An Open-Cockpit/Open-Wheel and Dirt-Track Modified Stock Car Racing car owner with an unblemished record of integrity and professionalism, Ken Brenn Sr. (July 4, 1927-January 13, 2025) was involved in many areas of auto racing. But win or lose, the efforts of the Warren, New Jersey, resident were always first class and he treated everyone with gentlemanly courtesy and respect.
Brenn’s stellar Midget history shows a long association (1954-1972) with the American Racing Driver’s Club. Listed on its Honor Roll as a Lifetime Member, he was a five-time champion car owner with fellow EMPA Hall of Fame members Len Duncan (1963-1964) and Johnny Coy Sr. (1968-1969 & 1971) handling his immaculate No. 24s. And the construction company owner and former Warren mayor was also a two-time (1969-1970) ARDC president.
But Brenn didn’t just race with ARDC as he took his Midgets far and wide in search of competition and they raced in such iconic events as the “Turkey Night Grand Prix” at the old legendary half-mile Ascot Park Speedway in Gardena, California; a place where in 1967 two-time (1963 and 1965) Formula 1 World Champion Jim Clark got to know more about Midget Racing as a guest in the Brenn pit.
And at one point he and his longtime mechanic Dick Briggs fielded four Midgets that were each capable of winning.
Historians figure Brenn provided rides for over 75 top drivers, including EMPA Hall of Famers Larry Dickson, Jan Opperman, Jiggs Peters, Mitch Smith and Ray Tilley, plus others like Don Branson, Bert Brooks, Ernie McCoy, Jimmy Caruthers, Gary Bettenhausen, Bobby Unser and Jimmy Kirk. And EMPA Hall of Famer Wally Dallenbach Sr. credits his rides in Brenn’s Midget, Sprint and Championships Cars as the big boost that got him to the Indianapolis 500.
But two drivers – Indy 500 winners Rodger Ward (1959 & 1962) and fellow EMPA Hall of Famer Mark Donohue (1972) – had the unusual distinction of winning races in Ken Brenn Racing Midgets on the 1.5-mile road-course in Lime Rock, Connecticut.
Ward’s victory in a USAC Road Racing Championship Formula Libre event came on July 25, 1959, when he beat some of the top Formula and Sports Car drivers with Brenn’s 12-year-old Offy Midget that made national headlines. And this race and victory, which is still spoken of in consequential terms today, made a major impact on the creation of Professional Sports Car Racing in this country.
While Donohue – who went on to have great success in world-class Sports Car competition – used Brenn’s rear-engined Offy-powered Midget in July 1963 to win his first professional race; an Open Competition event.
As a USAC Midget owner, Brenn also fielded winning rides for: Peters in a 250-mile event at the old 1-mile-asphalt Trenton (NJ) International Speedway in 1959, the longest race in USAC Midget history; Dickson at Nazareth (PA) and Manzanita (AZ) Speedways in 1966; Branson at the Hut Hundred at the Terre Haute (IN) Action Track in 1966; and, Kirk in a 100-lap race at the old Flemington (NJ) Speedway in 1971.
But there is also this interesting side note to Brenn’s career in major Open-Cockpit/Open-Wheel competition.
In 1958, he designed and added a roll bar to his Midgets and in 1959 that roll bar was adopted by the entire circuit.
Then, on July 31, 1966, his No. 24 Sprint Car – which driven by future three-time (1968, 1970 & 1975) USAC Sprint Car Champion Dickson – was the first USAC Sprint Car to ever use a roll cage when it did so at the then-new half-mile-dirt Cumberland (MD) Raceway.
Plus, as the ARDC president, he had a great deal to do with the group making roll cages – and shoulder harnesses – mandatory for 1970.
In the early 1970s Brenn’s interests changed to Dirt-Track Modified Stock Cars when he found he could make more money racing those cars in New Jersey than he could traveling all over with his Midget.
So, he bought a 1937 Chevrolet coupe built by EMPA Hall of Famer Budd Olsen and with EMPA Hall of Fame driver Stan Ploski Jr. driving the fuel-injected 427-cubic-inch Chevy-powered yellow No. 24 won: Flemington’s 1971 & 1973 Modified titles and 1973 National Dirt Track Championship 200; 1973’s East Windsor title; and, the 1973 N.J. State Modified honors.
After Ploski left the team, Ken Jr. – who won Flemington’s first-ever Rookie title in 1972 in the team’s original ’37 Chevy coupe – drove the No. 24s and won the 1978 New Jersey State Modified title and Flemington’s 1982-1983 Modified championships. And Brenn’s youngest son Jimmy – Flemington’s 1978 Rookie titlist – ran a second Ken Brenn Racing Team entry.
Brenn’s Modifieds also included a unique Gremlin-bodied car that was primary designed by Brenn Senior & Junior and produced by Indianapolis-based Open-Cockpit/Open-Wheel builder Grant King in 1976. And with the 14th and last car in that series, Ken Jr. took his yellow and red version of this cutting-edge “King Car” and bested 212 other drivers to win the pole (34.524 seconds at 104.275 mph) at Super DIRT Week 1979 on the old 1-mile track at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse.
Then, on July 3, 1983, at Syracuse, Ken Jr. posted a major victory in a car built by Gary Stanton, the only Dirt-Track Modified Stock Car that the Sprint Car wizard ever built.
Ken Sr. – who promoted East Windsor and Bridgeport (NJ) Speedways briefly in the 1970s – fielded winning Modifieds for Ken Jr. until the talented driver with the Old Western look became the “hired gun” in Mike O’Shea’s No. 74 Trenton Mack ride in the early 1980s.
After his years as a race-car owner for his sons Ken Jr. and Jimmy ended in the late 1980s, the elder Brenn continued to be a man who the racing community regarded as one of its finest representatives; a status that still holds firm after his passing.
It is also of note that in his later years, the popular motorsports personality – who competed as an owner in USAC National Championship Racing (1965-1971) and made a pair of unsuccessful attempts to qualify for the Indy 500 in 1967-1968 with Bob Harkey in a Goodyear-sponsored/rear-engined Gerhardt/Ford entry – was a treasure trove of stories about his career in motorsports and the events of that era.
And, at the time of his death, Ken Brenn Sr. was the last surviving USAC National Midget winning car entrant from the 1950s. |
