Jerry Helck: Anyone Here Ever Seen A Vanderbilt Cup Race?
Jerry Helck, former owner of Old 16 Locomobile and the son of artist icon Peter Helck, wants to know if anyone else is a member of the two Vanderbilt Cup Races Club?
Jerry Helck:
How about two of them? Yeah, I'm bragging! Of course!
Just a kid, but I really was there in 1936 and 1937, with my Dad, naturally, I was 5 and 6.
What I mainly remember was before the first race, in a crowd, under the stands, my father wanted to introduce me to Tazio Nuvolari, surrounded by fans. But I'd just found a $5 bill in the mud, and was way more interested in looking for another.
I'd seen races before; a couple of times at the fairgrounds in Pine Plains, NY (mostly 4- cylinder Fords in one form or another) and I knew this was different, but, OK....I'll admit it; just not-as-exciting!
Enjoy,
Howard Kroplick
1936 Vanderbilt Cup Race
Tazio Nuvolari, winner of the 1936 George Vanderbilt Cup Race
1937 Vanderbilt Cup Race
Bernd Rosenmeyer, winner of the 1937 Vanderbilt Cup Race
Comments
If you stop the 1936 race at 2:20 is that the Bob Swanson #51 OFFY? That it the one car that it at the very top of my Want to Find list. Just a few bits of it would justify a restoration. Bob
As some of you know, I attended the 19 June 1960 running of the so-called “Vanderbilt Cup Race” on the flat, twisting road course laid out in the infield and around the Roosevelt Raceway, a trotting track. Jerry’s Dad’s Locomobile “Old 16” was there and the old car race was probably more exciting for me than the Cup race itself (no $5 bills in the mud, either). When the Cup race was over, the security guards must have gone home and my buddy noticed that little oversight. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained, so we slipped out onto the track and started doing some very creditable laps in my XK-120M Jag until we were stopped and unceremoniously escorted back off the track. And all that with a stock drophead, mind you, not even a roadster, let alone one in racing trim! So, yes, Jerry, even though this clearly isn’t what you meant, I did see a VCR! There’s even an unusual pic I took of Old 16 that day at <http://sbiii.com/automot1.html#old16>. Sam, III
Just learning about most of these beauties, even though an 85 year old.
Indy 500 Crew member, ‘66 thru ‘68. Tech Official Vice Chairman ‘70 thru 2012 for Indy and many, many ‘trail’ races thereafter as Pit Tech. (Had a ‘real’ job too.)