Pankratz continued with football at Fullerton Junior College, where he played for coach Hal Sherbeck, who became a second father figure to Wally.
“He was looked up to by all of his players,” Pankratz said. “He is the guy that when you were tempted to do something that wasn‘t so cool, the thought would pop into your brain, what would Sherbeck say.”
Pankratz excelled and was again an all-league player, which earned him a football scholarship at Idaho State University.
“There were more talented guys behind me,” Pankratz says, “but I just tried harder.”
He earned a degree in history, but knew he was too small to play professional football.
Throughout his formative years Pankratz still harbored a desire to race and after he earned a driver‘s license, he regularly attended races at Ascot. Once he graduated from college, he began traveling with Don Hamilton to Cajon Speedway at Gillespie Field.
These trips allowed him to establish relationships with some of his father‘s old running mates and he discovered they were willing to help him get started. One of those old acquaintances was Keith “Porky” Rachwitz.
Rachwitz owned a smidget powered by a Chevy II engine and he gave Wally his first chance to drive. In his third race at Saugus Speedway, the throttle stuck resulting in a cataclysmic crash.
“That was my first picture in SPEED SPORT,” Pankratz said with a laugh. “The car was hanging on the fence and the engine was laying on the race track. The reason I wasn‘t hurt was incredible luck and the fact that the car didn‘t weigh anything by the time I got done with it.”
He began competing with the United States Racing Club and has always felt that laps turned at El Toro Speedway in Costa Mesa helped prepare him for his days at Ascot. After his stint with Rachwitz, San Diego-based owner Floyd Demmitt let him drive his Kurtis Kraft midget.
“Slowly I got in some better cars,” Pankratz said. “You know people would say, if he can do that well in that s—box maybe he can do better in mine.”
Pankratz made his living as a carpenter and while at work he saw an opportunity to take more control over his racing life. He had been hired to build a patio for a physicist name Jim Geanakos. Over the course of the project the two men had a chance to chat.
“He was a different guy and he was always complaining about the amount of money he was giving to the government,” Pankratz explained. “I told him he needed a race car because he could write off the money spent on the race car.
“I finished the patio and about a month later he called me and said he was interested,” Pankratz continued. “A guy named Frank Griffo had a Kurtis car with a six-cylinder Fiat engine, but he had died in a hunting accident. That car was up for sale, so Geanakos bought it and hired me to drive it and maintain it. After about four races, I tipped it over and beat it up pretty good, so I took it to Don Edmunds, and he put a Chevy II in it.”
The car served Pankratz well, but in 1975 he secured his first sprint car ride. At that point Geanakos bowed out. If there was another pivotal point in his development, it came in the most unusual of circumstances. He suffered another bone-rattling crash. He was racing for owner Pop Miller in a sprint car that could charitably be described as venerable.
“It was a very old car,” Pankratz said. “It had a bolt on cage and what saved my ass was the stock roll bar that was still there. That was a good race car for a long time, a lot of people won main events with it. I produced and directed that crash. It was stupid. I coach a lot of people and one thing I tell them is that you are always looking ahead. Way ahead. You have to be aware of what is going on out there.
“Well, the yellow came out and I wasn‘t looking far enough ahead. Tom Roa had checked up and I ran over his wheel. It was my fault. I was pinned in the car by the cage and that was before quick release steering wheels, so they had to run to the pits and get wrenches and get it off. I was in a coma for about 40 minutes and woke up at Gardena Memorial Hospital which is scary in itself. Funny enough, I had people thank me for killing that car off.”
Four weeks later he still had red eyes from his crash and was looking for work. Midget owner Joe Lynch approached him.
“It was a Thursday night and Joe‘s driver Max Sweeney was caught in traffic. Joe asked me to warm up the car and then he told me to just go ahead and race it,” Pankratz said. “I finished fourth. After that he asked me to race next week and I won. In fact, I won three in a row and was the Ascot midget champion.”
Midgets became a staple in his racing schedule, but he was also on the cusp of a new venture that would put his name in bright lights.
After several test session and against the advice of several skeptics, Pankratz agreed to drive a rear-engine sprint car owned and fielded by Greg Pieper. The car began life as a McKee Pan-Am but was constantly being altered. One of the car‘s skeptics was racer John Redican.
“John told be me not to drive that car,” Pankratz said. “He said, ‘You are either going to get hurt or it is going to ruin your reputation.‘ In the end, it made my reputation because I stuck with Greg and he made it better and better. In 1978, we won 27 main events with that car from California to Sandusky, Ohio.”