Chuck Marshall. That, in turn, led to a chance to drive a brand new Kurtis/Offenhauser Champ car at Detroit later that month, and in an entry of more than thirty cars, Chuck qualified 19th, for a starting field of 18, unfortunately, but two days later at Du Quoin he was 18th amongst 28 - phew! He even made it through to the flag, however with only on retirement that was still only 16th place, five laps down and the only car beaten an old tired prewar racer driven by a track roadster regular in his last ever racing car start. So, it was back to the Midgets again for Weyant, but the momentum seemed to have gone. Or, maybe he was just distracted by the lure of Indy?

By late summer of 1953, he had another Big car ride, and in four tries qualified twice for a position at the back of the field, finishing both times (10th & 14th). He also scraped into the field at the Midwest Sprint car finale at Terre Haute in October, again coming through for a 7th place finish - at least he was working on a reputation as a good finisher. But next May was another disappointment, despite completing his rookie test in time - he couldn't find the speed to qualify. Things didn't improve until late summer again, when he qualified for the races in his hometown, Springfield, and the Milwaukee asphalt 200-miler the next week, finishing 11th and 14th, respectively, and after another DNQ at Du Quoin he finally retired for the first time in his Champ car career from the Hoosier 100 field. A change of teams before the Western swing in November did wonders, though: at Phoenix, he qualified for the fast half of the field for the first time and finished 9th, while at the season finale at Las Vegas he made it to 8th from 5th on the grid. That was good enough for 35th in National points that year, and things were finally looking up.

For the May extravaganza at Indy, Chuck found a ride with an established outfit, the Federal Engineering team out of Detroit. In 1954, Indiana's Larry Crockett had won "Rookie of the Year" honours with a 9th place finish for the team, and as a result was rewarded with a brand new car, while Chuck was to drive the older car in the hope of repeating that performance. As things turned out, Crockett crashed fatally during a Sprint car race in early spring and was replaced by the experienced Californian Freddie Agabashian, who promptly qualified second fast on the second day of the trials. Weyant had a big scare on the third, with a huge tankslapper out of Turn 4, but made it safely in on the next, and last day. On Memorial Day, he brought the car home 12th, but was beaten to RotY honours by Pennsylvanian Al Herman, the only other rookie to finish (7th). Four days later, he returned home to Springfield for his second AAA Midget feature win, and in August he won a third, a 50-miler at Terre Haute, with a fourth win at Illiana in October, ending the season 13th in National Midget points, his best ever placing (he was also 17th in Midwestern points). Sadly, though, his Big car season took a turn for the worse, and after an 11th place in the non-points race at Williams Grove he failed to qualify for another main event all year, losing the Federal ride in the process.

Big changes were on the card for 1956, with the United States Auto Club taking over as the premier sanctioning body in the US, and Chuck found his first regular Sprint car ride with the New York team of Frank Curtis, running an old ex-Johnnie Parsons car with quite a history. As an appetizer, USAC had scheduled three Florida non-points races in February, and Weyant won the second of those at Jacksonville, thus becoming the fourth ever USAC feature winner after Gene Hartley, Shorty Templeman (both in Midgets) and National Champion Bob Sweikert. Moreover, by winning a Midget main in Tennessee in April, Chuck Weyant became the first repeat winner in USAC history, and for six glorious weeks ranked as the winningest USAC driver before Templeman dethroned him with three in a row the night before the '500'. Four of those weeks, however, Chuck could only watch from the sidelines as he was hors de combat after flipping the Curtis sprinter at Reading, breaking his right arm against a support post holding a fence that may have prevented even worse injury.

Whatever else, it definitely prevented him from competing at Indy that year, and pretty much wrecked his season. Coming back in July, he led a Midget 100-lapper at Williams Grove until retiring at two thirds distance, then retired from the non-points Champ car race at the same track a fortnight later. He failed to qualify for any of the remaining National Championship races, and didn't win any more Sprint or Midget races, though he still managed a few good results, especially with the doodlebugs where he took a 4th in a 100-miler at Milwaukee, and a second (behind Tony Bettenhausen) and third, respectively, in two 50-milers at Terre Haute. For a year that had started so well, 1956 turned out to be a bitter disappointment, and it basically meant starting all over again in '57.

Chuck got a fresh start with another crack Michigan team, Jim Robbins, in a brand new "roadster" Kurtis/Offenhauser, but had difficulty working up to speed, so he asked his old buddy Bettenhausen to try it out, which Tony did on May 12, with spectacular results: braking for Turn 1 late in the day, he suddenly lost control and spun through the infield, then back onto the track again, covering more than 1,000 feet and barely missing the wall, while the closely following Giuseppe Farina, former World Champion from Italy, had to spin his similar car in avoidance - quite a show! With what was obviously a tricky car, Weyant made the field on the penultimate day of the trials, but got bumped early the next afternoon. The following hours then produced one of the most exciting tales of car hopping and bumping, with Chuck replacing Oregon's Bob Christie in the Ohio entry of Pete Salemi, and bumping George Amick in one of the Federal Engineering cars (which must've felt good, after the '55 experience) just minutes before the final gun. Christie, then, got into yet another car, made it onto the track with seconds to spare, and managed to oust the second Federal entry of Billy Garrett by less than half a second! After all that practice and qualifying excitement, the 14th place finish for Weyant in the actual race was anticlimactic.

As was the rest of the year for Weyant: an 11th at Detroit and 10th at the non-points Williams Grove meet were his only Champ car results, and a fourth and fifth in 100-milers at Detroit and Trenton, respectively, his best Midget finishes. With no car assignment he arrived at Indy the next May, "shopping for a ride" which he finally found halfway through the month, the homebuilt Dunn Engineering, another Detroit entry. It was good enough for an undramatic time trial on the third day and, having missed the big pile-up on the first lap, Chuck spun out of the race in Turn 4 before one fifth of the distance was covered. He failed to qualify the same car at Milwaukee and on the dirt at Springfield, then was replaced by former Indy winner Pat Flaherty, who qualified for the Milwaukee 200-miler but needed relief early in the race - Chuck hopped back in for a 16th place finish. A week earlier, however, he'd finally made it back into victory lane, in a Midget at his hometown track in Springfield/IL.

The attentive reader will have realized by now, that this is not going to be the biography of a champion, and Chuck must've felt the same. When not racing, he was now operating the Finish Line Tavern near the Illinois State Fairgrounds, a popular watering hole for the racing fraternity, and the first of many he would own over the next several decades. As a barkeep, he was a natural, always the go-to man when in need of a good party. He also tried his hand as a car owner, buying one of his former Champ car rides together with a friend, Don Evans, though with very limited success. His more relaxed attitude resulted in what turned out to be his best year in racing, 1959, starting on January 3 with an indoor Midget win at the Fort Wayne Coliseum, and continuing with two more Midget wins, at Illiana and Champaign in summer, plus a third in another 100-miler at Trenton. His Big car season was pretty good, too, although it started badly with another wreck at Indy, but he subsequently qualified for five successive races, scoring points in each of them for a career-best 29th in the final reckoning.

On January 3, 1960, he won yet again at Fort Wayne, and claimed the USAC Indoor Championship by finishing third the next week. He remained a top competitor on the USAC Midget circuit for the rest of the decade, with his last win dating from July 15, 1963, again at his home track in Springfield, but he was second as late as August 1970, and took his last "podium finish" in May of '71. On the local Super Modified/Sprint circuits, he won his fair share against a new wave of drivers, including the likes of Bubby Jones, Dean Shirley, Dick Gaines or Rick Ferkel. He wasn't really through when he retired in 1971, but perhaps a bit too old to mix it with the outlaws in the seventies. Then again, Bob Kinser was only eight years his junior, and a formidable competitor way into the nineties, so who knows?

Edited by Michael Ferner, 26 January 2017 - 22:09.

[ReWind]

Great post!
 
But, Rube Weyant? Chuck’s father was Abner Merritt Weyant (1900 – 1963), confirmed by his obituary.

 

His late sister Virginia (1925 – 2003) had a son called James DeRosa (presumably b. 05 March 1945). Could he be Duke de Rosa?

Edited by ReWind, 26 January 2017 - 19:02.

[Michael Ferner]

Many thanks, Reinhard. Yes, "Rube" Weyant's real name was Abner. I don't know Duke de Rosa's real name, but the age should be about right. He was in a photo of a "cousins reunion", so it all figures.

I have another problem, maybe you can help. There was a Chuck Weyant junior racing a bit in the nineties, if I recall correctly. As far as I could find out, Chuck and Lorraine had only two kids, a boy (Tony) and a girl (Jackie), but now I can see that Chuck was divorced before he married "Lorry". My genealogical skills don't carry me that far, in fact, most of the time researching this article was spent untangling all kinds of relations, with rather limited success. Could it be that Chuck junior is a child from that first marriage?

[hlfuzzball]

Michael,

 

Bravo for your work above.

 

You always astound me with your depth of knowledge of the most obscure, rag-tag  U.S. racing history!

 

A little Houdini in you, by chance?

 

 

Tom in Detroit

[Michael Ferner]

Yes, he's inside of me, trying to escape. His most difficult act to date.


Thanks for the warm words.