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Ted Horn
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From "The Life of Ted Horn" by Russ Catlin

1910-1948

Motorsports Hall of Fame Biography

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Legion Ascot Speedway, Glendale, Calif., 1934

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From "Legion Ascot Speedway, 1920s-1930s" by John R. Lucero
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Larry Sullivan Photo
Cook County Fairgrounds (now Maywood Park), Chicago, 1934.

(Joe Heisler notes: This was Ted's first racing trip in the East)
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Indianapolis Motor Speedway Photo
Indianapolis rookie, 1935, with mechanic Bo Huckman.

(Heisler notes: Bo Huckman was from Wilmington, Del., and was involved with racing for many years driving in one of the early new car stock races at Langhorne before WWII. Had a used car lot in Wilmington in the 1940's. )
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Ted Horn's Record in all championship races

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Larry Sullivan Photo
Cook County Fairgrounds, Chicago, 1937.

( Heisler notes: The ex-Haskell Miller now the Horn Miller)
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Photo From the Sweigart-Heisler Collection
Vanderbilt Cup Race, 1937.

Heisler notes: Ted qualified for the July 5, 1937, 300 mile Vanderbilt Cup Race at Roosevelt Field, Long Island, N.Y., in the Mike Boyle #3 257 CID Miller built by Myron Stevens. Ted did not finish the race. He was scheduled to drive his Indy Miller Hartz car but it was a no show according to race historian Carl Sweigart. This car would later appear in the 1940 500 and was driven to 7th place by Frank Wearne.

Race historian Bob Schilling has another interpretation: "This car was built for Harry Hartz by Curly Wetteroth in 1936 because Hartz's front drive would have been useless on dirt or in a road race. It was a four-spring rear drive. George Connor drove the car at Goshen in 1936 and told me that it had an oddball transmission, but he didn't elaborate. In the picture, it appears to still be in Hartz's color scheme of French gray with a dark blue number."

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From "The Miller Dynasty" by Mark L. Dees
Indianapolis, 1938. Horn started 6th and finished 4th, part of a streak of nine consecutive top-four finishes at Indy.
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Milwaukee, State Fair Park, 1938

Heisler notes: 1938 Milwaukee photo is of the champ car which Horn bought in 1936. Haskell Miller from Ascot. This car was rebodied for 1947 and was his dirt champ car (in today's terms) for 1947 and 1948. The tail of the car is in The Eastern Museum of Motor Racing in York Springs, Pa. -- courtesy of Lynn Paxton. Rest of car was destroyed in a fire.

Race historian Bob Schilling notes: Ted's sprint car, the white and maroon "Baby," was the former Haskell Miller at Legion Ascot. In 1979, I spent a day with Fred Blauvelt, who, with Myron Stevens, built the car for Wilbur Shaw in 1932. It was entered as the "Gilmore Blu-Green Spl." with Fred listed as the owner until they sold it to Earl Haskell. Blu-Green was a variety of Gilmore Gasoline. Haskell sold the car to Ted in the waning days of Ascot. It was changed to a transverse front spring by an all but forgotten metal man, Harry Lewis. Harry told me that Ted was the only person he ever did work for who didn't try to stiff him about payment. He also did the body for Ted's Champ car, the white and blue "Beauty." The Champ car was not the Haskell car done over. The Haskell car was Ted's half-mile car until his death and then became the ride for Tommy Hinnershitz, Bill Schindler and, much later, Mario Andretti. I gave Fred Blauvelt a picture of the car with Wilbur Shaw in it the day they introduced it at Legion Ascot. He knew that was the day because they had finished it at dawn of that day and it was still in bare metal, although the numbers and the Blu-Green logo were professionally added. I had a second copy of the picture and got Fred to sign it. He did so and added his phone number so we could talk again. Unfortunately, he went in for prostate surgery shortly after my visit and died on the operating table. Riley Brett, who was thrifty with praise of anyone else's work, once said of Fred that "you could sit him in the back seat of a car, give him a pair of pliers, a screwdriver and a piece of metal and he'd make you something you could use on a race car!"
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Indianapolis, 1939. Started 4th, finished 4th, led 4 laps.
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Indianapolis 1941 (Thorne-Sparks car)

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Autographed program from one of the few racing events conducted during World War II -- Sunday, May 17, 1942, at Reading Pa.
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Frank Smith Photo
At Goshen, N.Y. on his way to the 1946 national championship.
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From the November 1946 issue of Automotive Digest.

(Heisler notes: The 1946 AAA "Big Car" points were combined sprint and champ car races in today"s terms. There were no sectional titles for East and Midwest- only National. Sectional titles had existed 1933-1941 and came back in 1947 ending in 1960 (USAC at that point). First East Champ Bob Sall and last A J Foyt- and what a lineup in between!!!!)

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Indianapolis, 1947
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Photo Courtesy of CooP
"Baby," Ted Horn's favorite sprint car. Williams Grove, 1947.

Heisler notes:

The Ted Horn half mile car referred to in many articles as "baby" was not the Haskell Miller.

The half mile car was built during the winter of 1938-39 by Harry Lewis. Horn campaigned the car from 1939 thru 1948 in what today would be "sprint car" races.
 
After finishing second at Indy in 1936 Horn purchased the Haskell Miller and became a "deal driver" for Ralph Hankinson.  This car ran half-mile and mile events -- some National Point events. In the winter of 1946-47 the car was rebodied and raced only as a National Championship Point car for 1947 and 1948.
 
There is much confusion regarding the Ted Horn multiple car team. There were five cars not four as described in the Catlin book. They were Haskell, Lewis, Schrader, Morgan and Garnatt. Opinions appreciated.
 
Joe Heisler

p.s. Anyone who knows rail race car construction can figure out the Horn Cars from 1936 through 1948 from the many great photos available.
 
Joe Heisler

8.1.05

jlhautorev@comcast.net
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In Paterson, New Jersey

Heisler notes: Paterson photo is in Gasoline Alley. Former URC driver Charles Stern has created an incredible model of the alley which is on display at the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing.
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With Barbara Britton, Indy, 1948.
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Frank Smith Photo

Horn vs. Hinnershitz

(Heisler notes: Horn and Hinnershitz photo by Frank Smith was taken Sep 12, 1948 and Tom is about to pass for the win, resulting in the only sprint car defeat for Horn and Baby in 1948. Short video of this is included in "Fast & Famous" by Lynn Schaeffer Productions and is on sale at Eastern Museum of Motor Racing..
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From "That Magic Mile" by Thomas Nasti
The 1946-47-48 national champion, driving at DuQuoin, Ill., 1948
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Letters from Rumbledrome Visitors

 

I just found your site and can't tell you how great it is as a little boy I used to go to the Southern States Fairgrounds in Charlotte NC every Oct. and watch Ted run, I worshiped that man as far as I am concerned he was the greatest of all time. I used to race tires with my playmates pushing them as fast as we could down the st. always hollering i'm Ted Horn and always winning a little bit of me died when he got killed I was about 11 yrs. old, I finally got his book a few yrs. ago it is in safe keeping, I wonder if Baby is still around? Didn't know he had a daughter or had forgot she can be very proud of her father "THE GREATEST" I went on to win a few races myself running micro midgets, I won 30 main events never got in that car that I didn't think about Ted Horn definitely #1

Frank Williams

ibndn57@aol.com

9.11.06


! don't know why I never found this website before. Unfortunately, I knew my father less than most people who have commented on the site. In fact, I didn't really know him at all, since he was killed 4 months before I was born. My memories are made up of things my mother told me, photos and innumerable trips to various speedways . . . Williams Grove, Knoxville and, of course, Indianapolis. Thanks for all of your comments. I always love to hear what others thought of or, better yet, experienced with Ted Horn. Thanks especially to Fred Probst for his personal comments and his correspondence a few years ago.

Gayeleen Horn Simpson

Corning, NY

2.4.03

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Hello,

Enjoyed visiting the Rumbledrome site. My father and Ted Horn were very good friends, and maintained their garages at the same place in Paterson's Gasoline Alley. I was too young to know Ted, but I still have a toy wind-up race car that he gave me, which is now on loan tothe Indy 500 Museum. I also have a picture of our two families on an outing together the weekend before he was killed. My father cherished that picture and so do I.

My father built an apartment in one of the garages he rented in Gasoline Alley and that is where I lived for several years. Pappy Hough took over my father's garages when we moved to Florida.

Thanks for the memories.

Fred Probst, the kid that grew up in an alley.

fred@flinthills.com

January 15, 2002

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Hello,

Just a note to thank you for the web site honoring Ralph, Louie, Rex, and Ted. I was 15 years old when Ted died. I lived in SO. Cal. and never saw him race but "knew" him from following his exploits in the media. Have a collage tribute to him in my office. Also have corresponded electronically with someone who actually knew him. I am still amazed and thankful of the many people who knew and admired Ted then and now.

All the best

Roy C. Morris
San Juan Capistrano, Ca.

Oct. 31, 2001

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I'd like to pass on an anecdote about Mr. Horn.

Our family lived in Bedford, Pennsylvania, during and for a short while after WWII. During the summer of 1946 or '47 they raced during the fair. It was, of course, on the dirt horse track.

I was twelve or thirteen, depending on the year. I cannot remember how I got into the fair, or how I got to the infield, but I was at the fence behind Ted Horn's "pit" on the track. His car was backed in near the fence just off the raced part of the track. There was a stack of tires next to the fence just behind the car. I could see nothing, because of the men in his pit and the general bustle going on.

Ted Horn himself saw me, and said, "You can'tsee, can you? Come here." He brought me over the fence and had me sit carefully on the stack of tires. He told me to be sure no dirt got down into the splines of the hub, for it was important they stay perfectly clean. I guarded those splines like gold.

He got into his car, won the heat race, returned to his parking place, and asked how I'd liked the race. I was speechless. I didn't know until then that he was Ted Horn. I have been his fan ever since.

I was devastated by his death in 1948, and I was just fourteen. I already knew this last February what the peopl were feeling when Dale Earnhardt died, even though I was not a fan of his.

I was very pleased to find Ted Horn remembered through your web page. Thanks.

Richard Reid
Marietta, Ohio

August 6, 2001
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Ted at Hohokus, N.J. Photo courtesy of CooP.

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Photo courtesy of CooP

Ted in "Baby," 1946.

(Heisler notes: Fencing reminds me of Flemington or Trenton.)
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Photo courtesy of CooP

Who's that guy with Clark Gable?
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Photo courtesy of CooP

A civic honor for Ted, beloved in his community. The plaque says: Presented to Ted Horn by the Oldtimers Athletic Association of Greater Paterson, Inc., in recognition of winning the National Racing Championship in 1947."
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