Hm, well, yes... I actually expected that... I started this table several weeks ago, before the new software "hit" us, and it doesn't really work out like I planned it! Maybe I should have arranged the points in columns instead of lines, but I was not going to start all over again. Hm.
Anyway, a few words of explanation: the top 20 positions are from the programme of the last race of the season, with me editing in the points of that last race. Below are a few more entries that didn't make the top twenty, although you will note that the first two (#28 Christensen and #9 Ward/Fox) should have done so! I have no real explanation for their omission from the final table, except that they both disappeared from the Championship around mid-season, but then again Louis Meyer's #15 did the same! Also, you will need to understand that the Championship was for owner's
entries, rather than real cars, hence the (n) and (o) suffices to the #6 Sparks and #1 White entries - both started the season with an "old" car (o), and finished with a "new" one (n).
A few more idiosyncrasies: #30 Martinson is actually the same car as #9 Ward/Fox, but with a new owner mid-season, so that points were allocated seperately. Yet, #9 Haskell was the former #48 Blauvelt, but kept the points scored by the first owner, and the same goes for #2 Harrison/#23 Bielch, #18 Moore/Edwards and, intriguingly, #9 Fox which was #9 Ward in the first race(s) of the season! Somewhat less controversally, #28 Duray also ran as #64 Duray, initially - it's Leon Duray's Miller, actually, that departed in August for Italy and the Monza Grand Prix, and upon returning to California in October received a new coat of paint, and a new number!
Finally, it should perhaps be pointed out that the Owners Championship was the real highlight of the season's final race, as the Drivers Championship had already been clinched a couple of weeks earlier by Ernie Triplett, despite the fact that 100 points were at stake for the winner of this race, the most ever for a Pacific Coast Championship round! But there were still three cars in the running for the Owners title, and three other cars were even more closely bunched fighting for 5th place. Leading the chase was the #6 Sparks, the "defending Champion", but even second place in the race would not have been enough if #19 De Paolo won, and the latter (driven by Wilbur Shaw) led the race for the first 150 of 200 laps, except for a period after the inevitable pit stop! Then, the whole thing ended in tears as Al Gordon spun the #23 Bielch in Turn 1, trapping Shaw who had no alternative but to crash into it, nearly taking Triplett in #1 White out with him - and that wasn't even the end of it!
Now Triplett led, and was in a position to clinch the title for his owner, too, provided Bill Cummings in the Sparks couldn't finish the long grind in the top four, but instead "Wild Bill" was "putting on the coals", and trying to wrest the lead from Ernie, until a puncture put him into the guard rail, eight laps from the finish!
Cummings managed to steer his racer to the pits, had the tyre changed and stormed off again, narrowly catching Carl Ryder before the end to finish third - phew! The fight for 5th place in the championship was equally close and dramatic, with Chet Gardner laying down the gauntlet by qualifying his own #2 for pole position, then losing out within seconds of the start by crashing and flipping in the first turn!
Incidentally, the overturned racer was left in its position for the rest of the race, and provided an interesting background for the photographers when snapping pics of the Shaw/Gordon incident, over an hour later! Now the decision lay between #44 Jacobs, driven by Ryder, and #9 Haskell (Stubby Stubblefield), and whoever finished ahead would take the spot, but with both running in close company for nearly the full distance the issue wasn't decided until the very last lap - 11,000 spectators simply ate it up!
Edited by fines, 03 May 2009 - 22:08.
...;)
Sonny's response is below...
IT'S ALL GONE!!! CHAOS REIGNS AGAIN!!! AARRRGHH!!!!!
I believe that studying the AAA microfilm reels will finally yield a lot of that data, but especially for the very early races the outlook is rather bleak. Oh well...
