{"id":496783,"date":"2017-07-19T11:54:26","date_gmt":"2017-07-19T18:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=48526"},"modified":"2024-02-29T15:00:47","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T15:00:47","slug":"bill-pollack-1925-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/bill-pollack-1925-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Pollack (1925\u20132017)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another sports car racing pioneer has left us as Bill Pollack has passed away just nine days after marking his 92<sup>nd<\/sup> birthday. After serving as a B-26 bomber pilot in WWII, Pollack became a key figure in the post-war California sports car culture, and began racing in 1950. He won the Pebble Beach Cup in 1951 and the Del Monte Trophy in 1952 with a Cadillac-Allard J2 owned by Tom Carstens, and other victories came his way at venues such as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Golden_Gate_Park\">Golden Gate Park<\/a> (above), <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Torrey_Pines,_San_Diego\">Torrey Pines<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stockton,_California\">Stockton<\/a>, Madera, Paramount Ranch, Carrell Speedway, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Willow_Springs,_Kern_County,_California\">Willow Springs<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Palm_Springs\">Palm Springs<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Santa_Barbara,_California\">Santa Barbara<\/a> and Laguna Seca, so that he won a dozen of the 60 races he started during the nine years he raced.<\/p>\n<p>On those legendary tracks Pollack raced against legendary men as well, stars like Phil Hill, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Ernie McAfee, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoweek.com\/article\/20120511\/carnews\/120519987\">Carroll Shelb<\/a>y, John von Neumann, John Fitch, Ken Miles and Lance Reventlow. He was also acquainted with a number of part-time racers from the Hollywood entertainment industry, stars like Steve McQueen, James Dean, Donald O&#8217;Connor and Mel Torm\u00e9.<\/p>\n<p>He is credited with designing the challenging <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rosamond,_California\">Willow Springs Raceway in California<\/a>\u2019s high desert, and his book, <em>Red Wheels and White Sidewalls: Confessions of an Allard Racer,<\/em> published by Brown Fox Books in 2004, tells most of his story.<\/p>\n<p>Because he realized that the decade of the 1950s was a special time for racing, Pollack and compatriots <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoweek.com\/article\/20080828\/free\/808289987\">Phil Hill<\/a> and Art Evans founded the Fabulous Fifties Sports Car Club to ensure that that history would not be forgotten. Not being a fan of organizations, however, he told one and all that it wasn\u2019t really a car club and its members were not really members.<\/p>\n<p>To his family and many friends in and out of the sport, <em>Vintage Racecar <\/em>extends its deepest sympathies.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another sports car racing pioneer has left us as Bill Pollack has passed away just nine days after marking his 92nd birthday. After serving as a B-26 bomber pilot in WWII, Pollack became a key figure in the post-war California sports car culture, and began racing in 1950. He won the Pebble Beach Cup in 1951 and the Del Monte Trophy in 1952 with a Cadillac-Allard J2 owned by Tom Carstens, and other victories came his way at venues such [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":765983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,18114,18330],"tags":[17152,18435,18107,16791],"class_list":["post-496783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-culture","category-people","category-profiles-car-culture","tag-car-culture","tag-people","tag-people-profiles","tag-profiles"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bill Pollack (1925\u20132017)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/bill-pollack-1925-2017\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bill Pollack (1925\u20132017)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Another sports car racing pioneer has left us as Bill Pollack has passed away just nine days after marking his 92nd birthday. After serving as a B-26 bomber pilot in WWII, Pollack became a key figure in the post-war California sports car culture, and began racing in 1950. 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