Old Racing Tales

[David Bogard]

Tom and his thread on Arlo Becker got the ball rolling in my head so I figured I'd start a clean thread where we can replay some of those wild old time racing stories. I'll start with one. . .

Lynn Wilson and his hot '57 Chevy came over to Peoria quite a bit for a couple seasons and not only was Lynn really good, he was a BIG boy. Fred Strube was one of the half a dozen racing Strube boys at Peoria so he had quite a following. One night Fred got into Wilson coming out of turn four and rode him all the way down the front stretch eventually shoving him into the wall. A quick red stopped everyone at the Flag stand for a reshuffle and before Wilson could get out of the car, Fred had backed up a bit and eased around the track to be lined up again.

Lynn got himself out of the car and walked briskly back to where Fred was sitting and sans helmet, he proceeded to lunge at Fred's driver's window and began throwing haymakers on his head! Fred, who was only a "normal" sized guy, fired his car up and began to drive away so Wilson jumped onto the rub rail and kept throwing smashing right hands! Fred finally gunned it real good and shook Wilson off and we watched him roll down the infield like a big tire for probably 20 feet or so. By then, several of the other Strube family members were jumping on Wilson and he just started throwing them off like 6 year kids!

Both drivers got suspended for a few weeks but the Lynn Wilson vs. Strube Clan rivalry never ever quite went away after that!

[john2]

   David, I don't  have many tales.

But in the mid 1960s, the Air Force sent me on a one year tour on a remote radar site off Alaska, in the Bering Sea.  Had to go through processing and orientation in Anchorage, and was there over a weekend.  Of course, I took in their dirt track.

The hot shoe there was a guy   ---   Dirty Bud Borders.  He was a winner, and very popular with the fans.  Not a dirty driver at all.  Turns out that he once ran off a track and wound up in a stock pond.  They pulled him out, and he was covered from head to toe with mud.

[sentsat71]

Not having been on the "inside" of racing, being part of pit crew, except for a year and half as part of a pit crew for a Figure-8 car, of which the owner/driver only ran once a month. All the rest of the time was spent in the grand stands filling out the qualifying times, race lineups and finishing orders over the last 50 years (egads, has it been that long?!?!?!?!!!) But in all those years, there was only ONE time I left before the races were over. That was a WoO show at the Santa Maria, CA 1/3 mile track back in the early 1980's. Ascot in Gardena, CA was what one could say was my "home" track. Did take in other forms of racing at that track back in the 1970's, from the aforementioned F-8 racing, even before becoming  part of the pit crew. Also took in midget races, and late model races. In 1973, i did not miss a sprint car race at Ascot or the paved half mile Speedway 605. Could never match that again.
Also made good use of my combo Graduation/Birthday gift in 1971, a pair of binoculars, that are still in use today.
In this time period, have been to short track races at 22 different tracks in four states, of which 15 were in Calif. and 5 of those were only a one time visit, the 6th one time visit was in Iowa, Knoxville in 1971.