John "Pepper" Martin may have had an interest in Midget racing, but the picture clearly shows a Big Car, and what's more, a Big Car with a history! It is the old (Lloyd) Vieaux/Cragar, a "hoodoo wagon" which Martin owned in 1937, and perhaps beyond. It was built in California in 1930, the metal work possibly by Clyde Adams, and ran as the #14 Vieaux Special, probably with a McDowell engine, on the AAA Pacific Coast circuit, most prominently at Ascot Speedway, of course. One of its first drivers was runaway championship leader Jimmy Sharp, whose regular car (the Garnant=Moore/Frontenac) was not available at Fresno in September, and who had the misfortune to break an arm during an accident in the main event that day, not only costing him "his" championship, but, much like Troy Ruttman twenty-two years on, ruining a perfectly good career up to that point. Hoodoo victim #1.
In 1931, the car carried #15, and was driven mostly by Carl Ryder, but also up-and-coming Nick Martino on occasion, moving up from 38th to 31st in the owners championship. At some point, probably in the fall of 1931, it got a Miller marine engine, and in January of 1932 it recorded its best result, running as #14 again and with Ryder at the wheel, for a 3rd place finish in an Ascot main behind Indianapolis stars Bill Cummings and Wilbur Shaw. It was a bit of a lucky break, with several faster cars falling by the wayside, but it alone secured 16th place in the owners championship that year, and that despite a very short run on the west coast, as Vieaux, the owner and a former driver himself, suddenly had designs of becoming a driver again, and headed for the East where the pickings were quite a bit easier at the time. Exit California, and enter part two of an illustrious racing car career!
The car was renamed the Margaline Special (the name of Lloyd's new queen of hearts, rumour had it), and Vieaux ran it all over the East, at Reading and Langhorne in Pennsylvania, Ho-Ho-Kus in New Jersey, Deer Park on Long Island and up the Hudson river, at Rhinebeck and Altamont, to Dunkirk on the shores of Lake Erie, and at as far away places as New Hampshire and Chicago. He didn't have much to show for in hard results when he returned to his home in Beverly Hills for the winter, but he was spectacular and had the flair of a movie star, with unquestionable "raw" speed into the bargain - witness a track record and fast heat win at Ho-Ho-Kus - yet most of all, the experience gained during that summer sojourn would prove to be an invaluable asset to his future career.
When Lloyd returned to the East the next spring, with the car now a robin egg blue #27, he was a front runner, a regular main event qualifier, and a good finisher to boot, especially on the one-mile-tracks: second at a Langhorne 40-miler in June, second again at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta on the Fourth of July, then a winner at the same track on Labor Day and two more seconds during the Southeastern Fair in October - all in all, he scored twenty-two times on the Eastern circuit for a 5th place in points, and once in the Midwest (at Milwaukee, another full mile) for 37th, in addition to which he finished 4th on the prestigious Hankinson circuit, ahead of Indy winner Fred Frame and Eastern Championship runner-up Johnny Hannon - a rousing success! Long before Ted Horn even so much as arrived on the Atlantic seaboard, Lloyd Vieaux was the Western star on the Eastern bull rings, and destined for a great career, maybe even on the bricks of Indianapolis one day!!
For 1934, Vieaux invested in a new DO Cragar engine, and showed up at Langhorne for a 100-miler at the end of April, finishing an excellent third and beating half a dozen Indy 500 drivers in the process, including a future winner. At Reading, he was fast-timer, but his new engine refused to cooperate, and lunched three exhaust valves, leaving him a non-starter in the main. An Indy ride did not (yet) materialize, so he went to upstate New York on Memorial Day instead, breaking Billy Winn's track record at Altamont and leading both the fast heat and the main event from start to finish. On July 4, he was again in the South, at Lakewood, taking another track record, the trophy dash, fast heat and feature race, his second at the track and third overall. A return engagement was scheduled for the 22nd, and Lloyd chiseled another three fifths from his own track record, but battling for the lead in the fast heat he suddenly lost control heading into the tight turn one, and was fatally injured in the ensuing accident. Hoodoo victim #2.
After biting the hand that had nurtured and built it in the first place, the Vieaux/Cragar was picked up by a local pair of brothers, Dick and Ed Matthews of Atlanta, who gave it to Johnnie Stewart, an experienced but not very successful AAA driver from New Jersey. "Stubby" Stewart crashed the car on his very first attempt at Lakewood in October, but managed a heat win four days later on the same track. In February, Stewart was amongst a small number of AAA drivers going to Tampa's Florida State Fair races, sanctioned by the big rival organisation, the IMCA - unlike Shorty Drexler, who was very seriously injured, Stewart did not survive to regret his decision to go "outlaw", dying from massive head injuries after hitting the wall surrounding the track. His mount on that fateful day was never mentioned, but circumstances suggest it was from the neighbouring state - hoodoo victim #3?
The Matthews brothers campaigned the car for the next two seasons, mainly in AAA events in the South (Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginias), and with Southern drivers like Pete Craig from Georgia or Chick Young from North Carolina. At some point, probably in late 1936 or early 1937, Pepper Martin purchased the car and gave it to the veteran former AAA driver from Oklahoma, Eddie Graves, to compete in independent events all over the Midwest. Little is known of his exact exploits, but in the summer of 1937, Graves crashed fatally at a dusty fairgrounds track just outside of Chicago. Hoodoo victim #4.
The next driver of the Vieaux/Cragar appears to have been Pete Alberts from Saint Louis, the gentleman with helmet and goggles in the above picture. Alberts had a penchant for driving under assumed names and/or identities, and he was competing as Phil Lacetier of Portland in Maine when driving for Martin. He narrowly avoided becoming hoodoo victim #5 when he crashed at Lakewood in July, but his injuries kept him out of racing for some weeks. He would eventually die in 1939 at the wheel of another car. The last trace of the car I have is from 1938, when Fred Bailes of West Virginia entered it at a AAA race at Lakewood, results unknown. Whether it was still owned by Martin then, I don't know.
Edited by Michael Ferner, 17 June 2013 - 20:48.
