Historic Races Honor Miller’s Designs
Harry Miller might have been the most innovative race car designer in American motorsports history. From the 1917 Golden Submarine driven by Barney Oldfield to the Miller 91 front-drive cars that dominated in the 1930s, Miller’s cars and ideas could be found out in front at the Indianapolis 500 and wherever cars went fast.
His influence lasted much longer. The legendary Offenhauser engine, which monopolized Indy car racing into the 1970s, came directly from Miller’s designs.
Miller’s cars, including the Golden Submarine and a pair of the famous Miller 91 cars, will be the main attractions this weekend at the 20th annual Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca Raceway on the Monterey peninsula.
“Harry Miller was one of the greatest race car designers America has ever seen,” said Steve Earle, organizer of the historic racing program, who selected the Miller marque for this year’s event. “His influence in engine design has been evident in Indy racing for the past 60 years.”
For most of his career, Miller built cars in his own garage at 17th and Los Angeles streets.
Oldfield drove the Golden Submarine to a series of world dirt-track records from one mile to 50 miles in St. Louis in 1917. Leon Duray ran a world-class record 139.6 m.p.h. in a Miller 91 front-drive at Montlhery, France, in 1929, far exceeding the best European racing cars of the era. The car, a Packard Cable Special, was also driven in the 1929 Indy 500 by Ralph Hepburn.
The Duray car, as it became known, is on loan from the Smithsonian National Museum of American History and is believed to be the first car the Smithsonian ever allowed outside to run on a track. Many automotive historians consider the 1929 Miller 91 as the pinnacle of American racing engineering before World War II.
Also on display from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum will be a similar model which Duray qualified in the front row for the 1929 race. The two Packard Cable Specials will make a few parade laps on Saturday. Both have supercharged, straight-eight engines displacing 91.5 cubic inches and the innovative front-wheel drive of Miller’s design. They are thought to be the only authentic Miller 91s in existence.
“Our event is about cars, not about race car drivers,” Earle said, noting that his event places a premium on careful handling of the equipment.
“We have a simple rule,” Earle said. “If you have an incident (on the track) sufficient to cause damage, you are excluded for a year. The price is too heavy for a mistake with these cars. We don’t want any banging of fenders. There are other antique car races where drivers act like they’re in a SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) race and take racing chances. We don’t allow that here, which is why we get such quality equipment.
“We aren’t concerned as much with speed as we are with the thrill of seeing, smelling and hearing these fine old antiques. We like to say we bring the pages of magazines and books to life.”
Other Miller cars will include a pencil-thin aerodynamic model that two-time Indy 500 winner Tommy Milton drove in 1924 to a speed record of 151.3 m.p.h. at Muroc Dry Lake--now the site of Edwards Air Force Base--and the 1928 and 1936 models that Louie Meyer drove to victories in the Indy 500.
Phil Hill, who became America’s first Formula One champion in 1961, will drive a 1922 Sunbeam for Tom Wheatcroft of England in the race for pre-1930 equipment.
When the cars take their parade laps, out in front will be the pace car from the 1930 Indy 500, a front-wheel drive L29 Cord 8. It is also on loan from the Indy museum.
The two-day race car festival will include 13 other classes of cars, scheduled according to group and time.
“We put the whole thing together like a 14-act play,” Earle said. “We have seven races Saturday and seven Sunday with the more modern Can-Am cars winding up the program in the last race.”
The Can-Am entries will include Porsche’s famous 917-30, which won six of eight races in 1973 when the late Mark Donohue won the championship for Roger Penske’s team. The 1,100-horsepower car, which Donohue drove to its last victory at Riverside Raceway, was flown from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, to run at Laguna Seca.
Motor Racing Notes
VENTURA--Three days of racing this weekend will be featured at the Ventura County Fair, with entrance to Ventura Raceway free with an admission to the fairgrounds. Stock cars will race Friday night, followed by a destruction derby. United States Auto Club midgets, TQ midgets and dwarf cars will fill a busy Saturday night, followed by a motocross and off-road program Sunday evening. It will be the first USAC western regional race in four weeks.
STOCK CARS--When Ken Sapper, a three-time modified champion at Saugus Speedway, won both ends of last week’s Winston Twin 50s for sportsmen cars, they were his first main event victories since 1987 and his first in sportsman cars since 1982. Saturday night racing this week at Saugus will feature NASCAR sportsman, Grand American modifieds and street stocks. . . . Cajon Speedway will have a train race following a program of sportsman, Grand Americans and pony stocks on Saturday night.
Factory stocks will run a 150-lap enduro Saturday night at Bakersfield Speedway. . . . A combined program with the third round of the California late model series and the Kragen championship series is scheduled Saturday night at Santa Maria Speedway
SPEEDWAY BIKES--Orange County Raceway in Costa Mesa and Speedway USA in Victorville, on Friday and Saturday nights, respectively, are back in full weekly action after time off for county fairs. . . . Angela Hale, the only first-division female rider, will be out of competition the rest of the year because of injuries she suffered in a sidecar accident at Lake Perris Speedway. Hale plans to return next season.
MISCELLANY--California Racing Assn. sprint cars will resume action Saturday night at Manzanita Speedway in Phoenix. . . . The Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group will hold another sportsman series event for off-road racers Sunday at Glen Helen Park in San Bernardino. The series is designed to train future stadium series drivers.
Top vintage drag racers will be at Los Angeles County Raceway on Saturday for another round in the Chevrolet/Champion Nostalgia Racing Series.
KARTS--Rocky Moran Jr. of Coto de Caza, son of Indy car driver Rocky Moran, was a winner at the Grand National International Kart Federation races in Batavia, N.Y. Rocky Jr., 13, won the pole in the 12-16 division and won all three of his heats.
