Mike Moseley’s crash of the A.J. Watson double overhead camshaft Ford-powered sprint car while attempting to qualify for the September 3, 1967 USAC sprint car event is one of the enduring chapters in the history of Dayton Speedway.
It remains memorable for many reasons. The car was one-of-a-kind. Mechanic Watson had managed to wedge one of the double overhead cam Ford engines usually found in a champ car into the sprinter. Mosley was a free-spirited Californian with an uncertain racing resume. He was fast, but unpredictable. And then there was the track.
Dayton Speedway had always been fast, but the ripples and dips that had started to appear caused USAC to abandon the speed plant in 1961, and then owner George Flanagan gave up and closed the track completely in 1965. Two years later, promoter Earl Baltes stepped up to try to restore the speedway to its former glory. He underwrote improvements around the speedway, but the crowning touch was $60,000 (equivalent to $400,000 today) worth of fresh asphalt. The world ½ mile track speed record was held by Winchester Speedway; Baltes aimed to restore the record to Dayton.
One week before the Dayton Speedway grand re-opening, on August 27, 1967, the USAC sprint tour visited New Bremen Speedway for a pair of 50 lap events. Watson was there with the Ford, but his regular driver, Mario Andretti, had other commitments and couldn’t attend. Who to put behind the wheel? Watson had thought about it and picked a driver who had never won a USAC sprint race in his entire career; Mike Mosley. Why?
“Well, Mike was at the Speedway [Indianapolis] last spring on the Leader Card team, so I know what he can do,” Watson told reporters on Sunday before the race. “Mike dropped a valve in his regular sprint ride. I told him to come over here Saturday [yesterday] to see what he could do with the Ford. He looked good and got the ride.”
“Looked good” indeed. Mosley led the first 50 lapper from the drop of the green flag. The only driver who could even come close to staying with Mosley was Larry Dickson and his right rear tire gave up on lap 38 sending Dickson to the pits. Mosley was so far ahead of the rest of the field that it looked like he would already be in the pits taking off his helmet and getting a cool drink before the rest of the drivers drove under the checkered flag.
And then, to the shocked amazement of everyone, Mosley pitted! His foot had gotten so hot that Mosley was convinced that the car was about to catch fire. Watson was livid.
“Mike’s foot got hot and he though the car was going to burn up. But there was nothing wrong with the car. We even took his shoe off and there was no oil on it,” Watson told reporters. “I should have fired him right there. He’ll never live this one down, pitting while leading because of a hot foot. But Mike is a good driver and everyone makes mistakes. So I let him drive the second race. But he had to start 13th and I told him ‘Starting way back there you won’t have any time to waste worrying about a hot foot this time.’ We also put on of Jim Hurtubise’s heavy boots on him so he wouldn’t feel the heat coming through.”
In the second 50 lappers, Sonny Ates took the lead at the green and held it for the first 13 circuits. Bill Vukovich, Jr., who had inherited the win in the first 50 lapper after Mosley pitted, then assumed the first position from Ates and held it until he started slowing at lap 43. By lap 47, Vukie was definitely struggling and that’s when…you guessed it…Mike Mosley came thundering by to take the lead, the win, and redemption of sorts for his earlier blunder.
Watson was pleased, but made it clear that he had not fully forgiven Mosley for pulling out of the first 50 lap event while holding a commanding lead.
“I think we’ll run the car at Dayton next Sunday all right,” Watson was quoted as saying. “But I don’t know about the driver. I’ll try to get a hot dog to drive; if not, I’ll put Mosley in it again.”
And the rest, as they say, is history. Dayton Speedway history, that is.
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I was sitting in the grandstand at Dayton Speedway the day that Mike Mosley had his amazing crash. Here's how I remember it.
In 1967 I was serving in the US Army and I knew that I would soon be transferred from Ft. Belvoir, Virginia, to Ft. Benning, Georgia. I was given some leeway on exactly when I would have to make the move, so my planning involved checking the racing schedules for several of my favorite series and checking the schedule of events at my favorite tracks. The USAC Sprint series was at the top of my racing events list, and Dayton Speedway was my preferred track.
Lo and behold, the USAC sprinters were scheduled to visit Dayton at about the same time Uncle Sam was expecting me to pack my duffle bag and change duty stations! A telephone call to my racing pals in Dayton set it all up and before long we were sitting in the ancient (it seemed to me) Dayton Speedway grandstand.
Mike Mosley, a West Coast hot shoe, was driving AJ Watson's sprint car at Dayton. The car was powered by a Ford double overhead cam (DOHC) engine. These engines were somewhat rare and were usually used in Indy cars. The car was blazing fast and a real handful as it turned out.
In his qualifying attempt, with the Ford engine screaming, Mosley lost control coming onto the front stretch. The car crashed violently, rolling side over side all the way down the front stretch and into the first corner where it came to rest on its wheels. Now these were the days before full rollcages, and the driver safety gear was spartan. With Mosley slumped in the cockpit of the sprinter we were certain that he was dead. The crash completely silenced the crowd. I think you could have heard a pin drop.
We watched the rescue workers race to the wreckage and begin to extract the driver. And that's when the track announcer said, "Ladies and gentlemen: a new track record." Despite the fact that Mosley had been out of control coming out of the fourth turn and then rolled side over side across the starting line his qualification time had bested a host of other drivers who completed their lap in one piece.
Eventually they got Mosley out of the car and into an ambulance and then off to the hospital. Sometime later in the afternoon the track announcer interviewed AJ Watson. He was very somber and said that the condition of the car was of no importance. What was important, he said, was that Mike survive.
I seem to remember that during that interview a note was handed to the announcer. Not only did Mosley survive, he was waiting at the hospital and needed someone to come and pick him up so that he could get back to the track! And when the announcer resumed the interview with Watson, the car owner's tone had changed dramatically. The car was too much for Mosley, he said. Mosley lacked the experience to be able to control the car. And on and on he went, thoroughly trashing Mosley's abilities. Clearly, now that Mosley had survived, Watson's focus was on his car, a gem that a driver like Mosley wasn't worthy of racing!
Postscript: Mike Mosley was no slouch when it came to driving a race car. He was in a position to win the Indy 500 twice before crashing both times. He did win Indy car events at Trenton (1971), Phoenix (1974), and he won three times at Milwaukee (1975, 1976, and 1981). Ironically, after cheating death any number of times in race cars, Mosley died in a road accident when he swerved his van off the road, possibly to avoid hitting an animal. He was dead at the scene.
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