Jon Summers is a teaching assistant and guest lecturer at Stanford University. He’s an independent automotive historian, podcaster, and Pebble Beach Docent.
The chance gift of a small magazine archive to the SAH led Summers to research midget and sprint car racing during the immediate postwar period around his adopted home of the San Francisco Bay Area. This grassroots history charts the rise of great names in racing, such as Kurtis and Vukovich, yet was over in under a decade. Less than a century later no trace of the tracks remain. Summers’ presentation offers a glimpse into this already-lost world.
Credits
For more information on this presentation, including: notes, slides and transcription, please visit JonSummers.net.
This episode is part of our HISTORY OF MOTORSPORTS SERIES and is sponsored in part by: The International Motor Racing Research Center (IMRRC), The Society of Automotive Historians (SAH), The Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argetsinger Family – and was recorded in front of a live studio audience.
