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Figuring
a lot more reliability wouldn’t hurt, he hired Kurtis, who’s
cars were having tremendous success, to build him a KK2000 Indy
car for the ‘48 race. The Kurtis-Kraft KK2000 was basically
a stretched version of Kurtis’ extremely successful midget
chassis with a 270 four-banger dropped in, and #319 was the third
of 13 KK2000’s the Kurtis shop would build. With Mack
Hellings behind the wheel, Lee watched the car come home fifth
as the #35 Don Lee Division Special. Feeling the 500 was at last
within his grasp, Lee optimistically entered the car again in
‘49 as the #8 Don Lee Motors Special driven again by Hellings.
But the car could do no better than 16th, giving into valve trouble
on lap 172. Afterwards, It soldiered on along the Championship
Trail that season up to and including the ‘49 Del Mar race.
Then, two weeks into 1950 on Friday the 13th, Thomas Stewart Lee
flew from Palm Springs to Los Angeles to keep a dental appointment
on the 11th floor of the Pellissier Building. While his pilot
and nurse waited in the car down below, he instead rode the elevator
to the 12th floor, and jumped to his death from the fire escape.
Why he did it will never be known, but interesting things pivot
upon such strange and terrible events.
In nearby Culver City, California, MGM was well into production
on a glossy, big budget racing movie called ”To Please A
Lady,” starring Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck.
The previous season, they had closely followed and filmed Rex
Mays in the red #17 Wolfe Special, a KK2000 owned by Ervin
Wolfe, focusing their filming on his car as the target car
that Gable “drove” in the movie. After Mays’ fatal
crash in the car at Del Mar, the studio found itself frantically
looking for a look-alike Kurtis for staged scenes, and quickly
bought Tommy Lee’s car.
Meanwhile,
in Arlington Downs, Texas, Babe Stapp was having heaps
of problems promoting races there. The big mile-plus track had
opened the AAA big car season for the two previous years, but
uncertain weather along with an inconvenient location between
Dallas and Ft. Worth had made it a losing proposition, and had
encouraged Stapp to go no further. MGM, however, needed a big
car race on a mile-long track to go with their Culver City midget
footage and the Speedway footage they intended to capture the
following month. They talked Stapp into an unofficial “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Sweepstakes” for April 30, convincing him that the presence
of Gable and Stanwyck would generate lots of publicity and customers.
Now decked out as the #17 “Mike Brannan Spl.”, after
the character Gable portrayed, the Don Lee Special was shipped
down to Arlington as the Wolfe Special “stand in” to
begin several days of filming before race day. Indy driver Bud
Rose, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Gable, mustache and
all, was hired to drive the car for the staged race scenes, as
was Johnny Parsons to choreograph them. Veteran driver
Manny Ayulo was booked along with his old #44 track roadster,
which would serve as the camera car.
Cars, drivers, cameras and crews arrived, and so did the wind
and rain, making filming difficult. Trying to get a few days of
filming in before race day, they tried to follow Parsons’
carefully laid out scenes, but the going was slow, thanks to the
weather. Ayulo didn’t help matters by driving the camera
car at 100 mph into Al Henley’s #94 while giving a film crew
member a thrill ride, wrecking both cars.
Repairs caused further delays, slowing progress even more up until
the day of the race.
Even though an overnight storm had flooded the track, the actual
race was finally run as planned – albeit with a small field
in front of a small crowd. It was won by Duane Carter in
J.C. Agajanian’s #98jr sprinter. Agajanian’s main driver,
Johnny Mantz, had up and quit the #98 champ car, so Aggie
sent the sprinter to Arlington instead. Carter was followed by
second place finisher Bill Schindler in, of all things,
the rebuilt Wolfe Special. By that Wednesday, May 3, racing personnel
had had enough, and everyone packed up and left for either the
Speedway or the Gilmore Stadium final season opener back in LA.
Stapp was left to finally throw in the towel as far as Arlington
Downs was concerned, and champ car races there came to an end.
As
far as the movie studio was concerned, there was still plenty
of work left to do. With the “Brannan” car in tow and
the services of Bud Rose still intact, they arrived at Indy to
catch up with the Wolfe target car once again, this time chauffeured
by Joie Chitwood. Chitwood qualified the car on the outside
of the third row, next to Tony Bettenhausen. In the meantime,
Rose alternated between staging scenes as Gable’s look-alike
in the ex-Don Lee car, and trying to make the field himself in
the #9 Bromme Offy, something he failed to do. Subsequently, Rose
got to watch the actual race from the sidelines along with Gable,
who was there to cheer on his technical advisor Parsons.
Film crews sweated the Wolfe target car lasting the race, hoping
for lots of usable race footage. As it turned out, the weather
would be the biggest factor, same as at Arlington, and the 500
was called on account of rain at 138 laps with Parsons the winner.
With the help of some relief-driving from Bettenhausen, the Wolfe
Special was thought to have come home second, but after scoring
tapes were checked, it was placed a solid fifth.
Eventually,
the Don Lee car was sold to California racing mentor and engine
builder Joe Gemsa, and he campaigned it through ‘58
and ‘59, mostly around the West Coast. Interestingly,the
car won a 500-mile road race in ‘58 at Riverside, California
as the Clark Gable Special — piloted by none other than Bud
Rose! Soon after the ‘59 season, having seen and felt better
days, the car was acquired by Vern Erwin, and ran short
track races in the midwest as the #A3 Erwin Offy through ‘63.
Today, the car is owned by Historic Champ/Indy Car Association
member Tom Malloy, restored to its 1948 #35 Don Lee livery.
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