[SUPERDUKE]

Originally Posted by egh170 where did that info come from. I was a friend of danny's and he is the one who did the driving for gable. Here is a source of info for you from historic racing.com this bio has been viewed 138 times danny kladis born 10/2/1917 93 years ago. Died 26/4/2009 1 years ago, aged 92 he was born in crystal city, missouri, but moved to chicago before he made his competetive debut in 1935 at an indoor race. He turned out to be very quick. Always prepared to drive anything, kladis found most of his success in midget racing, taking his first feature race win, driving joe shaheen’s offenhauser-powered midget at greenup, illinois in 1940 he drove 'big cars' on the old central states racing association circuit in 1939 and 1940 and the following year tried his luck in aaa. The war brought a temprary end to racing and danny went to work for the ford motor company as a supervisor at the plant that built pratt and whitney wasp r-4360 engines. Later he worked on the engines of howard hughes’ famed “spruce goose” wooden airplane which was powered by eight of the r-4360 engines. Amongst the many tales about kladis is one about when he blindfolded himself and did two laps of qualifying on a oval dirt track in a midget. He also did the driving for clark gable in the film 'to please a lady' about open wheel racing. In 1946, andy granatelli purchased one of the two-man fords that appeared in the 1935 indy race. He and his brothers put headlights on the car and drove it down to indianapolis to participate in the first indianapolis 500 to be driven by danny kladis. 'we had a muffler and our own starter,' he said about the car. 'when we'd go out to get food, we'd drive around the garage and out the gate. In the race, the car became the first ever to be disqualified, though it was able to run.' departing after a pit stop, kladis forgot to push the button to open the fuel flow, and the car stalled on the backstretch. Granatelli hustled over and saw kladis sitting dejectedly on the rail. Andy climbed into the car, pushed the button and the car started right up. They towed it across the infield to the pits, but when kladis tried to resume the race, granatelli was told the car was disqualified for being towed. That year he won the mississippi valley midget championship driving the lund v8. He would take the title again in 1947 and 1948. With the introduction of short track stock car racing in chicago in 1948, kladis won the first-ever 300 lap stock car race at raceway park in late october driving a military jeep that he had borrowed. He attempted to qualify for indy again in 1949 but failed to make the mark with a lencki. He failed again the following year with the federal engineering maserati. In 1951 he failed to qualify the trainor chicago trainor auto parts special. This was the first rear engined indy car. Origionally built before the war as the gulf-miller, it resembled the auto unions in all but performance, handling and reliability! It reappeared after the war firstly as the tucker torpedo special, to promote the ill fated road cars, before becoming the trainor chicago trainor auto parts special. It did qualify one but never finished. For 1952 he took the wheel of the offy powered tuffanelli-derrico's diedt front-wheel drive special but once again dnq. He did drive relief for travis “spider” webb in 1954, but the team could do no better than a 30th place finish in webb’s advance muffler entry. In 1955 he tried but once again failed to qualify for indy, this time in roy mckay's kurtis kraft offy. In 1957 a maserati tipo 4clt/48 'san remo' (1604) turned up at indianapolis entered by marguerite morgan of morgan engineering, kladis was to do the driving. Unfortunately he was too slow to qualify as he needed to have averaged almost 140 mph for the four laps to make the field. However, his four-lap average of 124.412 mph was the fastest ever by a 1½-litre car. In the same year he also attempted to qualify a w154 mercedes that had somehow made its way to the united states. It had first appeared at indy in 1947 but retired with piston ring failure which caused damages to the rods and valves. The car was repaired but during the 1948 edition it retired with oil pressure problems. The engine was removed and put into storeage. The car was sold less engine to joe thorne who wanted a more streamlined car. A thorne-sparks 4.5 litre engine was installed. The car was entered in 1949-1950 and 1951 at indy with respective n°81-33 and 88 but failed to qualify each year. After that it was stored at indianapolis until the end of 1955 when edward shreeve, a local policeman bought it, the price being, it is said, the amount of the storage bill. Shreeve installed a jaguar d-type engine in the car and entered it at indy 1957 with danny kladis as driver (n°84 safety auto glass sp); it failed once more to qualify. In 1962 he took the united auto racing association championship driving bob lockard’s ford powered car, winning 11 feature races. Kladis was also a pilot, flying commercial airlines and doing charter work. He was the father of seven children: George, who was the 1971 uara champion, joanne, carole, ciciela, christopher, danny jr, and michael. His sister dot also used to race.

just look a the credits at the end of the movie! Or calll buzz rose no relation to bud rose 602-978-1599

[egh170]

Originally Posted by coxie bowman I remember Danny and his son George, I raced with both of them and also enjoyed the off track conversations. George's Uncle John bought my Mother's restaurant on 75th. and Dobson Avenue in Chicago in 1954, then my Father sold his trucking business also and we moved to Michigan. Partly because Govenor Stevenson at the time was taxing the crap out of the small businesses according to my Father. I started high school in the fall of '54. Years later I met the Kladis' and did some indoor racing with Danny at Cincinnati Gardens in the late sixties, I believe. In the late sixties or early seventies, my brother in law, (who was not a race fan) told me one day that he worked with a guy that his father had a car in which Clark Gable drove in "some movie," little did he know that by that time I saw, 'To Please a Lady' and, 'The BIG WHEEL' about thirty or forty times and knew exactly what car he was talking about. Only thing was, was it true? Anyway, the fellow I was driving for at the time and myself drove down to Chicago and went over to his house on 79th and Cottage Grove area to see it. The man took us through his house and out the back door to an old garage behind the house and next to the alley. There it was! Red, huge steering wheel, tan upholstery, spoke wheels, (Rudge) small half round wind screen. Right away I was thinking just how we could talk this man into letting me run it in the Little 500, but even at that time it was pretty far out of date, besides, he probably would have kicked us out of his garage if I asked. Recently, I had a chit chat with Mac Miller of "INDY ROADSTERS" and told him this same story and asked him what ever happened to that same car. He told me its now in California and completely restored. Nice to to know.

Hey Coxie, Where have you been. Forget about your friends in Illinois. E-mail me sometime.

[SUPERDUKE]

Originally Posted by egh170 hey coxie, where have you been. Forget about your friends in illinois. E-mail me sometime.

the 17 champ car was the wolf spl out of tulsa ok. Rex mays bill schlinder joey chitwood along with others drove this car

[mac miller]

Actually , the #17 Clark Gable car, in the movie, is not the
Wolfe Spl(KK2000-323-49)...... It is the Don Lee Spl(KK2000-319-48).

It is restored to its original Don Lee Spl.#35 paint job and lives in the Tom Malloy Collection in SoCal. It could not be in a better collection.

[mac miller]

To clarify a bit, this movie was released in Oct of 1950, so that some of the actual race film footage, used in the movie, was from the 1950 race. The dark colored #17 car, that ran in the 1950 race, was the Wolfe Spl. driven by Joie Chitwood
Also some actual race footage, in the movie, was from the '49 race. The dark colored #17 car that ran in the 1949 race was the Balanger Spl. driven by Duane Carter.
The car used for all of the Hollywood movie scenes was the Don Lee Spl. painted as the "Brannan Spl.#17"

[brian26]

I know it was a crash dummy that wrecked the 17! What's the deal? Did they run out of drivers? LOL

I have the article somewhere around here from SPEED AGE, but I'm not sure it's clear on who drove.

[DonMoore10]

What big dirt track were those cars running on in that clip? I don't recognize the grandstand or the track as anything we know today.

[mac miller]

Originally Posted by DonMoore10 What big dirt track were those cars running on in that clip? I don't recognize the grandstand or the track as anything we know today.

I believe that track was in Arlington, Texas

[DonMoore10]

That track was apparently Arlington Downs, built in 1929 with a 6000 seat grandstand, and was a horse track till around the late 50's when it was demolished for commercial development.