CHARLEY ENGLE
Daytonian Charlie Engle was among the best car builders and mechanics our sport has seen. As a driver, he finished fourth in the very first feature race ever run at the Dayton Speedway. But his true calling was as a mechanic. His cars were almost always the fastest on any track regardless of who he put behind the wheel. But he had his share of misfortune, too. Drivers died behind the wheel of Engles' cars.
Charlie's story is unique.
Read the entire story by clicking the link below.
http://automotive.speedtv.com/article/vintage_something_wicked_this_way_runs/
Charley Engle's first tavern was on Cincinnati Street in Dayton, Ohio. The photo (above) shows the Engle racer sitting outside that tavern. We're not sure whether Engle routinely parked his racer there or deliberately posed the car for the photograph.
Following are exerpts from the Dayton area newspapers and newsletters detailing Charlie's tragic death:
BAR OWNER SLAIN, FIVE OTHERS SHOT
“My daughter said she heard the men say they weren’t going to leave any witnesses,” said Zetta Huart, mother of one of the survivors of a robbery-mass shooting about 1 a.m. today at Engle’s bar, 1147 E.
Second Street. Charles Engle, 67, the tavern owner, who lived in an apartment above the bar, was shot to death.
Patricia Huart, of
101 Sylvania Dr.Beavercreek Twp, was shot in the neck. Four other customers in the tavern were shot by the two armed men. Two suspects, who fled with an undetermined amount of money, were captured a short time later after a police chase when the pickup truck there were using for a getaway vehicle went out of control and crashed into a service station building at 48 Springfield Pk.
Listed in critical condition at Miami Valley Hospital are Pauline Inman, 40, of 101 S. Torrence St., and Glenn Smith, 21, of 1206 E. Second St. Gladys Miller, 40, of
19 Potomac St., was treated at the hospital and released. Police believe the two suspects went to the bar to pull an armed robbery, ordered the customers to stand up against the bar and put their heads down and then shot them one by one.
The unidentified suspects are under police guard at Grandview hospital. The suspects were already in the bar when Mrs. Miller entered.
“I don’t really know what happened,” she said today. “I guess I passed out, because the next thing I knew I had been shot.”
“I had just walked in, ordered a drink. Engle started to close up when I heard the men yelling for everybody to lay across the bar and bend over.”
“Mr. Engle asked the men to let the customers go and he would give them everything he had. But they just started shooting. It sounded like a cannon. I didn’t see the gun,” Mrs. Miller said.
Engle had locked the back door and was walking toward the front when the suspects demanded money, Mrs. Miller said.
“I just heard the men say ‘I’ve heard that you have lots of money upstairs,’” Mrs. Miller said.
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Det. V.F. McDaniel heading the investigation said Saturday night that the identity of the suspects would be released Monday, if charges are brought against them.
“We still have not questioned them, nor all the witnesses,” McDaniel said. “The witnesses are all shot up. We must wait until they are able to be interviewed. We still have quite a bit of investigation to do.”
McDaniel said that police had been dispatched to a reported shooting on
Crane St., in the same neighborhood where Engle’s bar is located just moments before the second dispatch came that there was s shooting at Engle’s. “Officers then spotted the pickup truck moving at a high rate of speed and gave chase,” McDaniel said. “First reports were that shots were exchanged between the suspects and the officers, but I have not verified that,” McDaniel said.
The truck went out of control and crashed into an unoccupied service station building at
4800 Springfield St. McDaniel said that the suspects, two white adults, were injured as a result of the accident.
One of the officers investigating the case said Saturday night the two suspects apparently had been drinking in the bar for some time.
He said the men are known in the East Side area, and were known by some of the victims. He said one is in his 50s and the other in his 20s.
The officer said the younger suspect suffered a broken pelvic bone. The older suspect has broken ribs and lung injures.
“One witness told me that she was told to lay her head on the bar,” the officer said. “She cried out ‘What do you mean, lay my head on the bar?’ One of the suspects said, “We aren’t messing around, lady.’ She put her head on the bar and then felt a sting in her neck and couldn’t raise her head.”
RACING FRIENDS HELP BURY ENGLE
By DALE HUFFMAN
Charles Frank Engle, 67, Dayton tavern owner and racing enthusiast for nearly 50 years, took his final ride Wednesday. It was in a gray hearse.
But following the hearse, as “Charlie” would have liked it, was a pace car, and after than, a bright red Hal racing car.
Engle was shot and killed when his tavern at 1147 E. Second St. was held up early Saturday morning. Another person died and three more were wounded.
Tom Konop, an official of the Old Timers Association of Race Car Drivers at Winchester, Ind., arranged for the racing cars to take part in the funeral procession.
“It was the least we could do for a good man who was dedicated to the sport of racing till the day he died,” Konop said.
Among those attending Engle’s funeral at Morris Sons funeral home, 1809 E. Third St., just blocks from Engle’s bar, was Harlan Fengler, who served as chief steward at the Indianapolis 500 race for 16 years.
The U.S. Auto Club pace car was driven by racer Russ Clendenen, supervisor of the Sprint Car organization.
The general theme of the final services for Engle was the sport of racing. The Rev. Edward A. Puff of the Memorial United Church of Christ officiated.
Police are still investigating and now have charged a third man in the crime.
Robert Linden David, 59, of 114 Crane St., has been charged with obstruction of justice and carrying a concealed weapon. He is in Grandview hospital, recovering from injures suffered when an alleged getaway truck crashed after the crime while being chased by police.
Joseph Cassidy Rose, 25, and John Thomas Woods, 34, had previously been charged with aggravated murder and aggravated robbery.
Rose had also been hurt n the accident and Woods was shot at the bar. Both are listed in good condition..
Engle was buried at Memorial Park cemetery.
FRIENDLY JOKE BECAME ENGLE’S FAREWELL
By DALE HUFFMAN
Everyone called him “Charlie,” and you could set your watch by his daily schedule.
In fact, at his small, friendly tavern at E. Third and St. Clair Sts. in downtown Dayton, regular customers would often bet what time he would show up in the evening to close his bar. It was always between 9:15 and 9:30.
Charlie Engle, 67, showed up there at 9:25 Friday night. For the last time.
He was in what we, his friends, called a “Charlie-good-mood.” As he helped barmaid Sally Smith clean up, he would stop to joke with the few customers who remained in his place until he locked up at at 10 p.m.
“When you going to get that hair cut?” he asked me. It was his favorite line for me. He said every time I was in his place in the past four years.
He signed a get-well card for his day barmaid as “Charlie Engle Offenhauser,” referring to the racing car engine, Offenhauser.
His one real passion in his life was racing. He was once a racing champion and had raced in one Indianapolis 500. He never missed a year going to the 500, and the walls in his two taverns are filled with photographs of racing cars.
He frequently got into sometimes heated discussions about the changes in the racing profession.
Charlie was a very private man, who seldom discussed his personal life. He was a very warm man, who often tried to hide his feeling behind a brash exterior. But to really know him was to love him.
Charlie was never hatless, and we often accused him of sleeping in his hat. The only time I every saw him angry was when a customer once pulled off his crumbled straw hat, and Charlie had rebuked, “no one bothers my hat.
But on his final night, just a few hours before he was shot and killed by two holdup men in his second tavern, at 1147 E. Second St., he was in a jovial mood.
He had intentions of selling his Third Street bar, and I told him, “Come down in the price, old man, and I’ll buy this joint.”
“You don’t have the money, reporter,” he said smiling. “Besides that, I’m not an old man. I got a few good years to go yet.”
As it was, he only had four hours to go.
CHARLIE ENGLE OF OLD TIME RACING---SLAIN!
By SHORTY MILLER
Charlie Engle, 67, old time sprint car driver and later an owner, was shot to death early Saturday (September 21) by two men who held up one of the two bars Engle owns here in Dayton. Engle and four other patrons in his 1147 E. Second Street Bar were shot by the men who were later captured by police. Of the four, a woman later died.
Engle, an orphan from Jays, Ohio, was a bachelor. He started riving in the early thirties with average success. When he later drove for Ralph Miller he was an immediate success. After Miller, he drove for Johnny Vance and was the man to beat in the Midwest. Later he owned and drove his own car until shortly after World War II when he retired.
He built several sprint cars and had a number of excellent drivers. Some of them were Gordon Reid, Bus Wilbert, Duke Dinsmore, Larry Crockett, Jimmy Daywalt, and Pat O’Connor. He was firm in his idea of how to run a race car and won many races.
He took his final ride in grand style. Behind the gray hearse followed a USAC pace car with Russ Clendenen, Supervisor of the Sprint Division. A bright red Hal racing car of the 30’s followed the pace car.
“It was the least we could do for a good man who was dedicated to the sport of racing till the day he died,” Tom Konop, an official of the Oldtimers Club of Winchester Speedway said. Among those attending Engle’s funeral was Harlan Fengler, former Chief Steward of the Indy 500 for 16 years.