| old time Hoosier |
6/23/09 5:40 PM |
Re: Armscamp Speedway
I witnessed my first automobile race at Armscamp in the spring of 1946. It was a midget race and because I was but a slip of a lad I do not remember who won but he drove a purple #4 car. My father was a race fan freak and we missed very few runs at Armscamp in the late forties and really became intense fans in the early fifties with the advent of the modified stock cars. I walked the place a few years ago after getting permission from a young man working in a machine shop just east of the track. The part that remains is very evident, at least it was then about 5 years ago, although nothing remains of the huge grandstand or the back stretch grandstand. I have a photo taken in 1951 of Bill Holloway posing on the track after a trophy dash win and in the background you can see the flagman standing in a little open space in the fencing. Five years ago that little open space was still untouched. The pits were located behind the third and fourth turns. Entrance to the pits was an open gate at the end of the back stretch with a little road winding around the back of the banking to the pit area. The entrance back to the race track from the pits was a gate where the fourth turn ran into the front stretch. You have to wade through waist high weeds to see them but both of these pit entries and exits are still very easy to see. The front stretch concrete wall, that was built in 1950, is still very much intact. The dirt that was used to build the banking came out of the infield, also in 1950, and early photos show the infield light poles with mounds of dirt around them after the scrapping of the top took place. The top of these mounds used to be the level of the infield.The light poles were moved to the outside of the track in either 1951 or 1952 and five years ago a few of them remained. I would venture a guess that me and my father missed not over a half dozen races at Armscamp between 1949-1954 whem we moved away from Indiana.
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