Wally Campbell

1926 – 1954

 

 

Wally Campbell of Trenton, New Jersey in the #8 Frank Curtis Offy at a Triple A sprint car race at Cedar Rapids, Iowa on August 23, 1953.  Campbell was the fifth fastest qualifier that day with a time of 24.74 seconds but could only manage a third place finish in the trophy dash in this his second time to drive the car Larry Sullivan photo from the Bill Green collection

 

 

Wally Campbell in the #8 Frank Curtis Offy at a Triple A sprint car race at the Flemington, New Jersey Fairgrounds on September 7, 1953.  Campbell was the second fastest qualifier that day with a time of 26.57 seconds.  He won the first heat race and finished second in the feature.  Campbell won five feature races and placed second three times after taking over the driving duties for Curtis in August of that year Herb Young photo from the Bill Green collection

 

 

 

Wally Campbell, from Trenton, was small and boyish, and looked too young to drive a big sprinter-until you noticed his intensity, the corded muscles in his arms and tattoos from Navy service.  He had enlisted in the Navy at seventeen, and had won the 126 lb. Navy boxing championship during a three year tour.  At twenty-seven in 1953, he had already had a very successful racing career.  He had started in ARDC midgets in 1947, then had switched to stock cars.  At first he raced mostly in New Jersey.  He was the American Stock Car Racing Association Champion in 1947, 1949 and 1950, and then joined NASCAR and finished fifth in the NASCAR National Modified Stock Car standings.  In 1951, he won thirty-three features and was the NASCAR National Modified Champion.  In 1952, Campbell had tried NASCAR Grand National racing, the top level of late model stock car racing in those days, and had won the pole for the Darlington “500”.  He also raced his own 1950 Hillegass sprinter, stretched to championship car length and fitted with a 266 cu. in. Mercury engine in NASCAR's briefly attempted Speedway Car Division.  He finished second in that division behind Buck Baker in 1952.  He also raced that sprinter in the United Racing Club in 1952 and early in 1953.  After switching to Triple A, he finished fourth in the Eastern Division in 1953, even though he only raced from August through the end of the season.  He won four Eastern features during that season and one in the Midwest.

Campbell had incredibly fast reflexes.  His reflexes, a heavy foot and apparent utter fearlessness combined to provide a very exciting, but wild, often erratic-looking driving style.

In 1954, Sam Traylor selected Campbell to drive one of his cars.  At Indianapolis in 1954, AAA officials had sent Campbell home "to get more experience" after he was erratic in the Speedway turns during his rookie test.  Campbell, at that point, was leading the Eastern Division point race, had won three of the seven sprint car races he had entered in the East, and had been second three other times.  He was determined to learn to win on the high banks.  Sam Traylor was reluctant to send a car to the Midwest so Wally switched to Ted Nyquist's two-year-old No. 29 and arranged to practice at Salem on Saturday.  Troy Ruttman and Jiggs Peters were among a small group of advisors.

On Saturday, July 18, Wally ran about forty laps, methodically working up to qualifying speeds.  Then he lost control entering Turn 2.  His orange and white car shot up to the rail, hit it, hurtled over and dropped, nose first, out of sight.  A grass fire developed.  Ruttman and Peters rushed to the scene and pulled the car from the flames, but Wally was already dead from multiple skull fractures and internal injuries.

There was a lot of sadness but nobody was really surprised.  Many racing people had been appalled by the chances that Wally took.  And, with a macabre touch of black humor, Wally had predicted that he would "break his ass" in a sprinter.

Little remained of Ted Nyquist's car.  Ted salvaged the engine and the rear end, and sold the rest for fifty dollars.  Later, Ted took the engine to Hiram Hillegass and commissioned him to build a new car which would later become the Pfrommer Offy.  The battered body and frame were eventually straightened and raced in URC.

- - - From an unpublished manuscript by Bill Green

 

to see a photo of Wally Campbell in the Frank Curtis’ #8 Offy sprint car at Fleming, New Jersey on September 6, 1953.

 

to see a photo of the Frank Curtis’ #8 Offy sprint car at Fleming, New Jersey on the weekend of September 6-7, 1953.  It was driven that weekend by Wally Campbell.

 

to see a photo of Wally Campbell and the Frank Curtis’ #8 Offy sprint car, among others, just before the start of a race at Reading, Pennsylvania on September 20, 1953.

 

  

 

to see a photo of Wally Campbell in Frank Curtis’ #8 Offy sprint car at Trenton, New Jersey on October 4, 1953.

 

to see a photo of Wally Campbell in Frank Curtis’ #8 Offy sprint car at Williams Grove, Pennsylvania on October 18, 1953.

 

to see a photo of the Frank Curtis’ #8 Offy sprint car at Hatfield, Pennsylvania on November 1, 1953.  Wally Campbell was the driver that day.

 

 

 

Return to the Black Panther Sprint Cars home page