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The
year 1950 signified the beginning of a glorious decade of open
wheel racing. The sport’s postwar years had drawn to a close,
punctuated by the death of fan-favorite Rex Mays at Del
Mar during the last race of the ‘49 season, and of his rival
Ted Horn at DuQuoin the year before. Horn had won the AAA
championship three years in a row, the only driver ever to do
so. During the late 40’s, most drivers had been having to
deal with the pieced-together sorry patchwork of older machinery
and technology left over from before the raceless and rationed
War years. But with the new decade of the 50’s emerged the
American race car. The clean lines of the upright circle track
dirt car had finally reached their pinnacle, born of a robust
big car and midget resurgence across the land, and perfected by
the Glendale, California shop of Frank Kurtis.
Such
a car was the Don Lee Special, Kurtis serial # 319, a KK2000 built
in 1948 for eccentric Los Angeles businessman Tommy Lee.
Tommy’s father, Don Lee, had owned Don Lee Cadillac, an exclusive
Cadillac dealership in Los Angeles, along with various radio stations
and a television station (which he had the foresight to pioneer
as early as 1931!). A thriving offshoot of the agency was the
Don Lee Coach and Body Works, which specialized in building custom
automobiles for Hollywood movie stars. Kurtis had in fact begun
his illustrious career in 1922 when he was 14 as an apprentice
at the Coach and Body Works, and would continue to work off and
on for Lee for the next 14 years.
After
Don Lee’s passing in 1934, Tommy inherited the businesses,
but left the running of them primarily to chief executive officer
Willet Brown. It allowed his time free to pursue his deeper interests
— namely race cars and women. He and Brown shared their passion
for racing through the initial midget boom of the late 30’s,
and fielded cars at Gilmore Stadium, sometimes as many as four
at a time. They were mostly driven by Bob Swanson and Mel
Hanson, but over the years, the Lee driving stable also included
the likes of Duke Nalon, Chet Miller, Hal Cole, Ken Fowler,
and Mack Hellings.
Tommy also amassed a respectable collection of exotic and antique
automobiles, particularly Alfa Romeos and Mercedes. In Europe,
he found hidden away an Alfa Romeo, all power and Italian temperament,
that had once been driven by Nalon and Miller, and brought it
to Indianapolis in 1947. Driven by rookie Hal Cole as the
#47 Don Lee Special, it easily made the race on the inside of
the second row, but finished next to last due to a fuel leak.
He returned with the Alfa the following year, this time with driver
Ken Fowler, and managed to complete 121 laps for 15th spot
(broken axle), just ahead of a second Lee entry, a Mercedes driven
by Nalon (burned piston). Things seemed to be looking up.
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The
brand new Don Lee Special in 1948 with Mack Hellings in the cockpit.
At Indianapolis that year, the car qualified 21st and finished fifth. |
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