In the 1950’s, there was three race car garages within a one-block area: Jack Beduhn’s, Bernie Shimmell’s, and Mike Brochu’s. Erv Finkler who owned the team cars driven by Tommy Lane and Bud Meyering described Shimmell as a mechanical genius. Brochu was a genius in his own right, and was easy to get along with. Everyone liked Mike. For a while, Gordy VanderLaan and Mike Brochu teamed up to run Mike’s stretched midget, the Burns Offy. They ran with the United States Auto Club at Dayton and Winchester and at the Minnesota Fairgrounds. USAC had a policy of not allowing their members to drive in non-USAC sanctioned races, so Gordy raced under the alias of Dan Houston, when he would race at Berlin Raceway, the name of Brochu’s nephew.
Early in his career, VanderLaan drove a big car for Arnie Armstrong, a four port Riley that he raced at various Michigan tracks. At the Allegan Fairgrounds, the track announcer told Gordy that fans were hanging around the first turn fence and asked Gordy to dust them off. So, Gordy ran a couple of laps up high and threw enough dirt at them to clean them off the fence for good.
VanderLaan had a chance at moving up the racing ladder both with sprint cars and midgets. He drove the midget formerly owned by Chet Mysliwiec at the Grand Rapids Speedrome, at Motor City Speedway in Detroit, and at Dayton, Ohio. He also ran other midgets, including his first ride at the Hastings Fairgrounds in Al Zeritis’ car. Gordy got a little more serious when he picked up a ride in the Lee Elkins owned McNamara sponsored #73 midget. This was in 1955 and AAA was in their last year of sanctioning races. During a AAA midget race at Berlin Raceway, Elmer George, who had recently vacated the #73, spun VanderLaan out after he had worked his way up to fifth in the feature. Gordy ran the car a few more times, but the ride evaporated.
In the late 1950’s, Jerry Rose, who had started out pitting for Mike Brochu, bought the team. Rose ran the super modifieds that Gordy drove to championships at Berlin Raceway’s dirt half-mile track. The cream of the super modified class racing was running there then. The first racecar owned by Jerry Rose was the yellow deuce, which he bought from Bernie Shimmell. This was the car that Gordy flipped at Kalamazoo Speedway in 1957. He was lucky to survive the crash; the top of the car was crushed down to the cockpit. The next car Gordy drove was the black deuce, which was built in 1958, but then destroyed at Berlin. Rose built a duplicate in two weeks. The red deuce was built in 1960, and the red #12 in 1962. Wally Sanders drove the #12.
Dick Bradley, the chassis man, was also on the team. Bradley and Rose engineered the cars. Bradley also built cars for Lefty TerHaar. Brochu did the machine work. Jerry Rose commented, “Mike was one of the greatest machinists that ever lived.”
The team wore matching uniforms, red shirts and white pants. Thanks to Rose’s wife, Alma, the car never showed up at the track without being polished. Alma would crawl underneath the car and clean the belly pan. They had the right combination of people on the team, with each person an expert in their own field.
Jerry Rose stated, “Gordy was good right off the bat. He was a natural race driver, but he was temperamental, especially if someone got him mad. I believe that if Gordy had made the decision to race full time, he would have been successful. The best part of our team was that we were all so close we were like family. In fact, my son, Jerry, and Bruce VanderLaan were raised together.”
Although he was never seriously injured in a racecar, Gordy had some close calls. One incident was at Whiskey Ridge Speedway in Muskegon, Michigan. Gordy was running three deep with his brother Eddie in the middle and Tommy Lane on the bottom. Gordy and Eddie got together, and Gordy ended up with a concussion causing double vision.
VanderLaan said, “I wanted to get out of the hospital badly until Tommy Lane visited me and told me that I better lie there, and have a good recovery, or I’d end up looking like him. Tommy Lane at that time had crossed eyes.”
Berlin Raceway’s dirt half-mile gave Gordy his worst scare. Hi regular ride, the Rose-owned deuce, broke during the hot laps and he got into his brother Eddie’s car, the #18.
Gordy explained, “Jack Smith in Ade Stehouwer’s car with big pipes on it went into the third turn. Doug Lang was on the outside of him just at the time I was setting up to pass him. When I hit his front wheel, I got up into the air and went end over end. The engine came out of the car, landed on my arm and broke it. I also got some burns out of it.”
Then there was the time Gordy thought he was seriously injured. It was at the Saginaw Fairgrounds as he was coming into the third turn when his accelerator stuck. He missed the light pole, but ran smack into an elderberry bush, right through the wire fence, and out onto the road.
“I looked at myself and thought I was covered from head to toe with blood, but it was the elderberry tree that splattered juice when I ran into it,” he laughed.
The early fifties were a time of fun for racers because there was not a great deal of money involved in either the equipment or the purses. At the Saranac Speedway, VanderLaan got the fastest time, won the dash and then the feature and took home the immense sum of less than one hundred dollars. After one of the fast car dashes at Berlin, Bill Wiltse climbed out of his car, walked to VanderLaan and said, “It’s kind of dusty out there tonight.” With a straight face, VanderLaan replied, “It wasn’t dusty for me; I was out in front for the entire race.” That ended the conversation.
Owosso Speedway was one of Gordy’s favorite places to run because of its nice sweeping turns. “There was lots of room to run there. You could go to the top or stay low because it was not a single groove track. I liked the dirt half-mile at Berlin best, Chet really worked hard on that track, and it was always in good shape. It was really a team effort at Berlin with Chuck Mysliwiec handling ticket sales and the payoff to the teams, Dick Mysliwiec handling the public relations, and, in addition going down to Indianapolis and getting those AAA and USAC guys to come up for special shows.”
Gordy primarily ran the dirt tracks and raced against the best. He ran the dirt because he could manhandle a car, throw it sideways and let it churn. Even if the car wasn’t working, he could still make it work. Some of his favorites that he raced against were Bob Knight, Jack Cummiford, Bill Wiltse, Dick Carter, Glen Rockey, and Johnny Roberts.
VanderLaan had a very successful racing career, winning the ’52, ’55, and ’59 Berlin Raceway season championships, the ’56 Berlin mid-season championship, the 1960 Berlin spring championship, and the 1960 Michigan State championship. In addition, he won the 1951 500-lap race at Ionia Fairgrounds, Michigan’s longest short track race ever. One of his proudest moments was when he won a match race against Bill Holland, the 1949 Indianapolis 500 winner.
Mike Brochu was a master at fabricating racecar parts and his garage was always neat and professional. Dick Bradley could design a racecar that worked well, and Jerry Rose, as owner, put the very professional team together. The deuce was always washed, polished and lettered to perfection. Gordy VanderLaan was the perfect driver for the perfect team. He was young, cocky, and good-looking. The deuce was the first racecar to have fuel injection in the area. The team was made of professionals who were way ahead of their time.
VanderLaan earned the ultimate respect as a racer when he was inducted into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame. He had been chosen along with a select few to be permanently honored as a racecar driver who excelled in his sport.
VanderLaan was at the peak of his career in racing but the euphoria was short-lived, however. One day Gordy was standing in front of thousands of cheering race fans as their hero, the next day he was lying paralyzed in a hospital, crushed when a vehicle he was working on in the shop fell on him. The day was July 30, 1962. The real story of Gordy VanderLaan truly starts here, for the measure of a man is not how he stands with his successes, but also with his failures and tragedies. Most people would not have the strength to endure a tragedy such as this, but VanderLaan was not most people.
“The doctors said that I’d never walk again and gave me ten years to live. After a while, they put me in a body cast and asked where I would like to go for therapy, they recommended Mary Free Bed Hospital in Grand Rapids, and so I went there. I had a couple of therapists before Gail, who is now my wife, became my therapist. She got me to do my exercises, and when I got out of my body cast, she taught me how to walk all over again. If it weren’t for Gail, I wouldn’t be here today. Bob Knight, Jack Beduhn, and Bill Whitney, all race drivers, were also her patients,” Gordy remembered.
Gail recalled, “Gordy was down in the dumps; he couldn’t race, he couldn’t work and his career was over. His life was over as far as he was concerned. What really saved him, though, was that he had the personality of a patient who had the will to succeed and the drive and ambition to get better. All I had to do was instill that back in him and he was going to get better. I couldn’t make him better, he had to make himself better, and he had that drive or he never would have made it.”
Following his recovery, Gordy and Gail married and lived in Maryland. They followed Gordy’s son, Bruce, in the late models. Bruce followed in his father’s footsteps by winning several Berlin Raceway championships, and was also inducted into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame. Gordon VanderLaan passed away on October 17, 2009. On November 6, 2009, Gordy, Eddie, and Bruce VanderLaan were inducted into the Berlin Raceway Hall of Fame for their achievements at the track.
Written by Dick Lee
