8 replies to this topic

[Doug Nye]

Sad news from the US that Bill Pollack of early 1950s Allard fame - near unbeatable in early West Coast road racing - has passed away, having just edged past 92 years of age.

 

Condolences to his surviving family and many friends.  Evidently one of the good guys...

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 17 July 2017 - 20:14.

[Jerry Entin]

Bill Pollack and his friend Joe Playan at the Burbank breakfast meeting.

Bill is the one with the red hat on and that is Dave Scully behind them..

 

Bill Pollack tried to visit the Bubaahs Breakfast Club which was held the first Saturday of the month with the Historic Sportscar Group at the Coral Cafe restaurant in Burbank.

 

He will be missed

Edited by Jerry Entin, 12 September 2017 - 11:11.

[ReWind]

Obituary by Mike Vaughn:

Bill Pollack, one of the founding drivers during the early days of sports car racing on the West Coast, died July 16 at 92.

From 1950 to 1952, Pollack won numerous trophies driving an Allard J2 and several other sports cars, many of which you've heard of and a few others that have not stood the test of time. He drove on tracks that have almost all gone away, too, like Pebble Beach, Golden Gate Park, Goleta, Palm Springs, Reno, Carrell Speedway, Torrey Pines and Paramount Ranch. Two of the tracks he raced on are still there, Laguna Seca and Willow Springs.

The names he raced against were as storied as the tracks he raced on and the cars he raced against: Phil Hill in MG TCs and Elliott Forbes-Robinson in a TC, Ernie McAfee, Carroll Shelby, John Von Neumann, John Fitch, Ken Miles and Lance Reventlow driving in Ferraris and Porsches and other great marques. Being in Southern California, he knew a lot of part-time racers from the entertainment industry, too, including Steve McQueen, James Dean, Donald O'Connor and even Jag driver Mel Torme. What a group, what a time, what history.

Pollack was always acutely aware of what a rare and special time that was, so he and fellow racers Phil Hill and Art Evans founded a group called The Fabulous Fifties Sports Car Club to keep that history alive.

We saw Bill Pollack at a party in Pacific Grove during the big Pebble Weekend five years ago. He was as spry as ever then at age 87 and very happy to talk about those early days. So happy, in fact, that he had written it all down in a book, “Red Wheels and White Sidewalls: Confessions of an Allard Racer” (Brown Fox Books). His publisher handed me a copy -- it is a great way to learn the story.

Although Pollack was quick to point out that The Fabulous Fifties is not a car club and its members are not members.

“Once you start all that organizational stuff things just go phooey,” Pollack explained.

So it's a non-club with non-members. Simpler that way. It's more important today than it ever was.

“I was at the Petersen Museum and someone started asking, 'Who drove that one? Who owned that?' The museum had the cars but no memories. We're almost like the oral traditions of the Navajos, passing along our history from one generation to the next.”

Things were a lot different in the racing world back then.

“The key to it was that it was all amateur,” Pollack said. “There was an esprit de corps among drivers. Need a fuel pump? Here.”

Pollack described an early time trial at Goleta.

“There were Talbot Durants, Bugattis, you'd think it was Pebble Beach.”

Not like today.

“Now if you can tell one type of NASCAR car from another I'll give you $50.”

Pollack’s smile and enthusiasm endeared him to fellow racers as much as his abilities behind the wheel.

“Dad was very well-respected and very well-loved by the racing community,” said his daughter Mellette. “He was really knowledgeable. His friends included Lance Reventlow, Johnny von Neumann and James Dean. James Dean adored my father and wanted to be like him.”

As you may guess, racing then wasn’t like it is today.

“It was a crazy crowd because everybody was pretty eccentric,” said Mellette, who attended many races as a child. “Racing in those days was not professional, it was a choice and it was fun. People weren’t getting paid to race. Maybe a couple bucks here and there, but not like today.”

Mellette said The Fabulous Fifties is planning a memorial for the end of August.

© autoweek.com

 

 

Click on the link above to see some photographs.
 

[E1pix]

Wow, RIP. :-(

[Jerry Entin]

1958 Times GP at Riverside: Bill in the Dean Van Lines Lister/Chevy. It was the last car that Bill raced.

 

Bob Tronolone photo, Willem Oosthoek Collection

Edited by Jerry Entin, 11 September 2017 - 21:36.

[raceannouncer2003]

That link doesn't seem to work for me.  This link shows Dave Friedman photos from 1958 Laguna Seca.  Nice face shot of Bill, and a couple of shots of him going into the hay bales.  He finished 7th.  His last race that I know of  (besides Monterey Historics in the Allard):

 

https://www.flickr.c...157633511288816

 

Vince H.

[Jerry Entin]

Sebring 1957. Bill Pollack on the left, next to Lance Reventlow and the Reventlow Maserati 200SI, chassis 2405.

Bill Pollack was a mentor to Lance Reventlow and Bruce Kessler. 

 

Photo: Willem Oosthoek Collection

Edited by Jerry Entin, 11 September 2017 - 23:04.

[hlfuzzball]

To see Bill Pollock interview all the people from the early days of West Coast racing,  see:

 

https://www.youtube....lousfifties6773

 

A  really great extended interview is with Bruce Kessler, but all of them are great.......Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, Shelby... and Bill even talks about himself.....

 

This You Tube Channel is a real treasure of early U.S.racing information that has received very few views. 

 

Another way to spend a lost weekend......   

[Doug Nye]

Oh wonderful!  Watching Phil talking with Bill Pollack about his own experience of an Allard at Pike's Peak has just brought tears to my eyes.  

 

Typical Phil - seeming initially somewhat remote, uninvolved, then warming up, increasingly engaged, dredging his memory, exploring the reasons why, then bursting into laughter at his own expense as the incident of the dry ice at Pike's Peak is recalled...

 

Trying to combat overheating there as the Basil Panzer-owned Allard was about to climb above 12,000 feet they had listened to the experienced runners who recommended leaving a thermostat in the system to help pressurise it and so avert boiling.  But just to be sure they then packed dry ice onto a tray they had fitted just in front of the radiator ...

 

And that worked rather well.

 

It froze the coolant solid.

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 05 July 2023 - 08:47.