American motorsports lost a legend on Aug. 22, 2024 when legendary filmmaker and writer Dick Wallen died at the age of 90.
Wallen, who was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1997, grew up in Los Angeles and began attending auto races in 1947.
Wallen bought his first video camera in 1958 for $300. He earned $50 for filming the 1958 Riverside Grand Prix, but more importantly caught the eye of Fred Bailey of Race Film Productions. As a result, Wallen worked on the film crew for the 1959 Indianapolis 500.
Wallen was hooked and moved his family to Indianapolis to pursue a filmmaking career.
Traveling with USAC stars such as A.J. Foyt, Jim Hurtubise, Parnelli Jones and others through the early 60s, Wallen documented that time period with his films.
He also hosted a weekly gathering of the USAC sect to view his films.
“It was different then, from a social standpoint,” Wallen said in his Sprint Car Hall of Fame biography written by Dave Argabright that originally published in Open Wheel Magazine. “There was a fellowship that you don’t see today. It was a family deal. Guys fought sometimes, but after the races nobody stayed mad for long. That was what I loved, that everybody was so close. I filmed tons of other types of racing, but the sprint and champ cars were my love. They still are.”
After selling his footage of a racing crash to Universal Studios in 1961, Wallen’s footage was utilized in more than 500 movies.
“People back then thought I was the bum that carried my camera to all the sprint car races, and that it was my living,” Wallen told Argabright. “God, I would hate to think about making a living back then on just open-wheel films. The Hollywood stuff kept me in business and I started filming everything I could that I thought I could sell to the movies. But I never let up on the open-wheel stuff.”
Wallen also produced commercial films for use by manufacturers in the auto racing industry including Champion Spark Plugs, Wynn’s Oil, Firestone, Ford and General Motors.
Wallen filmed Indy for the last time in 1986 and by the end of the 80s had phased himself out of filming races. That said, his impact on motorsports and his fans didn’t end there.
He created VCR video tapes of the decades of races he filmed from the 1950s through the 1980s through the popular series known as Dick Wallen Racing Classics.
That made his massive library of footage available to the public for the first time.
“One day a light came on,” Wallen said in 1997. “I realized that I had in my library all of these races from the 60s and 70s that nobody had ever seen before. Look at all this historic stuff. I figured that I could produce these in volumes, so that people that want to learn about racing in the early days can buy the specific chapters that they’re most interested in.”
While he never stopped being involved in the filmmaking industry, he added books to his motorsports contributions during the 1990s.
His efforts included “Board Track: Guts, Gold & Glory, “Fabulous Fifties: American Championship Racing” and the 50 Years of USAC book released in 2005.
Even in the final years of his life Wallen, was still working on films including a production featuring his life’s work.
His daughter, Sherri, has vowed to finish that project on his behalf.
“Interestingly, my dad was meticulous about accurately documenting the history of racing for the 30 years that he filmed and then wrote books, what I found in doing this last project with him was he also captured the essence of the drivers and racing life during that magical era of racing when dirt trackers became our Indy icons — pretty cool,” Sherri Wallen told SPEED SPORT. “I honestly think that was by accident and a byproduct of his living and filming on the track all of those years.”
Wallen’s commitment to auto racing history will live on through his videos and books.
