Old Race Cars

My family moved from a distant part of the state to a small village near a big city when I was in second grade.  The village we moved to had a population of maybe 600 people when we arrived, a couple of churches, a small shopping center, a grade school and a volunteer fire department.

It also had a race track, like so many small towns and villages did back then, and many still do today.  The race track was pretty crude -  a one-third mile slightly banked clay-surfaced oval ringed with a battered cyclone fence, bleachers, pits, a stand for the flagman and announcer, smelly restrooms and a stand where hamburgers, hot dogs, soda and beer could be bought.

The Speedway became my Saturday night hangout from grade school through high school.  I'd walk there with a friend, pay the $1.50 admission (it seemed to increase $.25 every year), have a hot dog and a Coke and inhale dust as I joyfully cheered on my favorite drivers, and boo'd the bad guys.

I'd sneak into the pits after the evening's program had ended.  Some drivers were spectator friendly; others were pretty rough characters, drinkers and brawlers, and adult voices and hands would shoo me away from where they were.

My hero was a driver named John Reimer, because he once let me climb into his car, grab the wheel and pretend to drive while he explained the purpose of each gauge and lever.  His car number was A3.  It was a deep burgundy car in a category known as "modified".  Modifieds were the hot cars, back then.

Here's a photo of John Reimer's car  taken in 1963. I saw it at a church festival a few years ago, mostly restored and being raffled off by it's owner.   I bought tickets, didn't win.  God, I wanted that car, but had no idea where I'd keep it, how I'd haul it, or how I'd maintain it if my ticket was drawn.

This is what a modified looks like.  I took this photo today at a gathering of old race drivers and race cars.

The Saturday night race program had two levels of cars.  The modifieds, and the sportsmen.  The sportsmen cars began as older street cars that were stripped of everything not needed for racing, and had roll cages, push bars and upgraded engines  and brakes installed.

I took this photo of a restored sportsman today, a 1957 Ford that was driven by Frank Smith, who won championships with this car for several decades.  It never, ever looked this dent-free until it was restored.

There were two other kinds of dirt-track racers that ran on speedways in the midwest, but not at my local track.

One is called Midget, the other is called Sprint Car.  Both categories still run on dirt tracks across the US today.  They were once the training ground for drivers who moved on to Indy cars; now they are more likely to produce NASCAR drivers.  A surprising number of them are driven by 16 year old boys and girls who want to make it into the big leagues.

This is what a midget looked like back in the day.  I took this photo of a restored midget today.

They are rudimentary, and fast.  No transmission, a simple hand-operated clutch used only to get the car moving (see the lever with the long chrome handle on the outside of the left side - that's the clutch).  There were two pedals - brake for the left foot, accelerator for the right - and the drive shaft went between the driver's feet.  No fire extinguisher, no fuel cell.  The roll hoop and four-point harness were added to this car so it could be driven in vintage races.

This is a sprint car.  They are brutal 900 horsepower, 1300 pound cars that go so fast around a dirt track that they seem to defy physics and reality.  This one is still an active racer.

Some of my favorites, from back in the day.

Billy "The Cat" Johnson.

 Etchie "The Flying Grandpa" Biertzer

Fuzzy Fassbender

Gino Wagner

Greg Krieger.

Ken "Mighty Mouse" Marquardt

Ken "Tweety Bird" Tlounga

Miles "The Mouse" Melius.  He won EVERY RACE he entered in 1962.

A lot of young guys from Wisconsin got excited by short-track racing.  Some raced, or still do. This area is a hotbed of Saturday night short-track racing, although more tracks are asphalt now, in stead of dirt.

The hot drivers in NASCAR are southern boys, right?   No, not entirely. 

Alan Kulwicki, God rest his soul, was a local short track driver who moved south and became NASCAR champion in 1992.   He died in an airplane crash in April, 1993.   There is a park named after him here, as is a building in the Engineering School at UW-Milwaukee, where he had earned a degree in mechanical engineering.  There mere mention of his name at a gathering of race fans hereabout causes eyes to become teary.  He was special.

Matt Kenseth grew up near here and was NASCAR champion in 2003.  Mark Martin, four-time NASCAR champion Jimmy Johnson, former NASCAR champion Rusty Wallace and others lived and raced here at one point on their way up the ladder, worked as hired drivers for local car owners, before they made it into NASCAR.

If you asked any of them to name their favorite Wisconsin driver, you'd get the same answer: Dick Trickle.  Trickle raced throughout Wisconsin, sometimes seven nights a week, eeking out a living as a short track driver.  He was unbeatable; promoters would advertise a $1000 bonus for any driver who could beat Trickle.

Trickle moved south and made it into NASCAR.  Trickle was a heavy cigarette smoker, and after he was caught, on camera, lighting up a cigarette in his race car during a race, NASCAR made him change his habit.

Here's the video clip.  Trickle had installed a lighter on the floor of his car, next to his seat, and had a pack of cigs in his racing suit. Brilliant!  he lit one up during a race at Talladega in 1990.

My childhood local track is gone now.  Our village grew into a green, leafy  bedroom suburb of some 7,000 people.  The newcomers didn't like the nose made at the race track Saturday nights during summer, and they prevailed in having municipal passed to limit the hours, limit the volume, limit the traffic and so forth.  

The Speedway finally closed on August 31, 2003.   A shiny new Menard's store now stands where the speedway once was.  There are a few of us who meet in the Menard's parking lot one night  each summer, late at night after the store has closed and the last employee has gone home.  We turn up our car radios and drive a few laps through the parking lot in memory of those Saturday nights at the speedway, long ago, when we were young.  It's almost as if we want the cops to come and yell at us - "hey you kids, get the hell out of here" for old times sake.

You've probably seen those cars where you live, race cars being hauled on trailers to a short track somewhere.  Go to a race, take your kids.   Short-track Saturday night, nothing is more American.

The memories will last a lifetime.