Founder Profile

Joe Mayer

by Joe Mayer
Published February 2010
(Joe Mayer was Nebraska Region's first R.E. in 1954.)

This story begins in 1950 when I was a business major at the University of Omaha. I had recently been discharged from the U.S. Navy after serving aboard the USS Helena, a heavy cruiser. Life was good! The war was over and the economy was growing. Almost everybody was driving a Ford, Chevrolet or Plymouth plus the usual up-scale autos. I had a 1941 prewar Dodge sedan with lowering blocks and rear fender skirts to make it look cool. Then came chromed wire stone guards over the headlights. You see, back then nearly all of the country roads in Nebraska were gravel or oil mat. Only the Federal and State highways were concrete and limited to one lane each way.

The University was one large brick building on West Dodge with a wood frame building in the back called the "Shack" where many of the students hung out and studied or played Bridge between classes. I had a girl friend that went to the University of Colorado at Boulder. On special occasions, such as prom night, I would drive out there for the week-end. I remember driving up Flagstaff Mountain just outside of town, to park and neck. But I digress. The main reason for telling you all of this is that while driving around town I saw a couple of unusual cars on a dealer's lot; a 1951 MG TD, and a 1936 Jaguar SS100. I fell in love! Not the girl silly, the cars! The MG was $1,850 and the Jag was $3,600. I wanted the Jag but didn't have the cash and settled for the MG.

Foreign cars in Omaha were scarce as hen's teeth. You might see an occasional VW and on rare occasions an MG or XK120 Jaguar. Service was non-existent. I went to several auto repair shops to get my SU carburetor intakes balanced but they all said they don't "do" foreign cars. So it was at this moment in time I became an auto mechanic. I bought a shop manual and followed the instructions and felt good doing it. This eventually led to engine overhauls, fuel pumps, brakes, transmissions and anything else that needed repair.

Over time, the sports car enthusiasts found each other and would get together on weekends to talk and help each other. My group included: Clyde Bourgeois with an MGTC and a Mark IV Jaguar saloon with big swooping fenders and the largest headlights I had ever seen; Darrel Mahnke with a BRG Jaguar XK120 roadster; Cy Dieter with a Austin Healey 100 and later a Porsche 550 Spyder; and, Sam Mangiamelle with another MG TD. It was a tradition that on New Years Eve we would all drive out to Elmwood Park after dark and race around the road a few times.

Riverside Raceway

I think it was spring of 1953 when we organized the first sports car event in Nebraska at Riverside Raceway in south Omaha. The raceway was located just off the south Omaha bridge road down in the bottom land. I went down and found the owner and told him we wanted to hold some time trials on the track along in May. Riverside was a quarter mile dirt oval. It hadn't been used since the previous summer and the surface had deteriorated over the winter from rain and snow storms. The owner let me use his tractor and grader to recondition the surface about a week before the scheduled event. I don't remember how we got the word out but there were about ten or twelve cars showed up, a few people we didn't know, but instantly became friends.

We had a starter with homemade flags. Cars were allowed to practice for maybe an hour before the timing started. When the starter flagged off a car they ran three laps against a stop watch. We had no seat belts, no roll bars, no helmets, and no insurance. What we did have was lots of fun. For most, if not all of us, it was the first time on a race track. There were no incidents and we all went home with lots of enthusiasm for the future.

Scribner, Nebraska

Another speed event was drag racing at Scribner, NE. During WW2 the government built a number of Army air bases around central Nebraska for training and deployment of aircraft. After the war all of the buildings were torn down and all that was left were three concrete runways laid out in a triangle. The runways were not connected so we couldn't use them for a road circuit. The land was leased back to farmers for growing corn mostly. We got permission to use one of the runways for drag racing and set up a very popular event. We had a big turnout of drivers, friends, and spectators from town to witness these strange cars tear up their tires in the middle of a corn field! It was all a lot of fun but we should have charged admission and sold some burgers and brats and made some money.

Saint Paul Winter Carnival

My very first road race was in February 1954, The St. Paul Winter Carnival sports car races on frozen lake Phalen. My wife and I left Omaha after work on Friday and drove the MGTD most of the night to Minneapolis. Anyone who has driven an MG in the winter time knows how cold that was in a drafty ragtop with a 60 degree heater. The lake is fairly round and about a half mile in diameter. This year there was no snow and the entire surface was sheet ice. The Land-O-Lakes Region organizers came up with a brilliant plan; they laid out a course on the frozen surface with plastic cones; then, gravel trucks laid down sand on the surface; followed by another truck with flame blowers intended to allow the sand to melt into the surface and provide traction. It worked fine in most places and not so fine in others.

Let the contest begin. I was in the first group of under 1500cc production cars. Being inexperienced I was very cautious and managed to stay out of trouble and finished in the middle of the pack. A couple of cars slid off the course and were dnf because they couldn't get enough traction to re-enter the race. In another race for the over 1500cc production cars an XK120 Coupe slid off the course on a left hand corner. Because he was in a turn he started rotating in a spin immediately and continued to spin in slow motion all the way across the lake. We watched in amazement as the driver tried brakes, reverse lock of steering, blips of throttle, all to no avail. He coasted to a stop probably 100 yards from the other shore.

The next year, 1955, Sandy Downs drove up with me and raced. This year there was maybe a foot of snow on the lake. The organizers simply plowed out the course and left snow banks on each side. The snow freezing into the surface provided some traction and the snow banks on the side stopped spins before they got out of control. It was really a fun event and I would do it again anytime.

A Jet Car? Are you kidding?

Sometime around 1954 or '55 we made contact with General Griswold from Offutt AFB and on several occasions the club got invited to put on a gymkhana or trials out at the base. Gen. Griswold was instrumental in creating a hobby shop on the base for the servicemen and he participated with his own project. He had obtained an Indy car chassis from someone in Chicago I believe. Then he scrounged a small jet engine from lord knows where (ha, ha). Over a year or more he built up a jet powered sports car that could be driven on the roads. On one of the occasions when we had an event on the base, the club members met in Millard (I think) and paraded out to the base. Low and behold, who showed up but the General! In his jet car! In Millard! I remember I was the first car behind him driving back to the base. His exhaust pipe was about 8' in diameter and was canted upwards so as not to raise dust from the road. As he would accelerate, we saw the exhaust vapors rising 10-20 feet behind him. I don't know what ever happened to the car, it may still be there, but I had to tell the story.

Lake Garnett Kansas

I raced twice at Lake Garnett in 1960 and 1962. On the first trip I made a reservation by phone at the downtown hotel. This was a very small western town in the farmlands. When we arrived, the hotel was a small, two story brick building with maybe 10 or 12 rooms. We got upstairs to find one bathroom down the hall for all the guests; although, we did have a wash bowl and pitcher of water on the dresser like you saw in the western movies of the time. It was July and there was no air-conditioning. The hot water radiator under the one window had a 1" rope tied to it to throw out in case of a fire. What a cute, charming place!

The race course was the road around the lake in the city park. Being a city park there were many shade trees and green grass around the course; a beautiful setting. In 1962 it was a National Race and drew a great many top drivers from around the country; like Carroll Shelby, Jim Kimberly, and many others. There were three Ferrari 250 GTO's charging around nose to tail and growling like only Ferrari's can. They are one of my all time favorite cars.

Significant events in which I participated:

Cars Driven and Raced:

MG TD, MG TF; Triumph TR-2; Elva Mk II; Alfa Romeo Guilia.

1992 to 2010, I have been driving a quasar blue Corvette Coupe that I purchased new. It's a wonderful automobile with 140,000 miles. In April 2008 the Western States Corvette Council held a track day at the SCCA Thunderhill Raceway near Willows, CA. There were 60+ Corvettes running in groups of 12. I thought with all my experience I would show the young punks how to drive fast. Yea, right! It didn't exactly work out that way however. At 78 years of age, my reflexes, vision, and driving skills were not like they used to be. It was great fun and brought back many wonderful memories.

Flying

I took up flying in 1985 when I bought an IFR Piper Tomahawk on New Years Day. Hired an instructor and learned to fly around the San Fernando Valley and Southern California. This was a great plane to learn in and I flew it to Alaska, Mexico, and back to Oklahoma and Texas. It cruised about 125 mph and got good gas mileage. After about ten years with that plane I got the itch to go fast. The certified aircraft that could go fast were much larger, heavier, and very expensive. I was already a member of the EAA (Experimental Aircraft Association) and narrowed my choices down to either a composite Lancair 235 or a Van's RV-6 constructed in aluminum. The RV-6 kit came in three huge crates of materials. I had to learn many new skills including riveting sheet metal.

I had retired from Kaiser Permanente in December 1994 and started construction in the spring of 1996. It took 34 months of working five to six hours a day, every day. The test flight in January 1999 went off without a hitch from Camarillo CA. airport. This airplane has an empty weight of 1,014 lbs. with a 180 horsepower engine, and constant speed propeller. The pounds per horsepower figured out to 5.63. I can reach 100 mph on take-off in about 250 feet and climb at over 2,000'/min. Top speed now is 215 mph after a few aerodynamic modifications. I can cruise between 190 and 200 mph and get 24 mpg fuel consumption.

It didn't take long to hook-up with a bunch of other pilots who had formed together to hold amateur air races in Nevada and Utah. A typical race was for ten or twelve airplanes with similar performance capabilities. After take-off the race group would form up in a straight line off the wings of a starter plane. The group would then fly at 150mph over the timer on the ground and the starter would pull up and yell GO! The courses were generally about 100 to 125 miles long. Sometimes one circuit around landmarks such as airport towers, VOR navigation towers or other distinct landmarks and sometimes multiple times around a shorter course. The first one to dive across the finish line was the winner.

This kind of racing was more exciting than sports cars (in my opinion) because the speeds were much faster, and the risks involved were potentially fatal if you made a mistake.

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