Interview: Bill Krause

Billy Krause started his racing career driving midgets on California oval dirt tracks. He went on to race his own Jaguar D-type, which he later converted to Chevrolet Corvette power. His list of accomplishments is impressive. In 1960, he won the Times Grand Prix against some of the best opposition that Europe and the U.S.A. had to offer. Of his many momorable races, Krause believes that is most memorable races was at the 1962 Pomona Road Races where he took Steve Diulo’s Birdcage Maserati from last to first over a large field of some very capable sports car drivers. He went on to race the famous Max Balchowsky “Old Yeller” and from there was one of the first drivers of Carroll Shelby’s Cobras. In January of 1963 he was even offered a seat in the Scirocco F1 car, powered by a BRM V-8, for the 1963 season by Hugh Powell, managing director of Scirocco-Powell Racing. After a brief try in Can-Am racing, Bill left racing in the mid-1960s and opened both a Honda motorcycle dealership and one of the first Honda automobile dealers in California. Recently, tempted back into racing—but this time vintage racing—by enthusiastic vintage competitor Ernie Nagamatsu, Bill has been racing the original Old Yeller, a car, in which he competed near the beginning of his career. Carroll Shelby said this about Bill Krause when he was on the Cobra team, “I consider him potentially as good or better than Dan Gurney, provided he gets the right machinery.” High praise indeed. John Wright caught up with Krause at this past year’s Monterey Historics.

Tell me something of your background, Bill.