24 replies to this topic

[Porsche718]

Hi all.

 

Came across this obscure (to me!!!) 1935 event at Marstons Hills, Cape Cod.

 

Sometimes known as Cape Cod "Grand Prix", it appears its correct name was the Cape Cod Challenge Cup. The only results I have are -

 

1. Sidney Shurcliff (Ford)

2. ?

3. ?

4. Alan Bemis (Bentley 3 L) #43 chassis no. DE 1209

 

Any other info? Was it held on following years?

 

The info I have is that this was the first event at Marstons Hills. How long was it used. 

 

Thanks, Steve

[Vitesse2]

6th - Douglas Cousins (Brooklands Riley Nine)

 

http://autoweek.com/...-was-ford-riley

 

There is apparently a preview here:

 

https://www.newspape...page/431921656/

 

and a race report here, but I don't have a newspapers.com subscription. Although the Google preview suggests the winner was actually Langdon Quimby's Willys 77.

 

https://www.newspape...page/133877385/

 

Somewhere in this chaos I have a copy of John C Rueter's American Road Racing, which may have details. Should also be in Joel E Finn's American Road Racing — The 1930s (which I don't have!)

[Michael Ferner]

I have June 29, results:

1 Langdon Quimby, Quimby-Pickett/Willys
2 Barron Collier junior, Quimby-Pickett/Willys

No other info, and no other races that I have.

[Tim Murray]

(To add to what Richard and Michael have already posted) I believe the name of the venue was Marston’s Mills (not Hills). The event was one of the races organised by ARCA (Automobile Racing Club of America). Here’s a piece giving the general background on ARCA, which mentions Marston’s Mills:

http://blog.nyhistor...can-car-racing/

It gets a mention in a couple of earlier threads:

’Climb to the Clouds’ ... by the Colliers

Allan Brown's The History of America's Speedways, Past and Present, gives the following information:

Sleepy Hollow Ring - Tarrytown (Pocantico Hills)/ located in a farmer's field. 3/4 mile dirt road course (7/08/34)(7/14/34)(7/29/34)/ had 10 corners
the sports cars were refered to as foreign midgets
these races were the first ARCA races/ later to become SCCA
the races were organized by Miles Collier, son of Barron Collier.

Wayland Circuit - Wayland - 1.0 mile dirt road course (10/07/34 - 11/17/35)

Briarcliff Manor - 3.17 mile city street road course (11/11/34 - c.6/23/35)
these races were run by the American Auto Racing Club.

Marstons Mills - paved city street road course (6/29/35)

Cotton Carnival Road Race - Memphis - 8.0 mile road course (May, 1936)

More to follow.

and:

Willys race car

The car in the first post in this thread certainly appears to be one of two built in 1935 to run in ARCA road races.

Langdon Quimby, the 1934 ARCA Champion in a stripped down Willys 77, partnered with Arthur Pickett, the New York distributor for Willys-Overland to build a team of somewhat purpose-built cars for 1935. Quimby’s 1934 car (we’ll call it #1 as it was both the car that carried the #1 number and was also the first of the Willys cars built) was used as the basis for one of the racers while Pickett came through with another(#2.) #1 maintained a 100” wheelbase (I’m not sure if this was the stock wheelbase for a 77) but #2 was shortened to 92”. Barron Collier, Jr., who probably introduced Quimby to Pickett, coordinated the transformation of the cars into racers: the bare chassis were re-bodied into sort of upright, two-seater Indy junk formula roadster form at the General Sheet Metal Company in NY while significant engine modifications (in the form of new aluminum cylinder heads, and some hot rodding) were performed at Zumbach’s.

Collier drove the #1 car while Quimby chose #2 (ARCA number 11) for the season. I am not sure if any other modifications from stock form were made to either car.

Results for the Willys Team in 1935:

ARCA Grand Prix of the United States of America – Briarcliff Manor, NY – 6.23.1935

#2 L. Quimby: 1st Place
#1 B. Collier, Jr.: DNF (Fuel line)

ARCA Cape Grand Prix – Marstons Mills, MA – 6.29.1935

#2 L. Quimby: 1st Place
#1 B. Collier, Jr.: 2nd Place

ARCA Climb to the Clouds – Mt. Washington/Gorham, NH - 7.14.1935

#2 L. Quimby: 2nd Place

Early in the summer of 1936 the cars were again re-bodied by General Sheet Metal, this time into the single-seater form. Preparation of the cars was done by the Collier/Rand "Motor Sport" organization. The chassis maintained their ARCA numbers from 1935.

ARCA Climb to the Clouds – Mt. Washington/Gorham, NH - 7.26.1936

#1 L. Quimby: 1st Place Overall
#2 Bob Heller: 4th Place Overall


ARCA Round the Houses Race – Alexandria Bay, NY – 8.15.1936

This was a handicap race with the Willys both being placed at heavy disadvantage to the rest of the field.

#2 B. Heller: 2nd Place
#1 B. Collier, Jr.: DNF

After the 1936 season the #2 car was sold by Pickett to South Africa. The #1 car (now ARCA number 7) would go on to compete for one more season before it disappears from competition records.

ARCA Climb to the Clouds – Mt. Washington/Gorham, NH - 7.11.1937

#1 Miles Collier: 5th Place

ARCA Round the Houses Race – Alexandria Bay, NY – 8.7.1937

#1 B. Heller: DNF (Crashed; car ran in the race as number 3)

This marks the last mention I’ve found for these two cars in ARCA competition. Some of the regional notes and newsletters list cars for sale but I have yet to see any that mention the #1 car…Joel Finn notes that the Collier “Ardent Alligator” Riley Special ended up with the engine from the #1 car at one point.

Interestingly enough there were at least two other Willys 77s that ran in ARCA races, one run by Bob Love, the other by Eb Lunken.

(Info from various ARCA publications as well as Joel Finn’s American Road Racing-The 1930s.)



Ad from the back of the ARCA Journal, Vol. II, No.2, 1936



Tom Dewart leading Bob Heller at A-Bay.

I hope this adds some to the discussion. I will add more pictures as soon as I scan them.

Cris

[Porsche718]

Yes, Tim, I have Mills in my file. Slip of the key.

 

The event I am after is the May 12 race, which lines up with Vitesse's newpaper report. All the other results above are for a June race.

[Tim Murray]

Some info on the Alan Bemis Bentley here:

http://www.simeonemu...tre-speed-model

There are a couple of photos which they say show Bemis racing the Bentley at Marston’s Mills. If this is correct, the info above that Marston’s Mills was a paved city street road can’t be right.

[Vitesse2]

Yes, Tim, I have Mills in my file. Slip of the key.

 

The event I am after is the May 12 race, which lines up with Vitesse's newpaper report. All the other results above are for a June race.

I have to say I think it's very unlikely that ARCA would have used the same venue twice in one year.

 

Some info on the Alan Bemis Bentley here:

http://www.simeonemu...tre-speed-model

There are a couple of photos which they say show Bemis racing the Bentley at Marston’s Mills. If this is correct, the info above that Marston’s Mills was a paved city street road can’t be right.

I think ARCA members used the same number all year, so the 'Le Mans start' one might be Marston's Mills and the other one perhaps Mount Washington? Or maybe Sleepy Hollow Ring?

[Michael Ferner]

This should be visible for all of you:

https://www.newspape.../clip/22307385/

It has the complete results with retirements at the end of the article, and mentions the forthcoming June 29 race.

[Porsche718]

Thanks Michael, much appreciated.

[Porsche718]

OK. So J Marshall in his Enad dnf. Any of you US types know what an "Enad" is? I shudder to think

[Vitesse2]

I've managed to exhume my copy of Rueter's book. It appears the first Marston's Mills race was not well-recorded in ARCA's own records.

 

The circuit was created by one Crocker Snow and was just nine-tenths of a mile long. Contrary to the above suggestion it wasn't paved, but was a 'private unpaved roadway'. The circuit had been completed in late April and before the Cape Cod Challenge Cup race - contested for a silver pitcher - there had been 'some small practice events'. Rueter gives only the winner - Shurcliff, who had designed ARCA's Wayland circuit - and records that he completed the race 'with a suitcase full of stones wedged in the passenger seat, both as ballast and to keep him from sliding across the seat on left-hand corners.'

 

There's a photo of the Le Mans style start of the June race, which is very similar to the one Tim linked. According to Rueter, it was Bemis's first (and possibly only?) event with the Bentley. However he does mention that after 1935 Marston's Mills, Sleepy Hollow Ring and Wayland were never used again for 'formal racing'. I still think the other Bentley picture is Sleepy Hollow, though - Marston's Mills looks to have been flat.

[Vitesse2]

OK. So J Marshall in his Enad dnf. Any of you US types know what an "Enad" is? I shudder to think

Rueter's book has a picture of it! Two-seat LHD open sports car with what looks like a hand-built body and external handbrake. Possibly Austin 7 based - the picture shows it with wire front wheels and smaller (!!!) disc wheels on the back. But all he tells us about it is that it was built by one Ned Dane.

[Porsche718]

Thanks all

[Porsche718]

So this is the start of the June 29 1935 meeting....

 

 

We know this because the surface is paved and also because the Riley Brooklands, yet to pull away, only ran at the June meeting.

 

This Riley was an ex-Freddie Dixon car that became the "Ardent Alligator". 

 

Anyone know what the two white cars behind Bemis' Bentley are? Obviously the same team. 

 

I wondered if they were the two Quimby-Pickett-Willys specials? But the only photos of them show them to be much smaller and narrower in build. 

[Porsche718]

To answer my own question!!!  The Enad-Austin 1266cc

 

[Tim Murray]

This page features an article on ARCA, originally published in Special-Interest Autos Sep-Oct 1971. Here are the individual pages from the article in readable format:

https://assets.hemmi...7597-0-1200.jpg

https://assets.hemmi...7598-0-1200.jpg

https://assets.hemmi...7599-0-1200.jpg

https://assets.hemmi...7600-0-1200.jpg

The fascinating photos include some of the Enad, the Riley and the 1934 version of the Willys 77.

[Tim Murray]

Anyone know what the two white cars behind Bemis' Bentley are? Obviously the same team.

I wondered if they were the two Quimby-Pickett-Willys specials? But the only photos of them show them to be much smaller and narrower in build.

Here’s an earlier thread on George Rand:

George Rand (1909-1986) of ARCA & SCCA fame

Thanks to the good efforts of TNF’s ReWind it includes lengthy excerpts from an Automobile Quarterly article on Rand written by Al Bochroch which contains some useful info on the ARCA races, including this:

Meantime, the ARCA, whose paperwork was now in the hands of Tom Dewart’s secretary in the New York Sun, was becoming more active. George found himself using his stock to help fill out competition fields by lending cars to ARCA members. By this time, Barron Collier, Jr. had ceased being active in the ARCA, but George believes that he played an important, and usually overlooked, role during the club’s early years. “Getting the New York Willys distributor to build and campaign two white boattailed Type 77’s gave the club a great lift”.

The two cars in the photo fit that description ...

[Porsche718]

Yes. I'd already seen the George Rand thread.

 

Great find on the two Willys 77 cars.

 

The whole racing scene in this area, and in this early to mid '30s period all seemed to come about from the Collier family?

 

Would it be correct in saying they almost started the road racing branch of motor sport in the States? (As opposed to dirt track/oval racing).

 

I know there were some earlier "circuit" races such as Elgin and the like, but the Colliers really gave it a boost post-depression?

 

Thanks again for the help and info Tim, Vitesse and Michael. But, hey, keep it coming......fascinating!

[Vitesse2]

Yes, those are the two Willys - Barron Collier Jr in the one alongside the Bentley, Quimby in the one behind it.

 

ARCA grew out of the enthusiasm of the teenage Colliers and their friends, who started out in 1930 by racing what were not much more than 'motorized buckboards' on the Collier family estate, Overlook, as the Overlook Automobile Racing Club. A lower-tech and lower-speed version of CAPA. The Quimby brothers and Tom Dewart were also involved at this early stage and gradually it spread to more friends, friends of friends etc. The name was changed to ARCA in 1933, by which time the members were starting to acquire and build 'proper cars', and from then on it began to expand from that family and friends base. Although of course almost all the members were Ivy Leaguers. One might almost consider it a New England equivalent of the Brooklands Automobile Racing Club.

 

The revival of Elgin in 1933 was a separate process and is probably more down to the influence of the likes of Eddie Rickenbacker and 'Pop' Myers, whose long-term aim was to attract the Europeans over the pond to race on artificial circuits, of which only one - Roosevelt Raceway - was ever completed. Earlier in 1933 there had been an abortive road race project in Long Island and there was another planned that year in Los Angeles. That California race eventually happened in 1934 at Mines Field. There were plans to build a more permanent track at Mines Field, but it's a somewhat murky story which I suspect involves more in the way of property speculation than any firm commitment to build; the site is now under Los Angeles International Airport! Another circuit was planned in Dallas and I've seen the odd reference to the possibility of one in Chicago as well. Possibly even in Florida too, although that may be the foreign press misunderstanding the Daytona Beach race.

[Porsche718]

Yes, those are the two Willys - Barron Collier Jr in the one alongside the Bentley, Quimby in the one behind it.

 

ARCA grew out of the enthusiasm of the teenage Colliers and their friends, ....................., and from then on it began to expand from that family and friends base. Although of course almost all the members were Ivy Leaguers. One might almost consider it a New England equivalent of the Brooklands Automobile Racing Club.

 

 

Apparently it grew to a peak of 138 members! Many of whom were the basis of the SCCA immediately after the war.

 

I also read the two Willys were rebodied over the New year period with the narrow single-seat bodies that they wore from the beginning of 1936. 

[marckart]

The Coordinates for the Marston Mills track are: 41.687980, -70.399078.

 

Track can be seen in the1938 view on Historicaerials.com.

 

The track is overgrown with a street on part of the property. High Popple road.

[Vitesse2]

The Coordinates for the Marston Mills track are: 41.687980, -70.399078.

 

Track can be seen in the1938 view on Historicaerials.com.

 

The track is overgrown with a street on part of the property. High Popple road.

Looking at the aerial, I guess the start/finish line was about half-way along the straight on the western side - there's a photo in the Rueter book which seems to suggest the circuit was run anti-clockwise. Looks like they may have had a short oval layout as well. Maybe that explains the 'small practice events' to which Rueter refers.

[Porsche718]

The Coordinates for the Marston Mills track are: 41.687980, -70.399078.

 

Track can be seen in the1938 view on Historicaerials.com.

 

The track is overgrown with a street on part of the property. High Popple road.

 

Any chance of a snip or screen shot from 1938?

Edited by Porsche718, 30 July 2018 - 21:33.

[Vitesse2]

Any chance of a snip or screen shot from 1938?

If you go to Historic Aerials and click on Viewer at the top you can then input those co-ordinates. Then just pick the year(s) you want from the timeline.

[Cris]

A few followup notes to some of the questions/comments...

• For the May 12, 1935 race, all official (ARCA and otherwise) documents note the name of the event being the "Cape Challenge Cup". The June race was called the "Cape Grand Prix".
• Enad = Dane (the name of the original builder) backwards. It was not Austin-based, but instead was powered by a Henderson motorcycle engine.
• Yes, competition numbers were used consistently throughout any given season (in 1935, they were assigned to the car, not the driver).
• The Marston Mills track was run counter clockwise.
• The note in the Allan Brown book about Marston Mills being a paved road course is misleading/incorrect; it was carved out of a field, untreated, and extremely sandy (and dusty, once cars started driving on it) for the May race and only slightly improved for the June race. It would certainly not be considered "paved" by any modern definition of the term.
• As far as the ARCA having 138 members, it's important to understand that a majority of that number were non-competition members; you had to apply for a competition license.

As far as the ARCA's foundational role in American road racing, looked at from a certain angle, the fact that a lot of ARCA members ended up as early SCCA members could almost be seen as coincidental...that's a story for another day, though.

 

Cris