AAA National Championship

[webby]

Here is a video that Rick Wasilko had uploaded to my other website (sofast.tv) it shows some clips of the AAA National Championship 100 Mile Auto Races that were held at Centennial Horse Track in Colorado. Not sure if these are from the 1951 or 1952 race. (RIP Rick! He's still sharing his racing memories!)

YouTube - AAA National Championship 1952

[Mitch G.]

Hard to tell, in 51' Tony Bettenhausen sat on the pole for the Centennial race in the "Bellenger Spl". A dark blue Kurtis with gold leaf number 99, the same car that won the Indy 500 of that year, and Tony won the race that day in Denver. In 52 Bill Vukovich won the pole, and the race, in Agajanian's #98 Kuzma built car, also the same car that had won the Indianapolis 500 in 1952. For two years in a row the Denver crowd saw the Indy 500 winning car show up and win the Denver AAA Champ car race. The films are too faded to really tell what year it was. In 1952 Johnny Mauro got his Ferrari F1 car upside down trying to qualify it on the dirt. In 1952 the race was held on September 28, and in 51' it was on Sept. 23rd.