Day 4692 - State Fair Fatal Sprint Car Crash

Day 4692

August 25, 1962 

At twelve year olds, my life was still fresh. All summer I played baseball in the morning, swam at the pool in the afternoon. My father had been gone a couple years.  On a Saturday in August, I wanted to go to the races at the State Fair.  Don’t know who would have taken me, could have been dropped off, to go by myself. 

In the grandstand, I sat 20 rows up or so, just right, past the start finish, when looking down at the track.  The summer’s heat had baked the area all month making the conditions dry as hell. The dirt on the track was loose.  This combination diminished visibility especially in the corners which were most a track this length.  Sprint cars were a hybrid, nothing like jalopies or stock cars that had bodies covering most of the outside.  These were smaller versions of the cars run at Indianapolis, much shorter making them maneuverable on a short track.  On dirt, these cars had less traction than on pavement, forcing them into a controlled slide around the curves.  Front wheels aimed in the desired direction, while rear tires spun on top of the gravel, pushing the racer down the track in a controlled chaos.  All were over powered, with state of the art engines, Offenhausers were famous at the Indy 500, some had those, and others were Fords and Chevy V8’s.  Fuel injected, running a mixture of high test gasoline with 10 to 30 % methyl alcohol added horsepower along with noise and smell.  In the stands you could feel the raw power of these radical racing machine, all restrictions were lifted on these small displacement engines.  Open wheels made for even more excitement, seeing the action of the driver fighting with the front wheels around the corner while increasing the rpm as he pressed on the gas.  You could see how crazy it was when a single car went out, taking a lap alone.   The driver took the car to the edge between enough speed and a spin out, wining his engine with excruciating power.  Real excitement occurred when multiple cars drove out on the track.  This would move one radical engine into an orchestrated roar of 20. 

Behind the pace car you listened as the first race of the afternoon lined up in rows. Making their way around, you searched for the pacer to speed up and leave the track, passing the oncoming march of vehicles to the starter with the green flag.  If all stayed in line, you’d see him drop the flag in a flutter, signaling every gas pedal to be laid on the floorboard.  It dropped and the roar of the mass, hurt my ears as they passed.  How could this crescendo of speed and power control itself, maintaining inches between each independent car? 

 

Successful completing the first turn the dirt hung in the air as the mass powered into the second turn.  At the top of the straight away a flash occurred just before they all approached the start/finish, in front of the crowd.  No one had made a mistake for almost a lap, hard to believe with a field of 20 racing vehicles.  At full speed you saw what you thought had to happen, some one dove into a hole between two cars that wasn’t big enough.  Spinning tires hit each other, the car behind thrown up in the air. A split second later the orderly chaos erupted into a hot red flame as more than one racer t-boned, and somersaulted in front of me and the crowd at 100 mph.  Heat blasted toward us from exploding fuel tanks, where I could feel it hit my face. A moment, that seemed to last forever with multiple crashes all at once, lasted 10 seconds.  The few cars that got through went around the track, pulling up to a sight of the carnage, of the flames and mangled steel, a huge crash of cars turned every which way. Driver, Don Johns, sat upside down in his car motionless surrounded by flames after 4 flips in the middle of it all. Saying to yourself, “How could he ever survive, the jarring action sitting in the open cock pit.” 

Once cleared, racing resumed.  An hour later they announced, he had not survived this fatal crash.

 

Article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press August 26, 1962

 

Death Mars Races as Richert Wins Feature

By Don Riley

Death and dust dominated the State Fair auto races Saturday.  But thorough this grim spectacle came home town favorite Jerry Richert to bring some ray of brightness in a horrified throne of 11,226 opening day speed addicts. 

The plucky Forest Lake sprint specialist first overran and then fought off the fiercely competitive field to capture the 15 lap feature while shrugging off the most disastrous day of Fair racing in history.  The hectic action under a pall of dust which hung over the scene like a giant shroud claimed the life of Don Johns in the most spectacular accident within memory.

And before the tragic aspects had been blotted out by the final victory check, another driver lay critically injured with burns over 60 per cent of his body and another was hospitalized with eye and shoulder injuries.  Three other non-drivers were burned. Johnny Rutherford suffered a cut cornea of his left eye, three machines were virtually demolished and another badly burned.  On top of it, St. Paul contractor and car owner Dave Beatson suffered a severely sprained ankle escaping flying wreckage in the pit area.

Johns, from Bellflower, California, was dead on arrival at Bethesda Hospital from multiple injuries after flipping over four times on the home straightaway, directly in front of the grandstand.  His machine ended upside down and in flames

 

 

 

 

 

Once cleared, racing resumed.  An hour later they announced, he had not survived this fatal crash.