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What: Distant Thunder, When Midgets Were Mighty

Author: Dick Wallen

Publisher: Racing Classics, P.O. Box 10561, Glendale, Ariz. 85318

Price: $125, plus $10 shipping

If books were classified by weight, Dick Wallen’s thorough history of the midget car racing craze from 1914 to 1950 would be on everyone’s best-seller list. It is nearly 400 pages crammed with more than 1,000 photographs, original color paintings and detailed information about the cars that captivated Californians from 1945 through 1950.

Races were held seven nights a week, attracting as many as 65,000 at the Coliseum and Rose Bowl, plus jam-packed Gilmore Stadium. The track, date, winner, car owner, car number and winner’s payoff for every West Coast race during that period is chronicled.

“In the end, midget racing wore itself out as anything that goes seven nights a week gets tiresome,” said Gordon Betz, one of racing’s leading officials.

The midgets were a training ground for the Indianapolis 500. Many of the drivers, such as Bill Vukovich, Troy Ruttman, Rodger Ward, Sam Hanks, Jimmy Bryan and Parnelli Jones later went on to win at Indy. But not forgotten were popular favorites such as Herk Hurtubise, Manny Ayulo, Walt Faulkner, Duke Nalon and the irrepressible Dominic Distarce.

There is a chapter by Danny Oakes in which he covers his career from 1933-1975, and there are also segments on the car builders and equipment suppliers who made Southern California the center of racing.

Featured too is Rajo Jack, who won so many “all-black drivers” races at White Sox Speedway in 1936 that he was accepted into the big-time races--where he continued to win.