Saturday 13th January 2007

Danny Oakes, one of America’s leading Midget Race Car drivers winning 100s of races in the 1940s and 1950s across the US, died. He won the Turkey Night Grand Prix and 3 West Coast Midget Championships in 1945. In 1947, he won the American Automobile Association. Midget title and the United States Auto Club Pacific Coast Midget championship in 1959. At age 40, he tried to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 from 1952 to 1955, without success. But as a mechanic, he put many others into the winners circle and earned the reputation as one of the best mechanics in the Indy pits. As chief mechanic in 1963, for 1952, 500 winner Troy Ruttman, his car finished 12th and driver Johnny White, brought Oakes his best finish of 4th in 1964. He quit driving midgets in his mid-60s, but continued his racing career into his 70s as a throttle man in offshore boat racing. He was inducted into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1996.