Look! It's Gizgo!
Jun. 1st, 2017 06:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rain_gryphonStill obsessing cheerfully over the Five Hundred. I'm quite enjoying myself here :)
Takuma Sato is the first Japanese driver to win at the Speedway. To find the first Japanese member of a winning crew, we have to go back considerably further. To the best of my knowledge, it was the redoubtable Takeo Hirashima, who went by the nickname "Chickie" (not a clue why).
He started as a mechanic sometime in the 1930s. In 1935, he became a riding mechanic* on Paul Weirick's team, riding with pole-sitter Rex Mays.
He rode with Mays again in 1936, when Mays was on the pole once again, albeit with an engine built by Art Sparks, rather than his previous engine builder Harry Miller. For '37, Hirashima followed Sparks to Joel Thorne's team, where he rode with Jimmy Snyder, who set the one lap record in qualifying (although he left it until too late to win the pole).In 1938, American racing returned to a more normal formula with single-seat racing cars, which ended the riding mechanic's position.
In 1946, he was once again with Joel Thorne, whose driver George Robson won the race. The engine was the Sparks "Little Six" (probably one of the very few racing engines in history to actually have an individual name), the same one that had powered Snyder's 1937 run.
His win as crew chief with the Ken Paul team in 1960 gave rise to a long-running controversy. Ken Paul basically allowed his driver, Jim Rathmann, to choose whoever he wanted for his crew. He got Hirashima to be his crew chief, but also signed up Smokey Yunick (he of the curious hat). Yunick had apparently understood that he and Hirashima were co-chiefs, and worked on that basis. Throughout that month of May, Hirashima did the engine and power train (which is what he liked best anyway), and Yunick supervised the crew and ran the garage and pit. Yunick most assuredly ran the team on race day. It wasn't until the Victory Banquet, the night after the race, that Yunick discovered that he was listed on the entry as a mechanic, and not as a chief. Considering that he spent the next 40 years bitching loudly about this to anyone who would listen**, I have to assume that he sincerely believed himself to have been promised a co-chief's position. Interestingly, he never blamed Chickie Hirashima or Ken Paul for this, but only Jim Rathmann.
That same year of 1960, Hirashima was also the engine builder for Rodger Ward, who came in second. Again in 1962, he was the engine builder for Rodger Ward and Len Sutton, who finished first and second. He was also Sutton's crew chief that year, so racked up two wins and two seconds as engine builder, and a first and a second as crew chief. He finally retired in 1964.
* Depression racers lasted from 1930 to 1937. In an attempt to make racing more affordable (as AAA was having trouble getting enough entries to make a full field, especially at lesser tracks), they mandated large, normally-aspirated engines (essentially passenger engine rebuilds), and a two-man cockpit, with driver and riding mechanic. The reasoning behind this was that, as racing cars of the day were built on a frame rail chassis, exactly as passenger cars are still to this day, making the cars wider would allow builders to use passenger car frames, along with the original steering gear, half-axles and suspensions. It didn't work exactly as intended, but did produce plentiful and in many cases very cool-looking cars. From '30 through '37, the Five Hundred was more or less a hotrod race.
** And he was salty. My favourite Smokey Yunick quote was to the effect that Bill France (head of NASCAR) would have to repeat fifth grade five times before he'd even be eligible for an idiot's license. Of Jim Rathmann, he said "If he dies before I do, they better bury him in a water-proof suit and goggles."
Takuma Sato is the first Japanese driver to win at the Speedway. To find the first Japanese member of a winning crew, we have to go back considerably further. To the best of my knowledge, it was the redoubtable Takeo Hirashima, who went by the nickname "Chickie" (not a clue why).
He started as a mechanic sometime in the 1930s. In 1935, he became a riding mechanic* on Paul Weirick's team, riding with pole-sitter Rex Mays.
He rode with Mays again in 1936, when Mays was on the pole once again, albeit with an engine built by Art Sparks, rather than his previous engine builder Harry Miller. For '37, Hirashima followed Sparks to Joel Thorne's team, where he rode with Jimmy Snyder, who set the one lap record in qualifying (although he left it until too late to win the pole).In 1938, American racing returned to a more normal formula with single-seat racing cars, which ended the riding mechanic's position.
In 1946, he was once again with Joel Thorne, whose driver George Robson won the race. The engine was the Sparks "Little Six" (probably one of the very few racing engines in history to actually have an individual name), the same one that had powered Snyder's 1937 run.
His win as crew chief with the Ken Paul team in 1960 gave rise to a long-running controversy. Ken Paul basically allowed his driver, Jim Rathmann, to choose whoever he wanted for his crew. He got Hirashima to be his crew chief, but also signed up Smokey Yunick (he of the curious hat). Yunick had apparently understood that he and Hirashima were co-chiefs, and worked on that basis. Throughout that month of May, Hirashima did the engine and power train (which is what he liked best anyway), and Yunick supervised the crew and ran the garage and pit. Yunick most assuredly ran the team on race day. It wasn't until the Victory Banquet, the night after the race, that Yunick discovered that he was listed on the entry as a mechanic, and not as a chief. Considering that he spent the next 40 years bitching loudly about this to anyone who would listen**, I have to assume that he sincerely believed himself to have been promised a co-chief's position. Interestingly, he never blamed Chickie Hirashima or Ken Paul for this, but only Jim Rathmann.
That same year of 1960, Hirashima was also the engine builder for Rodger Ward, who came in second. Again in 1962, he was the engine builder for Rodger Ward and Len Sutton, who finished first and second. He was also Sutton's crew chief that year, so racked up two wins and two seconds as engine builder, and a first and a second as crew chief. He finally retired in 1964.
* Depression racers lasted from 1930 to 1937. In an attempt to make racing more affordable (as AAA was having trouble getting enough entries to make a full field, especially at lesser tracks), they mandated large, normally-aspirated engines (essentially passenger engine rebuilds), and a two-man cockpit, with driver and riding mechanic. The reasoning behind this was that, as racing cars of the day were built on a frame rail chassis, exactly as passenger cars are still to this day, making the cars wider would allow builders to use passenger car frames, along with the original steering gear, half-axles and suspensions. It didn't work exactly as intended, but did produce plentiful and in many cases very cool-looking cars. From '30 through '37, the Five Hundred was more or less a hotrod race.
** And he was salty. My favourite Smokey Yunick quote was to the effect that Bill France (head of NASCAR) would have to repeat fifth grade five times before he'd even be eligible for an idiot's license. Of Jim Rathmann, he said "If he dies before I do, they better bury him in a water-proof suit and goggles."
