Word: midget
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...Benny, Jimmy Durante, Spencer Tracy, Barbara Stanwyck, Mrs. Zeppo Marx and many another own horses. Clark Gable used to own one named Beverly Hills. Victor McLaglen (see p. 40) is Colonel of the Victor McLaglen Light Horse Troop, whose 750 members finance their maneuvers partly by promoting rodeos and midget auto races. Ralph Bellamy and Charles Farrell own the Racquet Club at Palm Springs. Minor promoters include Johnny Weissmuller (the paddle-board concession at Catalina Island) and Errol Flynn (six day bicycle races...
...nation's most progressive industry displays new and wonderful improvements in U. S. mankind's most basic luxury. Improvements in 1938 automobiles are. however, neither new nor wonderful. Cars look virtually the same as last year, save for a few refinements of streamlining. Only one newcomer, a midget car named Bantam, makes its debut. Mechanical advances are meagre...
Most of the 2,500 existing doodlebugs have a 75-inch wheelbase, as compared to the 105-inch average of standard racing cars, weigh from 600 to 1,000 lb. The original midget cars were crude affairs powered by motorcycle engines, later by outboard motors, cost about $400 to build. In 1934 Los Angeles' Frederick Offenhauser, longtime assistant of Harry Miller whose standard-size engines won most of the important U. S. auto races in the past decade, developed a special miniature motor. Most top-notch doodlebuggers now use Offenhauser motors, spend up to $5,000 for a racing...
...Indianapolis. Chief differences were the length of the race (150 miles instead of 500), the size of the track (½ mile instead of 2½), the size of the prizes ($5,000 instead of $20,000), the length of the cars (6 ft. instead of 12). But to the midget racers, who call their cars "doodlebugs," last week's race was the longest and most important...
Doodlebugs first appeared in the U. S. in Los Angeles in 1919 when a group of rich youngsters built midget cars to race around the Junior College Stadium, but midget racing as a recognized U. S. sport is less than five years old. In 1932 a field of eight midgets raced 20 laps around the football field of Los Angeles' Loyola High School. In 1934 Oilman Earl Gilmore built a stadium for midgets at a cost of $134,000. The Gilmore track was soon drawing crowds as large as 9,000, and shortly thereafter a onetime Hearst cameraman named...