More Stock Car Jockeys and Stories from the 1950`s......

As the search goes on we find more photos of those great stock car jocks from the 1950's and 1960's from here in Fort William and Port Arthur at the CLE grounds race track. Some of the following had sponsors that we finally found addresses for and some of the numbers that we finally found names for. The search continues.

Above is the #45 car(I thought is was #43 for the longest time). The driver we believe is R. E. Strawson and the car was sponsored by Port Arthur Hardware, a short lived business that was at 286 Bay Street in Port Arthur. The present site is Jeweller-Goldsmith at the same address on Bay Street. I must thank my friend Allan Yahn for some of the research on this stuff....he loves doing it, right Al?

Here are a couple of big fat Ford cars....I always thought they looked like big Lady Bugs. I believe that Pappy Fowler of #10 fame was driving the #98 car owned by the Marsonet Brothers at this time and the #97 car we believe was driven by John Cole(obviously nicknamed "Bimbo" after a song of that era.) John was also driving without a sponsor. The color picture to the right is the present site of Breeny's Auto Body, the former site of the Marsonet Brothers garage at the corner of Victoria Avenue and Vicker's Street in Fort William.

We had shown this car once before but needed a second look after finding the second picture at the right. #66 was driven by Fred Danis and was sponsored by Rubin General Construction. The 1959 Henderson directory shows Victor Rubin as a contractor. Here is Fred climbing out of his car after a roll-over and the ever present St. John ambulance attendant is standing by just in case. A member of his #66 crew with pretty clean coveralls is assisting Fred.

Similar to the Fred Danis picture....we are showing Jim Manduca's car once again along with the photo at the right just after he tore out about 25 feet of wooden fence..."Looks like you're OK, Jim".

The left photo here shows the ever present CLE Coliseum at the fairgrounds and one of the animal barns that fanned out just outside of corner 1 at the CLE track. Oh, and one cheapskate who wouldn't pay the 25cents to come inside, possibly standing on a tractor roof!

Please click on photos to enlarge!!