Legends of Kearney Bowl keep hardtop racing alive with humor and heart

One time, a couple years ago at Madera Speedway, Jack the Wrench was flying around the track in his ol’ hardtop — and then, suddenly, he wasn’t.

Feeling the sinking horsepower in his shiny renovated race car, the Sanger man, now 80, pulled it over.

Shoot. He’d run out of gas.

Watching from the top of the stands, longtime race announcer Kenny Takeuchi, 88, of Fresno, wasn’t about to miss an opportunity for a joke.

“I guess Jack has got tired and he’s going to pull off and take a nap.”

Jack the Wrench’s family ate it up. So did Jack.

For Jack Heinrich, racing with the Legends of Kearney Bowl — named after a now-gone Fresno racetrack — is less about being a legend and more about having lots of fun. The group, started about a decade ago, has about a dozen members who regularly race in the central San Joaquin Valley — many of them former fans and pit men from the “heyday” of racing in the Valley who are now fulfilling a bucket-list dream.

At a stop May 29 in Hanford, the average age of the Legends of Kearney Bowl racers was 68½.

But don’t let their ages fool you, said one 28-year-old spectator.

“They come out here and just don’t cruise,” said Donald Kilner, who formerly worked on the pit crew of professional sprint car driver Chad Boespflug. “They drive.”

Kilner’s 4-year-old son, Clayton, demonstrated the speed by flinging his arm across his body and letting out a loud, “WAAAAAAHHHHMMMM.”

“It went around and it went beast mode,” Clayton said. “That means go fast.”

This year, the Legends of Kearney Bowl will race 15 times at six tracks across the Central Valley. No cash prizes await them. They race for “bragging rights only” and to show off a slice of history — their old cars.

Among those circling Keller Auto Speedway at Kings Fairgrounds on May 29 was Gary Greenough, the other Legends of Kearney Bowl member who is also 80 years … young.

There’s a youthfulness to him that would be hard to miss — especially watching Greenough in his Fresno shop, where he likes to spend hours working on friends’ cars and jamming on his drum set.

On a wall behind the drums is a sign: “Do not follow the beaten path. Instead go where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Painted on the side of the race car he drives is another quote, one Greenough says is becoming more true every day: “Growing old ain’t for sissies.”

Sitting in the car getting ready to enter the Hanford track, he says with a smile, “I should be taking deeper breaths.”

But on the track, his breathing seems to serve him just fine.

“I’m able to stay up with them younger guys a little bit,” he says after the race. “So I’m kind of glad of that.”

Preserving history

The idea for Legends of Kearney Bowl came to Takeuchi and Caruthers farmer Jim Perry, who owns a number of the vintage race cars, during a reunion of drivers about a decade ago and the group took greater hold about six years ago.

For most in the group, racing is a newfound hobby inspired by drivers who circled Kearney Bowl in the 1960s, once located across from Chandler Airport in southwest Fresno.

“Once we got started with this thing, it seemed like all over the state of California these older guys said, ‘Oh man! That would be cool!’ So they go find a car,” said Dan Green, 76, of Fresno. “Believe it or not, there’s about 30 of us across the state of California … By the end of the year, we should have a minimum of 25 just right here in the Fresno area.”

As Legends of Kearney Bowl drivers zip around a track, announcer Takeuchi likes to tell fans that “what you see here is the preservation of auto racing history.”

The last Kearney Bowl race was held in 1970 after the city of Fresno purchased the property to build housing and the racetrack and its wooden bleachers were demolished.

The Legends of Kearney Bowl drive many of the original cars that raced in that “bygone era.”

“You can’t imagine how much time and money they spend on this,” Takeuchi says with a laugh about the cost of restoring and maintaining the cars. “They’re spending all the children’s inheritances, every bit of it, but I tell their wives and girlfriends, ‘Hey, if they weren’t doing that, they’d probably be doing something worse.’ ”

Regularly scheduled races started in the Fresno area around 1928, when the Italian Amusement Park was built as a venue for racing and boxing on the north side of Kearney Boulevard. To make room for an airport expansion, the racing was moved to the south side of Kearney Boulevard in the mid-1930s.

After that, the track was renamed twice, to Airport Speedway and Fresno Recreation Park, before becoming Kearney Bowl in 1959.

Some well-known drivers raced on the track, including Fresno’s Billy Vukovich, who in 1954 won his second consecutive Indianapolis 500.

Kearney Bowl was also part of a popular race circuit in the 1960s that Takeuchi helped with as NASCAR's traveling hardtop announcer. Racers competed at Kearney Bowl on Friday night, San Jose on Saturday, and the Clovis Speedway at the rodeo grounds on Sunday. Some of those years, drivers also raced at the Altamont Speedway in Alameda County on Sunday.

They were a rowdier bunch than the men driving the old race cars today, said Jack Reiter, 70, a longtime racing fan who worked as a mechanic for Al Pombo, a state champion in super modified racing (what the hardtops became known as) in the 1960s.

“Those days, you could just about do anything,” Reiter said at the Hanford track. “If the guy spins you out or something, then they’d jump out of the car and start fighting on the race track. I got into a couple of them a few times, too.”

Sitting alone in the stands, Reiter said, “I miss all them old guys.”

But seeing the Legends of Kearney Bowl racers circle the track, he smiled.

“It’s really exciting to see.”

Safe gladiators

Sure, the Legends of Kearney Bowl racers say their families sometimes worry about them racing at their age, but there are fewer dangers than you might think. The camaraderie helps.

“At first you’re scared, you don’t know what to do,” says the tall, sweet-natured Heinrich of racing, looking spry in his faded black driver’s suit embroidered with the words, “Jack the Wrench” — a nickname for all the cars he’s worked on, a number of them for Legends of Kearney Bowl buddies.

“But once you get out there and you trust the other guys, it’s just fun going out there and letting the guys pass you, and you pass them, vice versa.”

Safety is key. Before every race, they check oil pressure, brakes, temperature gauges and make sure steering wheels are on “good and tight.” The cars are as sturdy now as they were in their heyday, outfitted with roll bars and other safety devices.

Since the group’s founding, no one has been seriously injured racing.

It’s not like soaring off cliffs like those “bungee-jump guys,” Green quipped.

“It gives a thrill, it’s kind of like that gladiator feel,” Green says of racing, “but you don’t get to the point where you endanger your life that much.”

A greater appreciation for the value of health also makes them more cautious.

“You should realize that you are 76 years old and even though you think you can go faster, you better slow down a bit because you don’t want to hurt yourself at our age,” Green said.

Still, even at slower speeds, Green recently had to take a break from the sport after his heart started beating dangerously fast during a race.

But, he asked, why shouldn’t old guys be allowed to have some fun? What’s the alternative, sit in a rocking chair?

Nooo thank you. Not for the Legends of Kearney Bowl.

Like knights in the olden’ days

Racing has a kind of romantic draw for many of the racers.

“It’s kind of like firefighters, kids kind of look up to you,” said Mark Thompson, 58, of Selma. “It’s almost like you are a knight in the olden’ days. You kind of go out with your shiny horses and do battle and then the winner gets to parade around and …”

(Pause.)

“You don’t always get the lady,” he continued with a laugh, “but you can parade around anyway.”

Watching his buddies start their engines at the Hanford track, he added with a smile, “We’re going to have a joust here coming up pretty quick. … It ends up being a pissing contest, you know how that goes.”

For Greenough, racing is also a reminder of his own mortality.

He drives a race car that good friend Chester Keoppel used to drive, who died in his arms a couple years ago of a sudden heart attack during a funeral for another racing friend. He sees Keoppel every time he puts on his racing helmet.

Greenough calls racing his last “hurrah.”

“We don’t want to give up and we want to live as much as we can, right to the end,” he said of the Legends of Kearney Bowl. “It’s a reason for living.”

This story was originally published June 5, 2015 at 5:31 AM with the headline "Legends of Kearney Bowl keep hardtop racing alive with humor and heart."