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Pete was from Gary and raced extensively in the Chicago area, both indoors and outdoors, in a very heady time in midwest midget racing. He sometimes drove for recent National Midget Hall of Fame inductee Joe Shaheen who is most known for his "Little" Springfield Raceway. Pete finished 12th in the 1947 500 - there were some unusual circumstances surrounding the qualifying for that race that is too much to get in here. He is also credited with a 7th place finish in the 1949 National Midget championship standings but this really only involved a few races because in the early days of the AAA National Championship for midgets only races on the mile track counted. He was killed on the 48th lap of a 150 mile race at the Michigan State Fair - he was right behind Bobby Ball who won the race when he crashed through the fence and hit some parked cars.
Parenthetically, a few years ago my son played hockey at the arena at the Fairgrounds and I drove back to where the track was - there were a huge number of cars parked their for auto dealers and I didn't get far before a security car tracked me down - he of course, had no idea there had been a racetrack there. For those who holler about travel in racing - the Championship trail schedule once called for the guys to race a Syracuse and then at Detroit the next afternoon - long before interstate highways existed.
Pete is buried in Gary.
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