“Bullet” Joe Garson was originally from the East Coast and won
the 1938 Eastern Midget Racing Alliance title before heading
West.
Inducted into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of
Fame in 1990, Garson was one of the most successful AAA Midget
drivers in the immediate post-war years
when the sport
was at a peak of popularity. In the 1939 150-mile race at
Roosevelt Raceway he placed 2nd before a crowd of 61,256.
He won the AAA Pacific Coast title in 1948 and again in
1950. He was fifty years old and USAC had replaced AAA when he
had perhaps his greatest season, winning the 1958 “Turkey
Night” classic and the Pacific Coast Midget title for the
third time.
One of his famous rides was the Rex Mays Offy.
Joe Garson died on March 26, 1984.
