Articles

The Palmer (Alaska) GP

A hot time in our coldest state
By Janie Swanson, Photos (not pictured) by Stan and Janie Swanson

Copyright: Road & Track Magazine, October 1963

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They aren’t exactly broke, but neither are any of the 1110 residents of Palmer, Alaska, getting fat and rich. Everyone had agreed for some time that the little dairy-farming community needed a shot of economic adrenaline, and it finally may get it from a source never dreamed of by the homesteaders who first settled the valley in 1935.

It was actually two separate things which stirred up the sleepy town. Wasilla, a neighboring community which has sewed up most f the resort business in that part of the state, started making noises about building a drag strip. And then while Palmer businessmen were worrying about Wasilla picking off yet another source of revenue, an Anchorage fireman came to town.

William “Woody” Woodward, a member of the Alaska Sports Car Club in Anchorage, proposed a race on the streets of Palmer.

Woodward’s timing couldn’t have been better. Palmer’s Colony Days celebration, commemorating the settlement of the Matanuska Valley, was less than a month away. Wasilla had scheduled it’s own Pioneer Days festival for May 25th and 26th – the same weekend. And Wasilla was offering drag and boat races to attract crowds (and their money) from among the 44,000-plus souls in Anchorage.

Woody talked first to Palmer’s young, energetic Chief of Police, Louis Bencardino. Ben later said he thought he’d “scare Woody off” when he gave him a map of Palmer and said, “When you’ve figured out how to do it, mark the map and bring it back.” Within a few days though, Woody was back in the chief’s office – map marked, plans laid, and ready to face the city council.

Under Ben and Woody’s combined urging, the Palmer city council agreed to blacktop about 1000 feet of unpaved city streets, to complete a one-mile circuit through town.

Woody and Ben also stirred up a lot of dust between Palmer and Anchorage. The Palmer Chamber of Commerce agreed to co-sponsor the event with the Alaska Sports Car Club. Woodward ballyhooed the event in Anchorage and the sports car club invited every other club in the state – even from the Yukon Territory – to enter, and Palmer settled down to a crash program of road paving.

Paving a street in Alaska is never a breeze, but springtime is break-up time. Old-timers say when you stand hip-deep in mud with dust blowing all around you, you know “break-up” has arrived. Paving without money increases the challenge, and they had only three weeks. They organized volunteer labor, they used credit to get materials, and the city of Palmer furnished gas and oil. Every dump truck and bulldozer in the area was fair game for Ben, who was out in uniform and in a truck by 6 P.M. every evening, working as long as the northern sky stayed bright.

In Anchorage and Fairbanks, sports car owners were racing against time, and all but subsidizing airlines to get parts, coveralls and helmets shipped in. Phone bills grew enormous as race day grew near and gaskets and carburetors had to be tracked down. Lights burned longer each night while mechanics labored to prepare their drivers’ cars.

Rain slowed road construction for several days. Money ran out – again and again. Palmer businessmen got together $500 to build an overpass that would allow spectators to cross the road into the infield. They dug up enough money to bring in a radio station for a remote broadcast.

The sports car club arranged for liability insurance, while Chief Bencardino had a recurrent nightmare centering around an injured spectator. Businessman Barney Fish talked officials at Elmendorf Air Force base into sending a band.

The last week, Palmer teenagers drove truckloads of hay to town from surrounding farms. Reservations poured into the hotel. Race officials strung telephone wire down the main street from the pits to the starting line. Chief Bencardino asked all the residents to tie up their dogs. Engineers from radio station KFQD set up their equipment.

The day before the race, rumors began to fly. Word spread through Anchorage that the road was falling apart. It wasn’t. But, Bencardino, Woodward and the race committee had decided it was too soft to stand up for two days and 250 laps. Break-up won that round. The gravel road had contained frost and moisture, and soft spots had developed. Ben sent out an SOS to the state highway department, and they granted permission for Palmer to “borrow” a stretch of highway – the only highway connecting Anchorage with the Alcan highway and the Outside.

A chicane was hastily improvised of hay bales, to break up the long straightaway past an apartment house full of children. Traffic streamed into Palmer.

Spectators came looking for excitement. They got it sooner than anyone expected. During the first few minutes of Saturday morning’s practice runs, Shelby Dalton rolled his modified Renault Caravelle off the Glenn Highway into a ditch. During class heats later in the morning, the same corner gave Alaska Sports Car Club president Rudi Kreybig some trouble.

Despite the fact that some 3000 spectators viewed the race under sunny skies (somebody Up There apparently likes us), nobody would call the first day of the fist Palmer Grand Prix an unqualified success.

Few of the spectators paid the $1.50 general admission fee, or the $2.50 for grandstand seats, partly because of last minute changes in the circuit, partly because volunteer course marshals didn’t materialize, and party because the $500 overpass had been sideswiped during the first class heat. There were too many cross streets and alleys and roofs accessible and free. When the money was counted on Saturday night, it amounted to a scant, and saddening, $250.

Working most of Saturday night, Palmer teenagers assisted Chief Bencardino, Mayor Ralph Moore and businessman Barney Fish. They strung thousands of feet of snow fence to keep spectators in designated areas. They needed the money, of course, and there was Ben’s recurrent nightmare of the injured spectator. During the same long night, the overpass was rebuilt.

Sunday’s crowd was nearly double Saturday’s and a lot of them paid admission. The sun shown brighter and hotter. A consolation race started things off, with motorcycle races filling gaps in the program. One of them went through a snow fence, and a 6-year-old boy in the bike’s path got a broken ankle and a women nearby was bruised and shaken.

Even if Woodward was shaken up by the accident, it didn’t keep him from driving to top honors in the Small Main for classes D, E, G, H and small and medium sedans.

Everyone was watching Donn Howell with the Big Main got going. He’s a frequent winner and he had a brand new Sting Ray. No one paid particular attention to Bob Donald, in an identical Sting Ray, even though he had won Class A honors Saturday. Donald hadn’t raced since 1960. Howell led for 42 laps of the 50-lap main event. Then an overheated engine forced him to drop back, and Donald, the unheralded Anchorage contractor, took the lead. Frank Rochell pulled his 3-year-old XK-E into second place, and Howell had to settle for third.

Eyeing the table sagging with hardware for awards in ten classes, trophy races, consolation races and Big and Small Main Events, one newsman asked “So? Who Lost?” Woodward and Bencardino were singled out for praise, plaques and lifetime memberships in the Alaska Sports Car Club. And one contestant, Bud Williams, even received a hard luck trophy.

The big winners were the spectators, most of whom had never seen anything like the color and excitement of Alaska’s first Grand Prix. Awards won by the businessmen were mostly green – restaurants, hotels, bars and grocery stores swept money into the till at a rate which rivaled the Gold Rush Days.

While they were still sweeping hay off the streets, Woodward had to explain to enthusiastic Palmer businessmen that getting cars ready for another race is expensive and time-consuming for these amateurs. No, they couldn’t possibly come back on the Fourth of July. August then? Okay, August 24 and 25. Plenty of time to fill in the soft spots and improve the surface of the road that was paved for the First Palmer Grand Prix – almost.

Like the man said, “Who Lost?”

Permission granted to post the text of this article by Jennifer Degtjarewsky, Editorial Director for Road & Track Digital, www.roadandtrack.com.