Dayton Speedway promoter Blair Ratliff can’t be credited with dreaming up the details of the Monza 300 event run at Dayton in August, 1958, but he was certainly responsible for taking an existing idea and applying it to that Midwest Association for Race Cars (MARC) race.
The original event, labeled the “Race of Two Worlds,” was staged first in Monza, Italy, in 1957 and was intended to pit the Indianapolis-style roadsters against European sports cars and Formula 1 machines. Rather than run the 500 mile event as a single race, which would have given the advantage to the roadsters, the Monza race was run as three separate races with points given for finishes in each separate race. The points leader after all three races were run would be declared the overall winner.
Ratliff must have embraced the Race of Two Worlds format as the ideal way to get race fans back into the grandstand for the 300 lap MARC race set for August 3rd. Dayton Speedway race fans and local media had become increasingly bored with the long distance “new car” events at the high-banked track, and not without good reason. The races usually turned into endurance events where the winner was determined by survival. A “close” race was one where the winner was less than ten laps ahead of the second place car.
In the weeks leading up to the race, the local media embraced the Monza format enthusiastically. Typical was this report in the local paper:
“[I]t should be much more interesting than the 300-lap “new car” or “late model” races Dayton Speedway has had in the past. Some of those have been a bit monotonous when one car got out front early and won by endurance as much as by speed. There isn’t apt to be any such situation Sunday, because the race will be in three section, all of which figure to be run hard. A car can win none of the three segments, yet win the race itself by consistently high finishes. Thus nobody’s going to wrap up the major share of the $7000 purse in a single giddy whirl.”
The format wasn’t the only incentive for area race fans to hand over their money for a grandstand ticket on Monza 300 race day. Two reigning national champions, an ex-champion, and a total of five Indianapolis 500 drivers were also entered in the event. USAC stock car champion Jerry Unser of Colorado Springs, Colorado, MARC stock car champion Iggy Katona of Lambertville, Michigan, and Les Snow, a former USAC champion headlined the big race. Unser was one of the five Indianapolis 500 drivers entered. The others were Dick Rathmann and Ed Elisian, who set four-lap and one-lap qualifying records in that year’s Indianapolis trials, and Bill Cheesbourg and Bill Homeier. Elisian had already scored a feature win at Dayton when he took the checkered flag earlier in April. Katona considered Dayton Speedway one of his favorite tracks. He had already won two 300-lap races on the high-banks, and took first place money in the very first Dayton 500 run at the speedway. And Unser? Jerry Unser was just happy to be alive after flipping over the wall at Indianapolis in May.
There were other well known names on the entry list. The red-hot Stacy brothers of Cincinnati, Nelson and Dudley, usually battled each other just as hard as or harder than they would battle the other drivers. Nelson, Bob James, and Darrell Dieringer had been in a three-way scrap for the MARC title coming into the Monza at Dayton. Dieringer, Dudley Stacy, and Nelson Stacy had finished 1-2-4 in the so-called International 300 held at the track earlier in the summer of 1958. The man who finished 3rd in the International, Jack Bowsher, was another Monza entry, along with Dayton’s outstanding modified stock car driver Harold Smith.
All in all, it looked like it would be a very interesting Sunday afternoon, and over 5000 fans showed up to see what would happen.
As it turned out, however, the Monza scoring wasn’t needed to decide the overall winner, and as for the Stacy brothers…let’s just say the afternoon went well beyond “memorable.” Darrell Dieringer won all three events in convincing fashion after other drivers took a turn at the front and pocketed $1250 first place money. Dick Rathmann, winner of the 1958 Indianapolis 500 pole, managed to hang onto Dieringer and finished second behind him in the first two sections of the Monza event, but was a non-running tenth in the third section after experiencing mechanical problems.
In the first segment, Rathmann led for 26 laps, but Dieringer got past at the start-finish line and stayed there for the rest of the 100 laps, though Rathmann was right on his bumper at least twice. In the second segment, Rathmann led for more than half the distance with Nelson Stacy a nose in front for just an instant on the 19th lap. But again Dieringer moved into the lead on the 56th lap and stayed there for the duration.
For the Stacy brothers, the second race segment was a disaster. On the 21st lap of the second segment Dudley and Bob James of Akron hit an oil slick courtesy Jack Shanklin’s blown engine at the north end of the track. Stacy’s red 1957 Chevrolet sailed over the guard rail, turned back to front in mid-air and landed that way--against a tree, fortunately, instead of upside down.
A human chain lifted Stacy carefully down the steep bank and he was rushed to St. Elizabeth hospital. There they determined that though he was cut and bruised, he was otherwise unhurt.
Just 16 laps after Dudley’s unplanned speedway exit, brother Nelson’s 1958 Chevrolet broke a right front spindle and sailed out of the track over the guard rail at the south end, landing on its side. Minutes later, the gas tank exploded and the car burned completely. Nelson, though shaken, didn’t need an ambulance ride and was soon behind the wheel of fellow Cincinnatian Willie Holt’s car driving in relief. Holt, rested and refreshed, returned to his car for the 3rd segment and managed a second place finish behind Dieringer.
Rathmann’s 1958 Pontiac ran into trouble just before the halfway mark of the third segment and on the 51st lap he pulled the Poncho into the pits with a broken fan belt. His crew fixed it, but by the time Rathmann returned to the track, Dieringer had a 10 lap lead on him.
Unser, in his first appearance at Dayton Speedway, drove a 1958 Chevrolet, but he began experiencing fuel pump issues by the 15th lap and then the right rear axle broke after just 90 laps in the first segment and he was done for the day. Ed Elisian’s mount, a 1956 Ford, was a supreme disappointment for the Indianapolis 500 racer and he was a spectator almost all day.
When the points were finally tallied, Darrell Dieringer was the runaway winner of the Monza, Katona took $850 second place money, Holt was scored third for $600, Rathmann in fourth and top qualifier won $400, and Dayton’s pride and joy modified stock car driver Harold Smith took home fifth place money, $325. Finishing behind the top five were Homer Newland, Tiny Shilts, Paul Wensink, Virgil Barbee, and Scotty Cain.
So was the Monza promotion boon or bust for the speedway? It’s impossible to know what the race fans gathered there on August 3rd, 1958, thought; no one asked them and no letters to the editor showed up in the newspapers. But we can guess; the speedway never again staged a Monza event.
And neither, for that matter, did the organizers of the Race of Two Worlds. Jim Rathmann won all three segments of the 1958 running of the event at Monza, Italy, and that, combined with the inability of the European cars to run with the Indy-style roadsters and the resultant lack of interest among the European manufacturers brought the experiment to an end.
Monza 300 entries battle on the Dayton Speedway highbanks. Notice that the second car in line is that famous Ford blunder, described as looking like a car sucking on a lemon, the Edsel.
Bob James in the #44 convertible is just minutes away from having his car destroyed in a spectacular accident.
Jack Faris, from New Paris, poses with his MARC convertible before the start of the Monza event at Dayton Speedway. Notice that the car sports an unbraced, square-cornered roll bar that looks like it would easily fold forward or backward in a rollover.
Faris had been injured in the International 300 run at the Dayton track earlier in the summer, but we can't be sure that the bandage on Jack's chin is the remnant of that crash or the result of some other mishap.
Crews work to get their cars ready for the next Monza segment.
This was pretty much the story of the 1958 Monza 300. Darrel Dieringer in the #52 leads Dick Rathmann (we think) in the #2. Dieringer would go on to win all three 100 lap segments and be declared the overall winner.
It must have seemed much safer to the competitors in 1958, but it is hard to look at these heavy stock cars hurtling around the high banked track with just a single thin strand of guardrail to keep them in.
The accidents involving Bob James and the Stacy brothers later in the day would prove how inadequate the single strand was.
Here's another view of Monza 300 competition. By the way, the apron of the speedway at this time was dirt. The paving ended at the bottom of the banking.
It's hard to tell in this photo, but some of the convertibles in the event did not have a roll bar.
The photos below show the aftermath of the accident involving Dudley Stacy and Bob James. Stacy's car flew out of the track and James' machine was left hanging on the brink. Dudley was taken to the hospital and though he was relatively uninjured his race was over for the day. James' day was also finished; his car caught fire and was seriously damaged.
Here's horsepower of a different kind. A mounted unit presented the colors at the start of the Monza 300.
And finally, here she is, the Monza 300 trophy queen, with the trophy that Darrell Dieringer carried home in the trunk of his car.