Meanwhile, in Arlington Downs, Texas, Babe Stapp was having heaps of problems promoting races there. The big mile-plus track had opened the AAA big car season for the two previous years, but uncertain weather along with an inconvenient location between Dallas and Ft. Worth had made it a losing proposition, and had encouraged Stapp to go no further. MGM, however, needed a big car race on a mile-long track to go with their Culver City midget footage and the Speedway footage they intended to capture the following month. They talked Stapp into an unofficial “Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Sweepstakes” for April 30, convincing him that the presence of Gable and Stanwyck would generate lots of publicity and customers. Now decked out as the #17 “Mike Brannan Spl.”, after the character Gable portrayed, the Don Lee Special was shipped down to Arlington as the Wolfe Special “stand in” to begin several days of filming before race day. Indy driver Bud Rose, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Gable, mustache and all, was hired to drive the car for the staged race scenes, as was Johnny Parsons to choreograph them. Veteran driver Manny Ayulo was booked along with his old #44 track roadster, which would serve as the camera car.


Cars, drivers, cameras and crews arrived, and so did the wind and rain, making filming difficult. Trying to get a few days of filming in before race day, they tried to follow Parsons’ carefully laid out scenes, but the going was slow, thanks to the weather. Ayulo didn’t help matters by driving the camera car at 100 mph into Al Henley’s #94 while giving a film crew member a thrill ride, wrecking both cars.

Repairs caused further delays, slowing progress even more up until the day of the race.
Even though an overnight storm had flooded the track, the actual race was finally run as planned – albeit with a small field in front of a small crowd. It was won by Duane Carter in J.C. Agajanian’s #98jr sprinter. Agajanian’s main driver, Johnny Mantz, had up and quit the #98 champ car, so Aggie sent the sprinter to Arlington instead. Carter was followed by second place finisher Bill Schindler in, of all things, the rebuilt Wolfe Special. By that Wednesday, May 3, racing personnel had had enough, and everyone packed up and left for either the Speedway or the Gilmore Stadium final season opener back in LA. Stapp was left to finally throw in the towel as far as Arlington Downs was concerned, and champ car races there came to an end.


As far as the movie studio was concerned, there was still plenty of work left to do. With the “Brannan” car in tow and the services of Bud Rose still intact, they arrived at Indy to catch up with the Wolfe target car once again, this time chauffeured by Joie Chitwood. Chitwood qualified the car on the outside of the third row, next to Tony Bettenhausen. In the meantime, Rose alternated between staging scenes as Gable’s look-alike in the ex-Don Lee car, and trying to make the field himself in the #9 Bromme Offy, something he failed to do. Subsequently, Rose got to watch the actual race from the sidelines along with Gable, who was there to cheer on his technical advisor Parsons.


Film crews sweated the Wolfe target car lasting the race, hoping for lots of usable race footage. As it turned out, the weather would be the biggest factor, same as at Arlington, and the 500 was called on account of rain at 138 laps with Parsons the winner. With the help of some relief-driving from Bettenhausen, the Wolfe Special was thought to have come home second, but after scoring tapes were checked, it was placed a solid fifth.

свернуть