DON BRENNAN - BIOGRAPHY

Don Brennan was an up and coming midget racing driver in and around the Chicago area in 1947 and 1948 with his career definitely on the rise.

Raceway Park announcer and Illustrated Speedway News writer, Wayne Adams wrote in a 1947 driver’s bio on Brennan, “One of the comparative newcomers to midget auto racing in the Midwest is Don Brennan, the Orland Park, Ill., lad, who operates a Texaco gas station and a cocktail lounge at a 159th and Keene in that town (Orland Park) when not driving race cars.”

Adams also wrote, ”Brennan was born in Chicago on February 24, 1923 and saw his first race in the Chicago Armory in 1939 where he watched his two favorites, Tony Bettenhausen and Emil Andres vie with the best in the business. His interest in these two chauffeurs, both of whom were good friends of Don’s, finally lured him into the driver’s seat of his own red No. 7 “Model A” at Raceway Park in June of 1941. A serious accident at Monticello, Ill. set him back with a fractured skull and torn ligaments in his right arm after the throttle stuck, flipping him into the parking lot. Since then he has had had five midget flips, but none very serious.

“Early in 1942, Bill Fry gave Brennan a chance to prove his worth at the wheel of a faster car and the results were promising. However, World War II put a ban on racing so 1946 was Brennan’s first complete season in Class A competition. Brennan drove the Mayhew Offy most of the year (1946) as well as the Gardner Offy with which he won a Class B 50-lap event at Soldier Field. A third spot at the National Championship 100-mile race at Bainbridge, Ohio, driving the Nichels Offy No. 7, was the nearest Brennan came to winning a big race and one of his biggest thrills.

“Beating Bettenhausen ranks as Don’s biggest thrill in racing, however, and he has pulled this stunt a few times. He has never driven big cars, but intends to try them sometime in the near future with an eye towards someday entering the 500 miler.

“Don served with the Marines during World War II, entering the service in August of 1942 and was an Aviation Instrument Specialist overseas on Peleliu and Okinawa. He received a discharge as a staff sergeant in November of 1945. Recently, Brennan started taking flying instructions under the GI Bill and is quite excited about becoming a pilot.”

Brennan was a regular in the midget ranks at Raceway Park near Blue Island, Ill. in 1947, winning two feature races during the season, including the season finale on November 2 in the Drtina Offy. Late in 1947, he traveled to Langhorne, Penn., and set a new qualifying track record (over 100 miles per hour) at the big one-mile, almost circular, dirt oval, driving the Subjack Offy. Brennan would finish fourth in the 100-miler behind the winner, Lansing, Illinois’ Mike O’Halloran. Brennan was the Chicago“indoor” champion for the 1947-48 season at the International Amphitheatre, winning the title over the likes of Ray Richards, Gene Hartley, Mike O’Halloran, Myron Fohr and Frank Burany.

In 1948, Brennan teamed up with car owner and master mechanic Jimmy Triplett with the two campaigning in Florida early in the season. Brennan captured three feature events at Raceway Park in ’48, winning track’s 50-lap Mid Season Championship race in the Triplett Offy No. 54 on Saturday night, July 24. Setting fast time early in the evening, Brennan defeated Ray Richards, Bob Muhlke and Rex Easton in the 50-lap chase as nearly 9,000 fans were in attendance. Brennan tore the competition apart at the high-banked quarter-mile paved track at South Bend, Ind., during the ’48 season, winning a total of eight feature races including four in a row during the season’s Friday night action. He also won features at Illinois dirt ovals in Farmer City and Fairbury and the half-mile dirt Playland Park in South Bend, Ind.

Brennan’s luck ran out on September 23, 1948 as he was involved in a serious multi-car accident at the fifth-of-a-mile dirt oval at Lincoln, Ill., with 2000 fans witnessing the feature race incident. He passed away the next day at the age of 25. He was survived by his parents, Raymond and Amelia Brennan of Orland Park and a sister, Carolyn. He was laid to rest at St. Michael Catholic Cemetery in Orland Park.

Don Brennan was becoming one of the best in the business. Who knows how far he could have gone in the racing game.

END

Author’s Note: Thank you to Wayne Adams for writing the “original” Don Brennan bio over 60 years ago.