This EMA solarized image was originally exposed as Black&White half a century ago in southern California.  The place was the 2.6-mile Palm Springs airport sports car road race course laid out on the service roads and runways of an air field built in 1939 by the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers as a safeguard inland base in case Europe’s war found its way to American shores.  A military spec runway 6,000 feet long would be length enough to land anything flying at the time, even if shot full of holes and no brakes.  But the only foreign combat ever to come to Palm Springs was from Hollywood.  The U.S. government leased the strip to the city of Palm Springs, and it has been the desert spa’s airport ever since.

The picture shows “Big Jack” McAfee at the wheel of John Edgar’s 340 Ferrari America, on his way to winning the 24-lap Palm Springs Cup on March 22, 1953.  McAfee had won the 12-lap preliminary on Saturday.  In Sunday’s Cup race he jumped to the lead right off, while his nemeses, Bill Stroppe, stalled his American-made brute-power Kurtis-Mercury on the grid.  In 3 laps Bill caught up to Jack and they fought a battle supreme for 13 more, until the V-8 soured and Stroppe parked it.  In this, its first road race, even though a DNF, the Frank Kurtis-designed machine looked promising.  The red cars from Maranello finished 1-2-3.

That same spring weekend at Palm Spring, the other McAfee, Ernie, the sports car engineer/tuner and no relation to Jack, did his first race as driver.  Ernie won Saturday’s Over 1500cc Production 8-lap event in a Ferrari, beating two Jag XK-120s to the checkered waved that weekend by honorary starter Ralph De Palma.  Another Indy 500 legend present that weekend was Sam Hanks, who drove a 2-lap exhibition in the Grant Piston Rings Special destined for the Indy 500, clocking 161.57 mph on the long Palm Springs “Bomber Run” straight.

John von Neumann easily won the 19-lap Desert Trophy event for under 1500cc cars in his Le Mans Porsche. 

Notes on Jack McAfee’s winning Ferrari seen above in

Edgar Motorsport Archive photograph Number

EMA-1953.PSM-1

The March 1953 Palm Springs Cup winner, Jack McAfee, was driving John Edgar’s #98 4.1-liter Ferrari 340 “America” Barchetta (s/n 0032 MT).  This 340 was originally a 1950 factory 275 Sport, raced in 1951’s Mille Miglia (Alberto Ascari/Senesio Nicolini) where it was a DNF.  Transformed into a 340, it then placed 8th at Le Mans in 1951 (Chinetti/Lucas), and 1st at Senigallia (Gigi Villoresi), before being shown at Turin with modified body and extra chrome around grill. In June 1952 Ferrari sold it to Henry Manney, who brought it to the U.S. and sold it to Edgar later that same year.  I rode in it, my father at the wheel, doing something like 140 on the old Cahuenga Pass in Hollywood, near Ernie McAfee’s shop.  And my father and brother Jack drove the car south into Mexico to pre-run the Carerra Panamericana route.  They got as far as Mexico City before driver fatigue and cantina fever halted their trek. This was one hell of a road car, and one of the prettiest Barchettas ever to sport a racing number.