HOT RODS and JALOPIES: TOM DOW - his contribution to local racing, history and lore...PART 1

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

TOM DOW - his contribution to local racing, history and lore...PART 1

Roger Rickards and I were very privileged to have had the opportunity to visit Tom last year and talk about his racing years, as well as some of his flying years. Tom also let us use some of his photos, most of which I had never seen before. Please enjoy these but please do not copy them to another web site without permission from HR&J. Be sure to click once or twice on each of the photos for larger versions. This will be published in two or possibly three posts due to its large photo and story content.

Tom Dow as he looked in the early 1950's with his crash helmet on.
They were used for much more than just football!!

An ad from an early
1950's CLE program!

The King's Special taken from a film clip in 1933.

TOM DOW

The Following is a portion of an article by Jeff Caldwell on the famed “King’s Special”.

QUOTE - “The car was last known to be owned by local racing legend Barry Kettering in a different form, powered by a regular T Ford motor, in 1950 he would informally race it against another 1920’s race car, “The Hudson“, then owned by Tom Dow.”

In Tom Dow’s own words, the race noted above was the new beginning of Jalopy racing here in Fort William and Port Arthur in the early 1950’s. Tom was working at the family shop “Dow’s Auto Electric” at the time. It was located directly across from the Times Journal Building on May Street in Fort William at 112 N May Street(The old yellow building still exists to this day).

Tom would call them “Bugs” and said that he and Barry would legally drive these cars on the street as well as on the track.

At the same time Barry Kettering was working for Thornes-Sargent just around the corner from Dow’s on Violet Street(presently a parking lot). The businesses were back to back and Barry and Tom would naturally have become good friends due to their mutual interest in car racing.

Tom would say that after racing their “Bugs” around at the Murillo track for fun, they thought they could make some cash by convincing some fellows to bring their cars to the Murillo track. They would be paid a small fee just for bringing their cars to race and would charge $1.00 for the public to watch. In Tom’s own words, “We just couldn’t believe it, we were bringing home cardboard boxes full of dollar bills”.

This WAS the true beginning of stock car (jalopy) racing here at the Lakehead cities of Fort William and Port Arthur.
After doing this for two years the Lakehead Stock Car Racing Association was formed out at Uncle Franks on the Scott Highway on August 21^st, 1952. See the attached article from an old CLE program. They would race initially at Murillo but would soon move to the CLE racetrack at the fairgrounds close to the border between the then Fort William and Port Arthur, to be closer to the fans and a much larger grandstand and much better track for car racing.
The following is an advertisement from Thornes-Sargent, taken from a Fort William Collegiate yearbook from the same era.

Present day location of Thornes-Sargent

This is how the back of the present day Dow's Auto Electric

building looks today. You can see where the automotive door

has been filled in over time. The far right is the old Times Journal

building on May Street.

The article on the left is pretty much the story on how the Lakehead Stock Car Racing Association was formed. This was taken from a late 1950's Championship racing program. Click on this and all other photos for a better look!