16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I knew that Bush Stadium was crumbling...But I did not know junk cars were being stored there. Check out this photo gallery from Star News.

http://photos.indystar.com/galleries...id=9624&num=15

There are 22 photos in the slide show..it seems that the link I have above is not showing them all..there are photos of the field and everything. Go to the Star News front page about half way down if you do not see all 22 photos.

http://www.indystar.com/

I didn't either until i was by there on fast friday. What a shame.
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Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I thought i read somewhere that those were all Cash For Clunker cars....and if so, i think they should have been crushed by now as there was a time frame for disposal.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

no its been a junk yard for over a year now maybe longer

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

ahhh, I stand corrected...maybe.

http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=11472968

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

The structure is there ONLY because it in on the Registry of Historic Places and it would cost the city a mountain to tear it down.

Call it a scam or whatever but the powers-that-be wanted it ripped down ( a la Market Square Arena and the Hoosier Dome) as soon as its replacement was built. The historical preservation people put a stop to that.

The period it spent as a racetrack was nothing more than an attempt to further insure it would never be used for baseball and to save the city the $100,000+ they were paying to be responsible for its maintenance.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I look at this and am saddened. I wanna go there one of these days. Summer is here. I wanna see and feel all the old memories. I have a poster of the track on my bedroom wall. It has a group photo of midgets done by Chris Young. I've wanted to go there since i can remember. I always admired that it was a dirt track that on a baseball stadium. And the place is just trashed now. All the papers and stuff thrown everywhere. It almost seems like whoever left it was pretty mad. I wonder what it would take to bring it back?

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

When I was looking to expand USAC Midget Week in 2007..The thought crossed my mind to look into 16th Street...I took one look through the fence..and knew then that it would cost a fortune to get in shape...without the junk cars...I moved on to Kamp Motor Speedway...

But 16th Street when it was in good shape would have been a perfect place for a Thursday Midget Week race.

There is something very haunting about an old crumbling stadium or racetrack....I remember seeing Randy Johnson, Joe Oliver, and Rob Dibble play there in the late 80's.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

tony -you & jet are both right she was a grand old lady that stod proud and with class it pisses me off everytime i have to drive by her now ... but in my heart i know what once was......

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

Atleast some of you have gotten to go. There are a lot of old historic tracks that you hear people talking about and that are closed now. I was lucky enough to go to Manzanita, but never got to race there. Places like this are places that i wish i could've gone too once.

I know i'm off topic here but another old track that can barely be seen is the old armscamp speedway in alexandria. Wondering if anybody has photos or stories about the old place.
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Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I remember going there a few times and I really enjoyed the track. I was thinking it always had a good turn out and everything else but I was younger. IT was a fun place a shame it couldn't stay open. I can't believe how its fallen apart!

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

By the end the crowd was so small that you pretty much knew everyone there. 500 or less, half came with the competitors.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

Sounds kinda like some of the tracks operating today.

You can still see some of Armscamp using Google Maps or Google Earth. http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=4...06877&t=h&z=17

There's an outline of what appears to be a racetrack on the northeast side of Upland that I've been meaning to ask about for a while. Never heard of a track there but it definitely looks like one, even with a wall and grandstands.
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=4...03439&t=h&z=18

... and they chewed up a lot of cars on that "track"

A lot of folks thought they'd get a chance to hobnob with the Indy crowd but they quickly learned otherwise.

There was potential to operate a profitable track... but they chose not to.
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Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I was involved with a small group that looked into it a little while ago and we discovered that the city will give you a Free lease on it but the maintenance and just getting it back into shape would cost a small fortune.

Eric Cottongim

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I really miss 16th Street Speedway. It remains one of my most favorite tracks to compete at. I feel fortunate to have gassed it up around that place a few times before it bit the dust.

J.T. Stapp:31:

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

The place is full of lead paint, to run that track again would cost a small fortune. It's a shame. I think at the time the IMS people didnt think they had to promote. After all back then they didnt promote at all at IMS, they sold out every year and had a waiting list for tickets. I think they thought they could just open the doors and the place would magically fill up. Didnt happen and they closed it rather than do the hard work to make it work. Also they didnt endear themselves to the surrounding community like a 20 minute fireworks show at 1am after a late running show etc.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

They are going to develope the stadium into high price condos.......I just heard this last week.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I had a conversation back in 07 with a former promoter who knows..and he said that the people who closed 16th Street to racing, made sure they took the fence, barriers, and all out so there would be sure racing would NOT come back.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

You had cars and no fans.

Some "Highlights" of it's existance as a track.....
-Opening morning: Had T.V and media there. They fired up a few cars for the T.V crew......Nothing but dust storm. They hadn't watered it or at least not enough. The T.V reporters made comments like....It shouldn't be this Dusty tonight and things of that nature. You couldn't see the cars for the dust.

-Opening night was S.R.O, but ran very late and some left.(Great race)

-U.A.W. night: So many tickets given away that they had to let fans sit on the pit side and many left mad.

-Summer Sizzle: I refuse to call it the "Summer Fizzle like others did because that isn't fair to the teams. People who called or went for tickets were told it was sold out when it wasn't. That's if someone was there at all. They couldn't get tickets even when they wanted them. People who were told they could camp were then told they had to move.

-A.M.A Flat track: Sold out event. Tons of bikes. The track didn't do the safety requirements specified by A.M.A(Hay bails) and the race was canceled on race day.

The list goes on and on and much of it ends with a very late program with die hard fans going home. It's too bad because it was a very unique experience.

By the way.....the very last race.......It was a day show that was advertised as a night show and fans were showing up when the teams were leaving.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

the summer sizzle was a financial disaster but the racing was GREAT!! The Chris Coers win on one of the perliminary nights was one of the better races i've ever seen, 3 cars literally touching as they took the checkered. On the final night of the Sizzle Critter had them all covered until he hit a hole about where home plate would be and crashed it......then they fixed the hole....in the middle of the race. They had drivers from all over the country at that race even Sleepy Tripp hauled in from Cali. One thing that pizzed people off was that on a normal show you could bring coolers in but they were turned away at the gate for that race. I saw some get so mad that they turned around and went home. I was at the very last race then headed off to IRP for USAC sprints that evening.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

The memories I have of the Summer Sizzler are:

It was the first I can remember being on the the usacfans.com message board...the Sizzler was always a topic.

The ticket prices for the Wed. or Thursday show were WAY to high at $20.

It was cool talking to Jack Hewitt in the pits preparing the Parker car.

I am still looking for a good OUTDOOR race track...:15:

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

Hey Ashley give me a call..Wally at 317-625-1232

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I hope somone, somewhere brings this place back. I see it as doable. Might be tough. But it is doable. I might just have to make a trip up there to see for myself.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

I went to many, many races there. Both as a fan and as a participant (crew member)

The track was horrible, on just about any occasion. I don't know where they got the dirt from but always assumed it came from White River as after an evenings racing you had to wash the car off as it smelled of fish. (no kidding)

There was always a giant hole in between turns 1 and 2, and it started out big and eventually large enough to sink a Semi.

It killed cars. Shocks, nerf bars, spuds, mounts, it all got trashed.

They always wanted the racers to believe that the "big break" was watching.... then treated everyone like the plague.

There were some real butt holes running that place. I would not trade those times for anything in the world!!!!

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

Only if you have a BIG bag of money you are willing to lose.

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

lead paint !!!!! IUPUI will be building on the site in 2012 i think

Re: 16th Street Speedway ( Bush Stadium) A Wreck
 

The parking lot is overflow for Wishard employees during the new hospital construction