Pittsfield Illinois Speedway. Jerry Blundy, the Uppinghouse brothers, an occasional visit by Wib Spaulding, Eddie Freese, Ralph Vortman with his beautiful blue GMC (I think) fuel injected inline 6 supermodified, Dick Vance, Wild Man Kelly with his grey #77 34 Ford flathead stocker, the Weld Brothers, Larry "Boom Boom" Cannon, Chuck Amati, and many more. The track had real promotions: a corset race where the supermodified drivers ran half of the feature and pitted, put on a corset, jumped back into the car and went back out for the other half. A greased pig race where catching a greased pig took the place of putting the corset on. A 500 lap partnership race, with management turning off the lights a couple of hours after the race ended with 13 teams still arguing they won. Seeing drivers burn tires in the pits in October to keep warm. A visit from some guy from Kentucky we had never heard of driving a winged super who went off turn 1, down the steep bank into the bean field and came up the road back of the back stretch more than once during the feature and still won. We had never seen him or heard of him, but that changed after Roy Robbins won the first Knoxville Nationals the next week. Another special promotion which featured 100 lap features four Saturdays in a row. $1,000 to win (this was in the early '60s) with the winner starting in last place the next week. A $1,000 bonus if anyone could win all four weeks. Although Dick Vance was strong in the #401 Buick-powered super, he wasn't that strong, so they got a substitute driver; Gordon Wooley, who did win the bonus. The thrill of squinting into the sun and trying to figure who the strange car might bring to the track. Especially memorable was the Saturday night of the dirt champ races at the Illinois State Fairgrounds. The excitement as the shiny red and white #55 (I think) super rolled into the pits. No one paid any attention to the shabby-looking #401 towing in with it with the driver whose name the announcer butchered. Bill Putter... who? That lasted until Bill Puterbaugh took time trials. He easily swept that night, as he did the next year after the State Fair dirt champ race.

My first visits to Granite City and Little Springfield and the Springfield Mile were thrills, but my heart will always be with Pittsfield, the track of my youth. It is now a Wal-Mart.