Mystery Bandini: It’s the Readers, not the Car!

In the end it is all about our fantastic readers, not the Bandini. First, we heard from José Ramón Arce, who lives in Spain. José seemed to know his stuff, and wrote in very good English. In a well reasoned and well reseached opinion, José believes that the mystery car is the one entered at Watkins Glen in 1953 by Jim Pauley. As can be read in last week’s VeloceToday, research on our part backed that assertion up, although we could not find other photos which would have verified this. Then we heard from Walt Carroll, who had a completely different take on our mystery Bandini. So we engaged both to tell us more about themselves.

We asked José how he came to know so much about the little ones. “I´m a slot car model maker and most of my ‘electrical mini models’ are from the fifties and sixties. Clients delegate to me the type of decoration,therefore I always choose the American races theme because their cars are so colorful and original. My sources of information are the books that everybody knows, and I´ve collected thousands of photos for over 15 years. I´ve seen all the youtube, vimeo and ‘Tam´s old race car site.’ videos. I´ve scrutinized fantastic websites such as virhistory.com. I´ve written emails and made phone calls to race car drivers of that era to properly identify a license plate, a blurred sponsor, or any other details to create the perfect replica model.”

But then….along comes Walt

Then along came an email from Walt Carroll, who wrote that the car was photographed not in Watkins Glen but Fayetteville N.C. in 1957. Interesting but no leads; how do we confirm? A few days later Walt wrote again, with more details. Walt said the driver and owner, seen at the far right in the photo, was Wayne Chapman, and the photo was taken in front of Wayne’s house in Fayetteville in 1957 shortly after he purchased the car. With that lead, we found references to Wayne Chapman driving a Bandini in racing sports cars.com, and in Willem Oosthoek excellent book, Sports Car Racing in the South, 1957-1958.

So the statistics also backed up Walt’s assertion.

So how did Walt come to this conclusion? He was there. In the mid-1950s, Walt Carroll’s father was stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C., which is near Fayetteville N.C. In 1957, eighteen-year-old Walt bought a MG TD, but needed some help maintaining the car. “Max Stamps, the local radio station DJ owned a Jag XK120, and pointed me in the direction of Wayne Chapman’s garage, which became a hangout when I wasn’t pumping gas at the base PX.”

And there he found the Bandini, with a Braje modified Crosley engine. “It was the focal point of Wayne’s garage and Wayne entered it the Chimney Rock, N.C. hillclimb.”

This just whetted Walt’s interest and in August of 1957, he traveled to Virginia International Raceway Inaugural. “I watched Carroll Shelby in the 450 S Maseratis and my interest in sports car racing increased.”

The Army called again and the family moved to Florida. Walt became involved with real estate, restoring houses, taking over bank foreclosures, and when his father died suddenly, he began to build new homes. This business supported Walt’s continuing interest in motorsports. “Inspired by an old Road & Track road test article, I traded the MG for a ’54 Porsche Super Coupe with its roller bearing crankshaft which had been wrecked, then restored by a wealthy young priest. The priest then bought a new Carrera coupe, but his Bishop forced him to get rid of it! He sold the Carrera to me at a super low price and since then I have acquired a lot more cars over the years.”

Wayne Chapman’s Competiton Record
Bandini
October 10, 1957 New Smyrna Beach, 7th in class, 29th overall Sports
June 16, 1957 Malcom McKinnon DNF
October 27, VIR, DNF

1958
October 26, Dothan, prelim 1st,
October 26, Dothan, SCCA Reg 1st in class

Stanguellini
June 5 1960, Marlboro, 3rd
September 11, 1960, Marlboro, 2nd

*The photo of Walt Carroll with the Ferrari was taken during the 2nd Cocoa-Titusville Sports Car Races in Florida, on the weekend of Feb 14-15, 1959. It was a Regional organized by the Central Florida Region of the SCCA, with the Indian River Shrine Club, at the local airport.

The car shown is the #96 Ferrari 250GT TdF raced by George Arents of NART fame. Its finish was not reported in the only source that covered this event, the Miami News. None of the car magazines ever did.. Joe Sheppard [Porsche 550RS] won the Feature over David Lane [Maserati 200SI] and Lucky Casner [Ferrari 500TR]. Other participants were Jim Hunt [Ferrari 250TR], Ed Rahal [Arnolt/Chevy] and Canadian Bill Sadler [Sadler Mk 3/ Chevy].

I have the entry list and a number of color photos [taken by Bob Bellows, Benita Lane and Jeff Allison]. It is a shame the event was never covered by the national press. Willem Oosthoek