The Justice Brothers

The Justice Brothers

The Justice Brothers were born in the tiny eastern Kansas town of Paola, into a family of six children. Lawrence Milton, known as “Zeke,” was born on March 12 1920 and youngest brother, Edward Ray, arrived fifteen months later on June 12 1921. Growing up, the boys and their older brother Gus, born in 1916, were obsessed with automobiles and speed. First the brothers stripped down an old Whippet before they built their own midget racer. The brothers terrorized the local residents and probably themselves with their high speed exploits in their home-built machines.

It seemed inevitable that the Justice Brothers would have to head to California to pursue their speed dreams. First Ed drove west on Route 66 in his Ford sedan and soon found work in the flight test department of Douglas Aircraft in Santa Monica. Before long, Ed sent word home to Kansas that he had found Zeke a job working in millionaire playboy Joel Thorne’s Burbank race car shop.  Unfortunately, Gus had suffered crippling injuries in a 1936 automobile accident and remained in Paola.

When World War Two came, Ed enlisted as an aircraft mechanic with the Eighth Army Air Force stationed in England, while Zeke worked during the war at Thorne Engineering building precision aircraft parts. The foreman of the Thorne Engineering shop was none other than Frank Kurtis, who later hired Zeke as his first employee when he struck out on his own to build race cars. 

Ed later also joined Kurtis-Kraft Inc. and the brothers helped construct many of the nearly 500 midget race cars K-K built during the post-war midget racing boom.  Some of which were sold as kits, and Frank Kurtis was too busy to take on repair jobs, so the enterprising pair opened Justice Brothers Race Car Repair and Fabrication in Glendale California to assemble Kurtis-Kraft midget kits and repair damaged Kurtis-Kraft race cars in their off hours.  

Once while Frank Kurtis was out of town on business, Ed convinced Zeke to help him incorporate standard aircraft fasteners for the first time on a midget race car being built by Kurtis for NMARHOF member “Bullet” Joe Garson. The pair attached the body panels using Dzus spring-loaded quarter -turn fasteners, and while Frank Kurtis was reportedly unhappy at first, the Justices sold him on their innovation which became the standard in race car fabrication.  

The brothers somehow found the time to build their own midget race car, and after just one outing at the famed Gilmore Stadium, sold the car for a $2,500 profit, which they used to invest in a Florida-based oil business.  Justice Brothers Inc. went on to sponsor the Kurtis-built 1950 Indianapolis 500 winner driven by Johnnie Parsons, Red Byron, the first NASCAR champion in 1949, and were the first sponsors of drag racing legend “Big Daddy” Don Garlits. 

Although we lost Gus in 1983, Zeke in 2001 and Ed in 2008, the Justice Brothers Inc. automotive chemicals company continues to grow under the leadership of Ed’s son, Ed Justice Junior, who is also a noted motorsports photographer, historian, broadcaster and publisher.

George Bignotti 

A smiling George Bignotti in 1962 

Photo courtesy of the

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Scholarship

 Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

Today we pay tribute to National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame inductee George Bignotti, another example of a great racer who started their storied career in the sport of auto racing in midget racing.  

George born in San Mateo California in 1916 was the youngest of three brothers all of whom were auto racing mechanics.  In 1946, in partnership with his brother Al, George fielded a car powered by a Ford V8-60 engine in the Bay Cities Racing Association (BCRA) for Ed Normi.

The following season, the brothers bought a second midget and added 1946 BCRA champion Fred Agabashian to their team. Agabashian had a ride in the 1947 Indianapolis 500-mile race and thus missed many races, and was listed in 22^nd place in the 1947 BCRA points when he returned in June.

Through a series of consistent finishes Agabashian with George and Al turning the wrenches on the #108 midget won the 1947 BCRA drivers’ championship by 92 points. When Agabashian returned to the Bay Area after the 1948 Indianapolis 500-mile race, George Bignotti had the new Kurtis-Kraft Ford V-8 60 powered “Burgermeister Special” #154 ready for Fred.

Late in the season, Agabashian’s leading competitor, Jerry Piper broke his arm in a crash and at the end of the season the team of Bignotti and Agabashian were champions - Agabashian with his third consecutive title and Bignotti his second.

For 1949, Piper and Agabashian started the BCRA season as teammates for George Bignotti. Agabashian set quick time on three occasions during the 8-race series and eventually lowered the track record to an amazing 8.22 seconds. Fred won the penultimate feature race, but Hayward’s Bob Sweikert won the inaugural BCRA indoor championship. 

During the 1949 season George became a top driver in the BCRA’s hardtop division, and in 1951 he won the BCRA midget title for a third time with Johnny Boyd.   

For the 1954 Indianapolis ‘500’ Fred Agabashian was set to drive the ‘Merz Engineering Special’ a brand new Kurtis Kraft 500C roadster with 270-cubic inches of Offenhauser power tilted 36 degrees. The car arrived late, and Fred called to ask his friend and former car owner Bignotti to come to Indianapolis and help out the short-handed Merz crew.

That visit marked the beginning of Bignotti’s magical 29-year career at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  

In 1956 George teamed with Bob Bowes of the Bowes Seal Fast Company to field an entry for Johnny Boyd and in 1957 Agabashian teamed with Johnny Boyd in a pair of new Kurtis-Kraft 500G models. At the end of the 1958 season, George won his USAC first USAC championship race at Sacramento with driver Jud Larson.

In 1960, Bignotti teamed with a young Texan named A J Foyt and together they won four USAC races and the USAC championship, the first of their four USAC championships. In 1961 George the won the first of a pair of Indianapolis 500-mile race wins with Foyt.

Before he retired at the end of the 1983 racing season, Bignotti won seven USAC national championships and won the Indianapolis 500-mile race seven times. Bignotti passed away at age 97 in 2013. The National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame is proud to count George Bignotti as one our inductees.    

IUPUI University Library Center for Digital Scholarship Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

Bob Marshman

2018 NMARHoF inductee

George Robert “Bobby” Marshman was born on September 24, 1936 in Pottstown Pennsylvania into a racing family, as the son of George Marshman who reigned as the 1949 American Automobile Association (AAA) East Coast Midget series champion and later became the promoter of Hatfield Speedway.

At age 19 Bobby started his racing career with the United Racing Club in a sprint car and was the club’s 1955 Rookie of the Year then the following season he was eighth in URC points in the Ellis Brothers Dodge.  After he finished second in URC points in 1957 though with no wins, in 1958 Bobby began his midget racing career with the American Race Drivers Club (ARDC). 

At just 23 years of age, Bobby drove for the powerful Harry Hespell 4-car team with multi-time ARDC champions Ed “Dutch” Schaffer and Len Duncan and Wayne Doerstler and wound up third in 1958 points in that very competitive series. Bobby started his record of success at the big Trenton New Jersey one-mile track as he won a 25-mile ARDC feature on August 3, 1958.  Marshman branched out into USAC (United States Auto Club) competition in the 1959 season still with the Hespell team teamed with Duncan, Al Herman, and Don Allison. 

Bobby started his 1960 season with a win in a 35 lap three quarter midget race on the 1/10 track inside the Island Garden on January 3, then at the end of February he scored a stock car win inside the Teaneck New Jersey Armory. Marshman drove for Bruce Homeyer’s ‘Konstant Hot’ team in 1960 and won the 300-mile ARDC midget race held at Trenton on July 24, 1960.  Bobby led the final 109 laps and finished in 3 hours 8 minutes, yet he finished only 25 seconds ahead of Chuck Arnold.

At the 1961 Indianapolis ‘500,’ Marshman was the youngest driver in the field as he started last in Eph Hoover’s ‘Hoover Motor Express Special.’ With just five days of practice, he finished the race in seventh place and shared the Rookie of the Year award with Parnelli Jones.

Bobby’s career record includes eight ARDC feature wins and four USAC feature wins, and he excelled in long-distance midget races, particularly, as he won the 250-mile USAC/ARDC at Trenton on July 2, 1961.  Due to the sweltering heat Bob gave way to relief driver Jimmie Davis after 186 laps but the pair still finished at an average speed of over 93 miles per hour (MPH). 

Marshman’s midget schedule slowed down in 1962 onward as he became a regular on the USAC championship car circuit – in 1962 he was the third fastest qualifier at Indianapolis and finished fifth in championship points. On September 16, 1962 Marshman won the USAC sanctioned 100-mile midget in a record time of one hour and 1.48 seconds. 

As Bob’s fame began to spread he got more opportunities to display his skills – he won the shortened 1962 Bobby Ball Memorial race for dirt championship cars at the Arizona State Fairgrounds in Lindsay Hopkins’ Kuzma Offenhauser,  a victory in USAC Sprint Car competition 1963 at the Terre Haute Action Track for Wally Meskowski,  and in 1964 driving Don White’s Zecol-Lubaid Ford stock car, Bobby won the   Allen Crowe Memorial raceat the Illinois state fairgrounds without a pit stop.

In 1964, his tenth season of racing Bobby qualified second at the Indianapolis ‘500’ and led 33 laps, but sadly one of racing’s brightest stars passed away on December 5. 1964, just a week after a fiery crash during a tire test at the Phoenix International Raceway at just 28 years old.

Billy Garrett

William J. "Billy" Garrett was a second-generation midget racer who debuted alongside his father, Johnny, in United Racing Association (URA) midget competition in 1952.  Billy, born in 1933 in Illinois and a welder by trade had a rough start in midgets during the 1952 season but his driving skills improved quickly and the following year was considered one of the “leading lights of the URA” along with Don Cameron, Johnny Moorhouse and Hal Minyard.

Billy won his first feature at Culver City Speedway on April 10 1954 driving Ben Humke’s Ford V-8 60 powered midget a year after his father’s passing in a “big car” crash at Clovis California.  Garrett won his third feature race of the 1954 season on September 25 at Culver City and clinched his first URA driver’s championship.


Early in the 1955 season Billy trailed Jack Jordan in the URA point chase until the season’s third race, but after Garrett won that 30-lap main at Gardena Stadium he never relinquished his points lead and clinched his second consecutive URA title at Orange Show Speedway in mid-September.

In 1956 Billy headed back east to race with the United States Auto Club (USAC), was the youngest driver in that year’s Indianapolis ‘500’ and appeared in nine 1956 USAC championship races driving the Greenman/Casale entry. The highlight of Billy’s 1957 USAC season came in April when he won the 100-mile midget race at the Arizona State Fairgrounds mile in record time.

Billy drove second generation Oklahoma oil magnate Harry Allen "H.A" Chapman’s year-old dark blue Kurtis-Kraft 500 'G' "laydown" roadster in the Indianapolis 500-mile race.  Chapman an amateur road racer who also owned a home in Tucson Arizona, had first entered AAA championship racing in the 1950 season with NMARHoF member Bill Schindler as  his driver.


Chapman proved to have an eye for talent as through the years, other Chapman drivers included Hall of Famers Tony Bettenhausen and Johnny Thomson and Chapman's chief mechanic was the wily veteran Art Sims.  


in 1958 Though Dick Rathman was entered as the driver of the 'Chapman Special,' he jumped to the new Lee Elkins owned Watson roadster, and after multiple driver changes, Billy wound up in the seat of the 'Chapman Special' and qualified 15th for the 33-car field. On Memorial Day, as a sophomore driver Billy miraculously avoided the first lap  turn three carnage started by Rathman that clamed the life of Pat O'Connor, but the car retired on lap 80 with a broken camshaft gear. 


A week later, after a strong second place qualifying effort, while he was running in fourth place on lap 54 of the 'Rex Mays Classic' at Milwaukee's State Fair Park, the Offenhauser engine in the Chapman Special blew up and Billy's car spun hard backwards into the third turn wall.


Billy suffered severe head and chest injuries, was listed in critical condition for a month and remained unconscious over two months. When he awoke, the 25-year old driver learned that he was permanently partially paralyzed.

Even after he could no longer drive racing cars, Garrett always remained close to the sport he loved and he sold racing safety equipment. Later in life, Billy confined full-time to a wheelchair was one of the beneficiaries of the annual ‘Gilmore Roars Again’ party until his passing in 1999. We are proud that URA 2-time champion Billy Garrett is a member of the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame.  

Bryan Clauson

2018 NMARHOF Inductee

Third generation racer Bryan "BC" Clauson won a quarter midget national championship and two California state championships before the Clauson family moved to Indiana to further his racing career. At the age of sixteen, Bryan started his first United States Auto Club (USAC) race in June 2005 and finished third. In October 2005, Bryan became the youngest driver ever to capture his first USAC national midget feature victory at Columbus Motor Speedway.

Clauson moved to ARCA and NASCAR stock car racing with Chip Ganassi’s team for several seasons before he returned to USAC open-wheel competition with a vengeance racing out of his adopted hometown of Noblesville Indiana.

Bryan scored wins at all the historic midget racing events – he was the two-time champion of the Turkey Night Grand Prix as won the 2009 and 2010 events held at the ½-mile paved Irwindale Speedway, as well as the 58^th running of the historic ‘Hut Hundred’ in 2010. Clauson captured the Belleville Nationals title three times in 2009, 2010 and 2015, and the USAC Eldora 4-Crown Nationals midget crown in 2014, the same year that he reigned as the champion of the Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa Oklahoma. 

Clauson is the sixth driver to score 100 USAC feature wins and his career record of 112 USAC wins is sixth all-time behind Rich Vogler, A.J. Foyt, Ron “Sleepy” Tripp, Mel Kenyon and Dave Darland, and his total of 38 USAC national midget victories places him seventh overall with two USAC national midget titles back-to-back in 2010 and 2011.

Bryan also won three Indiana Midget Week titles, back-to-back USAC national sprint car championships in 2012 and 2013 and was the USAC National Drivers Championship winner three consecutive years in 2010, 2011 and 2012 based on points he accumulated in all three USAC national series.

Bryan set a personal goal of competing in 200 races during the 2016 season, but he lost his life in a crash as he led the 2016 Belleville Nationals. For his racing accomplishments and legacy of organ donation, we are proud to induct Bryan Clauson into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame.

Mario Andretti

2018 NMARHoF Inductee

In 1961, young Italian immigrant Mario Andretti began his open wheel racing career in a three-quarter midget purchased from Bobby Marshman with the American Three-Quarter Midget Racing Association, then he scored his first of four ATQMRA wins with a 100-lap race win at Teaneck New Jersey in 1962. In 1963, Mario graduated to full-size midgets in his first race at Danbury Connecticut with the American Race Drivers Club (ARDC) with such legendary drivers as Len Duncan, and Ed “Dutch” Schaefer.

On Labor Day 1963, at 23 years of age Andretti accomplished the near-impossible as he won three midgets features in one day in a single car at two different tracks. In the afternoon program at the fast 5/8-mile Flemington Speedway in New Jersey Mario scored a “clean sweep” he set fast time in qualifying, won his heat race and scored the feature win.

The Mataka Brothers team then loaded up and towed west to Pennsylvania’s 1/3-mile Hatfield Speedway for the evening’s twin feature program. In the first race, Mario again scored a “clean sweep,” then won his third feature of the day with a victory in the make-up race from an earlier rain out. In one day, Mario scored three of his five career ARDC feature wins and from that day on, Mario Andretti was bound for superstardom.

Besides a NASCAR midget win and a United States Auto Club (USAC) midget win in Berlin Michigan in 1966 Mario’s record includes Rookie of the Year honors at the 1965 Indianapolis ‘500,’ victory in the 1967 Daytona 500-mile stock car race, the 1969 Indianapolis ‘500,’ and the 1978 Formula One World Driving Championship. 

Mario’s career record also includes three Sebring 12-hour race victories, four IndyCar championships with wins in each of four decades, Driver of the Year honors in three different decades and he was named the Associated Press Driver of the Century in 1999.

As a driver who started his illustrious open-wheel career in midgets, we are proud to welcome Mario Andretti into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame.