Armscamp Speedway
 

A friend of mine told me the other day that he found the old Armscamp Speedway, west of Alexandria,IN while surfing Google Earth. I checked it out and this is the image of what is left:
http://www.pbase.com/pitpass/image/90446379/large.jpg

also found this article with the history of the track:

http://zenas4.tripod.com/orestesindi...tory/id29.html

This might be old news to some of you, but I thought it was interesting. My friend and I are going to take a trip up there sometime in the near future and maybe take a few photos.

Re: Armscamp Speedway
 

Went there a couple of years ago. Walked around the whole place. Most of it is still there. I remember attending races there with my dad in the 1950's. BTW if you go to Scampy"s restaurant in Anderson, there are some photos of Armscamp.

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From last year

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Makes me miss my old buddy;Lew Morgan. He always talked of his days with Armscamp.

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I've been back there many times...it's very easy to get back to and you can still walk most of the track, the wall is still there as well as some lights...we actually have one of the hold lights shhhh. it had fallen off the post and we took it, that was like ten years ago, but just went in the spring and my dad and i were able to get all the way around fighting some brush along the way

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The track is almost across the street from Donnie Adams Jr's house on Hwy 28. About 6 miles from my house. I am way to young to have ever been there but have :thumbsdown:walked it several times and a few years ago there was some interest in opening it back up(that came from a reliable source) But I think the plans have changed because of the economy and that situation that alot of us are in.

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There also appears to be the remnants of a track about a mile west of there at the corner of US28 & N200W. Any ideas?

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I've never heard about another track down there... is there a chance that the first time they closed armscamp that they maybe had to move it some too do to the original damage? or did they reopen at the exact same location? I never heard for sure i just know it closed once due to fire and once due to the tornado...that would be nice if they reopened it...yeah its right behind like a trucking expo across from the Adams.

Re: Armscamp Speedway
 

Originally Posted by Dblchkrs:
There also appears to be the remnants of a track about a mile west of there at the corner of US28 & N200W. Any ideas?

That looks like it might be one that used for training horses. We have quite few like that here in the Houston area.

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oh yeah and now that i think about it My cousin lives down there close to 28 and 200W...It could be one they used to do his ATV racing...are you sure its remnants and not just a dirt one...not to sound stupid i just haven't seen the picture

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was there an inner and outer track? The brush to the left almost looks like it could be...

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yes there were two tracks, one was for like quarter midgets i believe...don't quote me....kinda like jungle park had an inner and an outter

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The track has been in the same place since 1946 at least.

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ok thats what i have also known about

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There is a group of us that is planning on going out there Saturday afternoon so hopefully we will get some up to date pictures posted on here.

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I'm looking forward to seeing the pix-Tom:thumb:thumb

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Im going to take as many pics as i can.....:thumb

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We're there, dude!

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yes i hate to tell my age but i remember my mother taking me to armscamp her brother raced there maney times and won a few also watched jeff walkers dad race there and boy was he good them were the good old days you had a 300.00 in your car and couldwin 500.00 for the main boy how times have changed then on sunday we went to kokomo i can blame my mother for my interest in racing then i got married after high school and my wife said me or racing so now i been divorced for 20 years LOL and still going to the sprint races

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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.

Re: Armscamp Speedway
 

Originally Posted by old time Hoosier:
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.

You wouldn't happen to have any photos from back then would you? My Dad was a regular midget racer at Armscamp. I have very few photos from then and would love to see some or get copies of some. If you happen to see any photos with a #75 midget in them I'd be very interested! He ran there from '48 to '51.
Thanks,
David.

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Here is a photo from Armscamp Speedway in 1946. It was also called Hilltop for a short time. It burnt twice the last time was in the early 60s and was not rebuilt.
Dusty

Re: Armscamp Speedway
 

Originally Posted by Dusty Goggles:
Here is a photo from Armscamp Speedway in 1946. It was also called Hilltop for a short time. It burnt twice the last time was in the early 60s and was not rebuilt.
Dusty

Sweet, sweet photo, THANKS! I would give my left butt cheek to have seen a race back then. :5:
David.

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Devin (aka #1 Brad Kuhn Fan) and I went out there and trudged through the brush this past winter. It is still pretty much the same as old time Hoosier describes it. I came along too late to even dream of a race here. However, a friend of mine drove the ambulance there and he said that they made frequent trips to the hospital after drivers were injured. If anyone has any pictures, I also would love to see them.

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Here is the original Armscamp before it burnt the first time.
Dusty

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Just the way I remembered it......don't make fan entrances like they used to.....what class!!!!!!!!!!!!!:6::6::6::6:

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Originally Posted by Checker'd Past:
Just the way I remembered it......don't make fan entrances like they used to.....what class!!!!!!!!!!!!!:6::6::6::6:

Hey Checker'd Past, is that you walking toward the entrance?:3::10::14: A classy little joint if I do say so myself.:6: And to think it all happened in Alexandria, IN.

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My name is Dave, you found the Armscamp Speedway history on my website Orestes, Indiana. I also did the website for Alexandria and the same information is located there too. I am a historian and currently writing a new version of Armscamp history and searching for information and photos. I was also an Indianapolis Motor Speedway staff photographer in the 70s and 80s.

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Originally Posted by zenas1924:
My name is Dave, you found the Armscamp Speedway history on my website Orestes, Indiana. I also did the website for Alexandria and the same information is located there too. I am a historian and currently writing a new version of Armscamp history and searching for information and photos. I was also an Indianapolis Motor Speedway staff photographer in the 70s and 80s.

Dave the Vukovich car would be a two CYLINDER not a two CYCLE

Re: Armscamp Speedway
 

Originally Posted by Pitpass:
A friend of mine told me the other day that he found the old Armscamp Speedway, west of Alexandria,IN while surfing Google Earth. I checked it out and this is the image of what is left:
http://www.pbase.com/pitpass/image/90446379/large.jpg

also found this article with the history of the track:

http://zenas4.tripod.com/orestesindi...tory/id29.html

This might be old news to some of you, but I thought it was interesting. My friend and I are going to take a trip up there sometime in the near future and maybe take a few photos.

If you head back to the track, be sure to wear shoes, socks and long pants and long sleeve shirts. Ticks are attrocious out there

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About 35 or 36 years ago I read a brief history of Armscamp Speedway in Stock Car Racing Magazine. A few months later I was going from Sheridan to Marion and I saw what looked like a couple of man-made hills off the north side of the road behind a trucking company. I wondered, could it be? So I did a U-turn and went back. The young woman behind the desk in the trucking office gave me permission to tromp around the place and, sure enough, I had found the remains of Armscamp Speedway. At the time the wall was still intact and the racing surface probably could have been reclaimed by burning off the weeds and applying a couple of heavy coats of asphalt sealer. I took a bunch of pictures and have thought of the place often since then. I moved to Florida in 1980, so I've never been back to ol' Armscamp. Undoubtedly, the 30+ winters since I was there have done much additional damage, but it sure would be cool if it could be resurrected...

There are a couple guys working on cleaning up and restoring old Armscamp track. Any information or photos would really help. Please email me anything you can

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I trashed the pictures a couple of years ago when my wife and I were cleaning out old files and pictures. I doubt they would have been much help anyway. There was one picture of a light pole with part of the fixture still hanging on it, a picture of part of the front wall, and a couple of overall shots. Everything was so obscured by weeds and brush it just looked like a field of weeds. If you didn't know what it was the pictures made no sense.:11:

I would be interested to know more about the work going on there. Are there plans to make the place a working race track again? I had a flyer sent to me about some kind of reunion on the weekend of 10-21-17. I forwarded it to a friend in Indiana, he drove to the address on the flyer, a small strip mall, and there was nothing going on!:19:

I had found out recently that my Uncle Lew Morgan and his brother Burney owned the race track in Alexandria. My Grandpa, Alfred Chilton, would go to the track and take pictures of the drivers, get their autographs, and the sell the booklet. I have one of the autograph books with 32 drivers in it. One of Sod Saunders who was killed at the age of 26. It’s been interesting to find all of this out.

I read somewhere that the very short video clip in the movie “The Big Wheel” where Happy crashes through the fence in flames - was shot at Armscamp. That’s a 50’s movie starring Mickey Rooney where he goes from midget to Indy. I believe the 2 second clip of the crash was someone’s real crash - then Hollywood took over on a set as they tried to free Happy from the burning car. For the record, I remember off the top of my head, Houston Bundy and Alvin Wallace really were killed on that track. I’ll have to check my records, I think there may have been more.

Quick edit: add Paul Camp (1951) and Otto Butler (1946) to that list.

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Originally Posted by sprinter14:
I read somewhere that the very short video clip in the movie “The Big Wheel” where Happy crashes through the fence in flames - was shot at Armscamp. That’s a 50’s movie starring Mickey Rooney where he goes from midget to Indy.

Not to hijack the thread, but you can take all of the racing movies ever made, roll them up in one wad, and set them aside. I'll take watching "The Big Wheel" over all of them.

Classic Hollywood scene when Billy Coy (Mickey) walks into the nightclub and goes right up to the maitre d' and says, "Table for Alexander Hamilton."

Looking down at his list, the maitre d' replies, "I don't have an Alexander Hamilton."

He then looks up and Mick is holding out a bill and comes back with, "Well, you do now."

"Right this way Mr. Hamilton," as he shows Mick into the club.

On another sidebar, this thread was started on 12/17/07. This has to now hold the IOW world record for the longest running thread, yet alone the oldest one revived.

Re: Armscamp Speedway
 

Originally Posted by sprinter14:
I read somewhere that the very short video clip in the movie “The Big Wheel” where Happy crashes through the fence in flames - was shot at Armscamp. That’s a 50’s movie starring Mickey Rooney where he goes from midget to Indy. I believe the 2 second clip of the crash was someone’s real crash - then Hollywood took over on a set as they tried to free Happy from the burning car. For the record, I remember off the top of my head, Houston Bundy and Alvin Wallace really were killed on that track. I’ll have to check my records, I think there may have been more.

Quick edit: add Paul Camp (1951) and Otto Butler (1946) to that list.

Hey Aaron. My aunt was married to an Al Wallace which I would assume was a Cincinnati driver. The marriage did not last long after the birth of my cousin Tom. My father and Al were never close so I don't know much about him. Wondering if Alvin Wallace was one and the same.