Vintage Racing?

[Bored5000]

I won the lot of Marhoefer Meats Indy cards at Sterling Auctions earlier this morning. The lot is actually a mix of 1962 and '63 cards (the distinguishing feature is the shape and location of the driver portrait on each card). The cards all show stains/discolorations from being included in packs of hot dogs. All the cards present poor to fair, but the big pick-up in the lot is a 1962 A.J. Foyt Marhoefer card. Foyt's card is one of the nicer cards in the lot.

I have wanted a Foyt Marhoefer card for a while now. There has been a beat up, hot dog stained Foyt Marhoefer card on eBay for a while now at the museum price of $795. Even with the hot dog stains, I am happy to pick up a Foyt Marhoefer card for a little over $100; they just don't come available very often.

There are nicer, unstained Marhoefer cards in the hobby that were presumably given out as hand outs and not placed in product packages. But like I said, any Foyt Marhoefer card has been on my want list for a while now. Marhoefer cards in general rarely appear at auction, and the same cards sit on eBay forever at sky-high BINs. The Foyt card on eBay is priced about 10 times what it would sell for at auction in that condition.

http://www.sterlingsportsauctions.co...-LOT39749.aspx

[brian1961]

Congratulations, Eddie, on the Marhoefer Meat cards pick-up. Even I have heard of these tough-to-get racing cards. There's a guy in Columbia City, Indiana that deals in a lot of the post-war regional / food cards. Off-hand, I cannot recall his name, but he knows very well of how much racing collectors cherish these cards---by the impressive prices I seem to remember him charging!

No different than the baseball card collectors obsessed with the "free prizes" in, or on, hot dog packages.

Have a great weekend, my friend. Again, congrats on the pick-up, especially the A. J. Foyt. One of my favorite models I own is the IXO 1/43 diecast of the 1967 Ford Mark IV that AJ shared with Dan Gurney to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Great race, great-looking car, great driver pairing--and the only time they were paired together.

---Brian Powell

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by brian1961

Congratulations, Eddie, on the Marhoefer Meat cards pick-up. Even I have heard of these tough-to-get racing cards. There's a guy in Columbia City, Indiana that deals in a lot of the post-war regional / food cards. Off-hand, I cannot recall his name, but he knows very well of how much racing collectors cherish these cards---by the impressive prices I seem to remember him charging!

No different than the baseball card collectors obsessed with the "free prizes" in, or on, hot dog packages.

Have a great weekend, my friend. Again, congrats on the pick-up, especially the A. J. Foyt. One of my favorite models I own is the IXO 1/43 diecast of the 1967 Ford Mark IV that AJ shared with Dan Gurney to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Great race, great-looking car, great driver pairing--and the only time they were paired together.

---Brian Powell

Thanks, Brian. I have about 25-30 cards on my want list and within my budget. The two racing cards currently at the top of my want list are a 1986 SportsStar Photo-Graphic Dale Earnhardt and a T36 Barney Oldfield. You wouldn't think a card from 1986 would be that tough, but the Earnhardt card from that set is short-printed; they just don't come available very often. Aside from a cheesy card in the 1983 Uno set and some early postcards, the Sports-Star Photo-Graphics card is the Earnhardt card to have, IMO.

[steve B]

Since we're close to the topic, it's interesting how racing tragedies change the sport and occasionally history in general.

While it's not modern racing, this one had a major effect beyond the sport.
A sport called motorpacing was very popular before WWI especially in Europe. It's basically a combination of bicycle and motorcycle racing. The bicycle rider follows the motorcycle around the track at high speed. Typically around 40, but sometimes a lot higher. The riders were very well paid.

On June 18, 1909 at Berlin, one of the motorbikes - then huge specialized things often with a driver and a heavy guy on the back to make a bigger windscreen- along with he bike rider went into the crowd and caught fire.



9 killed and by some accounts 52 injured.
Prussian authorities banned motorpacing, and overall the sport lost much of its popularity.
It had always been dangerous, but was becoming less manageable. (The berlin track was also massively substandard for that sort of racing even by the loose standards of the time. )

As the sport became less popular, and fewer races were held, the riders began moving on to other things to make money. Some went into racing motorcycles, others got in an entirely new field that promised similar money with occasionally less risk. Early aviation! Many motorpace riders became pilots doing the rounds of the air shows. Best of all, the money was appearance money and a plane that actually flew wasn't necessarily a requirement. Many did fly, and at the time, that was also risky. Those early aviators provided a core of experienced pilots when WWI put and end to the air show circuit.

The sport survived, had a decent revival in the 30's as part of 6 day races, and is still done today.

Here's a motorpace bike from probably the early 30's.


Steve B

[Bored5000]

So many of the safety innovations that are now taken for granted in racing came about due to a specific tragedy:

* Two-time defending NASCAR champion Joe Weatherly was killed in 1964 when his head struck a barrier at Riverside (Calif.) Raceway. Weatherly was not wearing a shoulder harness nor using a window net. Following Richard Petty's spectacular flip at Darlington (S.C.), in which his head actually hit the pavement during the crash, window nets became mandatory to prevent a driver's head from moving outside the cockpit.

* The 1964 Indy inferno that killed both Eddie Sachs and Dave MacDonald resulted in Indy requiring at least two pit stops the following year. What that rule did was eliminate the use of gasoline, since there was no longer any point in using the more fuel efficient (and highly flammable) gasoline.

* Fireball Roberts' fiery fatal crash at Charlotte (N.C.) six days prior to the Sachs/MacDonald double fatality resulted in the requirement of a fuel-cell inner-liner to prevent catastrophe in the event of a ruptured fuel cell. Roberts' death also led to NASCAR requiring drivers to wear flame-retardant coveralls when racing.

The deaths of Sachs, MacDonald and Roberts also led to more effort being put into developing better flame-retardant substances/uniforms. Dupont was at the forefront of developing fire-retardant Nomex that is still used in modern racing uniforms.

* Billy Wade's 1965 death while tire testing at Daytona (Fla.) led to the modern racing safety harness. Wade was killed when the lap belt he was using compressed his intestines and caused them to rupture. The solution was a third belt that attached to the floor of the car and prevented the lap belt from riding up and compressing a driver's intestines in the event of a crash.

Wade's death also led to the development of a better tire inner-liner in the event of a tire blowout.

* Jim Hickman's fatal stuck throttle at the Milwaukee (Wis.) Mile in 1982 led CART to instantly require a "kill switch" on the steering wheel that would shut off power when pressed. NASCAR took nearly 20 years (and the deaths of Adam Petty and Kenny Irwin due to stuck throttles) to mandate the same requirement.

* Most recently, the death of Dale Earnhardt and numerous other drivers led to racing organizations large and small to require the HANS Device (or a similar head and neck restraint system) to greatly reduce the chance of a basilar skull fracture.

[brian1961]

Superb post, Eddie, as always. Honestly, I was not aware of several of the cause of death accidents and the resultant solutions that bettered the safety of all drivers (Billy Wade and Jim Hickman incidents).

I have often pointed out to people that racing has developed numerous mandatory safety innovations and efficiency improvements. One of my favorites was used on the winning car of the inaugural 1911 Indianapolis 500. That car, the Marmon Wasp, was fitted with-----the first rear view mirror.

---Brian Powell

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by brian1961

Superb post, Eddie, as always. Honestly, I was not aware of several of the cause of death accidents and the resultant solutions that bettered the safety of all drivers (Billy Wade and Jim Hickman incidents).

I have often pointed out to people that racing has developed numerous mandatory safety innovations and efficiency improvements. One of my favorites was used on the inaugural 1911 Indianapolis 500 winning car, The Marmon Wasp-----the first rear view mirror.

---Brian Powell

Thanks, Brian. The Jim Hickman story came from Dr. Steve Olvey's book. Olvey mentioned repeatedly in his book that NASCAR was a donkey series safety-wise right up until Earnhardt's death in 2001. In the 1970s, the doctors staffing some NASCAR tracks were so sketchy that A.J. Foyt paid out of his own pocket to have Dr. Olvey in his pit area whenever Foyt ran a NASCAR race and Dr. Olvey was available. Basically, the main requirement for being a doctor staffing a NASCAR race in the 1970s was that the doctor would work for free.

At some 1970s Cup races, the most qualified doctor servicing the race would sometimes be an optometrist or other doctor woefully unqualified to deal with any type of traumatic injury should the need arise. Foyt was terrified of being critically injured at a NASCAR race and having an eye doctor decide whether or not an arm or a leg needed to be amputated.

Olvey also related a story about Foyt's pathological fear of the color green (like many old school racers). Olvey talked about accompanying Foyt to a 1970s Cup race and Olvey stopping at a local convenience store the morning of the race to purchase a cooler and some sodas for the day's event. Naturally, the cooler was green. Shortly after arriving at the track, Olvey heard Foyt ranting and raving and swearing before taking a tire iron to the unattended cooler that had suddenly appeared in his pit area. When asked by Foyt if he knew whose green cooler that was, Olvey simply shrugged and said he did not have any idea.

Here is are several different articles in this link that talk about Billy Wade's crash and how it led to modern racing seatbelts.

http://www.legendsofnascar.com/Billy_Wade.htm

[pawpawdiv9]

Originally Posted by Bored5000

Thanks, Brian. I have about 25-30 cards on my want list and within my budget. The two racing cards currently at the top of my want list are a 1986 SportsStar Photo-Graphic Dale Earnhardt and a T36 Barney Oldfield. You wouldn't think a card from 1986 would be that tough, but the Earnhardt card from that set is short-printed; they just don't come available very often. Aside from a cheesy card in the 1983 Uno set and some early postcards, the Sports-Star Photo-Graphics card is the Earnhardt card to have, IMO.

I use to be a Huge Earnhardt Sr. fan. Collected all sorts of things.
I still watch the races on the tube.
I had to look up the 1986 card you were referring to.
Speaking of the RARE 1986 card, found a almost complete set on Ebay-- with the Earnhardt:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1985-86-NasC...-/263215155186

[Bored5000]

Originally Posted by pawpawdiv9

I use to be a Huge Earnhardt Sr. fan. Collected all sorts of things.
I still watch the races on the tube.
I had to look up the 1986 card you were referring to.
Speaking of the RARE 1986 card, found a almost complete set on Ebay-- with the Earnhardt:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1985-86-NasC...-/263215155186

I have that listing on my watch list; it is priced high. I lost out at auction for an Earnhardt card from that set at around $350 about a year ago. The other cards in the set do not sell for a whole lot. The really weird thing is that the seller of the lot you are talking about originally priced the lot at $595 and found no bidders -- so the seller raised the price to $675 and did not find any bidders. After finding no bidders at $595 and $675, the seller then again raised the starting price to $725. Gee, I wonder what will happen now that the price has again been raised.

The seller of that lot is the same one that ended the lot early for the 1972 STP cards and left money on the table by not allowing the auction to play out to conclusion.