Tom Pistone - He's Still The Tiger

In stock car racing's formative years in the '50s, drivers came from diverse backgrounds. Some were former moonshiners, others were longtime mechanics with a jones for speed, and others were Indy Car drivers. But only one was a fruit and vegetable peddler from Chicago who got into racing almost by accident and found his first success driving around a football field. "Tiger" Tom Pistone's story can sometimes seem so far-fetched it could only happen in the movies, but it's all very true, and best of all, he's still adding to his legend to this day.

"In 1950, I was a fruit and vegetable peddler in Chicago with my father," Pistone (pronounced with a hard "e" at the end) explains of his introduction to stock car racing. "My friend told me about these car races they were having at Soldier Field. We didn't have any money, so we snuck in and watched the races. The very next day we scraped up enough and managed to buy a car. We fixed it up, took it to Soldier Field, and started racing. It was that simple back then, but we didn't know anything about race cars or how to set them up to get them to turn around the corners."

Amazingly, during the '40s and '50s, Chicago's Soldier Field, home of the NFL Bears, was a big-time racing venue for Midget and stock car racing. The track itself was only 11/44 mile. The stadium's concrete wall formed the outside wall, and a barrier was erected on the inside of the racing surface to keep racers out of the football infield. At the time, the races were promoted by brothers Andy and Vince Granatelli, who, according to Pistone, made sure there was an action-packed show every time the cars took the track. Andy Granatelli went on to become one of the most famous men in both stock car and Indy Car racing, and as the owner of STP, began the company's longtime association with Richard Petty. But in the '50s he was a gas station owner just getting his feet wet in the world of motorsports.

"Andy and Vince Granatelli put on the races, but I didn't realize they were such showmen," Pistone says. "Like I said, early on I didn't know anything about setting up a car, and when Andy came over and offered to help me with my car, I said sure. Well, next thing I knew, three guys were standing on the bumper and chaining the left side of the rear axle to the chassis. And then they put me in the pole position.

"The other thing I didn't know was Andy had four or five guys on the payroll, and they would do nothing but crash other cars. When you got into the corner, those guys would tap the left rear of your car and wreck you. With the axle chained down, when they did it to me, my car flipped end over end. I never knew what happened. I hate to say it, but people always like to see wrecks, and Granatelli made sure they got 'em."

That wasn't the end of the tricks Granatelli had up his sleeve to provide exciting racing. You might think four or five racers whose sole purpose on the track is to create wrecks is a bit much, but they had plenty to work with. Pistone says in those days Granatelli would line up the race cars three-abreast, and several dozen cars would all squeeze onto the little 11/44-mile bullring. According to Pistone, he also had a different set of drivers on the payroll ordered to make sure the racing was as exciting as the wrecks.

The drivers would race the local hotshots bumper-to-bumper and then back off to allow a local driver to win. Pistone says one of these drivers was none other than Jim Rathman, who would go on to win the 1960 Indy 500.

"Andy not only made sure there were accidents, he also staged a lot of the racing," Pistone says. "He made sure it was always very exciting. These guys would be paid to run Second. For those guys like Rathman, the race was ran to the white flag, not the checkered.

"I remember I was winning quite a few races and starting to think I was really something when Rathman came up to me one day and said, 'Tom, let me tell you something. You ain't been winning those races. We've been backing off for you.' Then he said, 'Don't let it go to your head.' That was a real eye-opener, but we became the best of friends. Jim Rathman really educated me about racing."

Despite-or maybe because of-the shenanigans, the racing at Soldier Field was immensely popular. Pistone says the stadium regularly drew crowds between 35,000 and 50,000, and the official record crowd for an event at the facility was 89,560. One of Granatelli's ideas was to make the first event of the season a benevolence race to benefit the local police force. This would draw big crowds of race fans and people more interested in supporting the police department. Granatelli seized the chance to give them the show of their lives and draw them back for more the rest of the season.

Even though the atmosphere may have been a bit circus-like, Pistone quickly caught on to the craft of driving a race car and won the track championship in 1954. He did it again the following year in a car owned by Granatelli, a man Pistone now calls one of his very best friends. In all, he won the Soldier Field track championship five times. He also began racing and winning at other racetracks, notably Rockford (Illinois), where Granatelli also promoted races.