[Kansasdirtfan]

I've never had a "home track" per se. The closest track is 81 Speedway in Wichita, and I witnessed lots of Sunday night super modified battles in the '70s, especially when Emmett Hahn and the Oklahoma gang would come up to scrap with Harold Leep, Jay Woodside, and the rest of the locals. But the racing fire was truly lit for me when we lived in the central valley of California in the mid-'40s. Dad would sometimes take us to Kearney Bowl in Fresno (I believe on Sunday nights) to watch the midgets, where we got familiar with the names Vukovich, Bettenhausen, Faulkner, Parson, etc. I was only 3 or 4 years old at the time, and actual memories are few and far between, but the sights, the smells and the thrill are still with me.