From Jim Morrison

Here's a very interesting piece on the old Dayton Speedway. I saw racing at the track once, the first time USAC sprints returned there after it reopened in 1976. A guy named Pancho Carter won. One thing I remember is the track had just been repaved and the racing line as very narrow as little pieces of the track were coming up as the new asphalt had not yet cured. The track was so green that radiators at a stock car race a week or two earlier were getting plugged with the pebbles and oil. Getting out of the groove put you in the marbles. Dana Carter, Gary Bettenhausen and, I believe, Jeff Bloom tangled in a heat race with Carter flipping off Bettenhausen after GB started cussing him out.
I remember the photos in the article posted with this story as they were published in "Stand on the Gas." I remember the caption stating about Jim Rigsby simply "He did not survive."

Unfortunately, the track now rests under a landfill.

http://www.autoracing1.com/markc/200...52LaborDay.asp

great article, bigmojo. I went to Dayton many times as a kid and teenager. Saw Sonny Ates set the world record in qualifying in the #93 Iddings Auto Glass Sprinter. That old car lived a long life!!!!

Great article. Thanks for posting the link, Jim!

I remember as a young lad in the early 60's, standing in the infield, when Herk backed up and over the fence in the turn 3 and 4 area of Dayton Speedway and landed way down at the bottom of the hill in a grove of trees. As his rescuers rushed to help him, he shouted to them "Watch out down here, there's poison ivy all around." Then he said, "I think we if can get the car back up on the track and we can push it off, it should be alright." My dad was standing with me, with a camera hanging around his neck, so flabbergasted by this sequence of events, he forgot to snap a picture of it and still kicks himself for missing the photo op.

Dayton was very cool and so was Herk.

I have a foggy recollection (maybe not too well possibly) of Gary B. setting the last track record at Dayton in the Ace Nut & Bolt #8 at 16 seconds flat in about '76?

Thanks for the link.

Dick Wallens sprint car clasics #8 has the freshly repaved Dayton speedway highlights on it from the the lates 70's........Good stuff!! :thumb

That Was No Place To Crash. Was At The "76" Race.

Thanks for the link Jim. Great article. :thumb

Sonny and Henry Meyer had a great run in that car. I remember Ates winning two out of three features one mid 60's Sunday afternoon. Larry Dickson won the other one as I recall. A couple of other memories from the Dayton high banks.

I was under the impression that Jan Opperman was a dirt only guy. A very good dirt only guy but one who would look about like me on pavement. WRONG!! He ran away with the feature there in the Longhorn #6 (late 70's maybe).

Steve Benovich from Michigan brought his beautiful #54 which he had bought from Bud Tinglestad. Candy apple red with gold metal flake numbers. Claire Lawicki, also from Michigan, stuck it in the turn one guardrail leaving Benovich's beauty going home in a basket. Some guy had been shooting pictures through the guardrail in turn one and was struck by flying parts. They carried this portly gent by us on a stretcher and we heard later that he didn't make it. Don't know if that was true.

Then we watched Mike Mosley kill himself, or so we thought, entering turn one upside down at about 140, in A.J. Watson's DOHC Ford powered screamer. What a relief when Mike, one of my favorites and one of the best IMO to run but never win Indy, was only slightly injured and the car turned up soon after at Terre Haute with A.J. Foyt at the controls.

Then we watched Mike Mosley kill himself, or so we thought, entering turn one upside down at about 140, in A.J. Watson's DOHC Ford powered screamer. What a relief when Mike, one of my favorites and one of the best IMO to run but never win Indy, was only slightly injured and the car turned up soon after at Terre Haute with A.J. Foyt at the controls.....Fishburger

Fish, I saw Mike dump Watson's DOHC at Dayton and saw Foyt run it at Terre Haute. That's the day Tommy Hinnershitz prepared the track and it was a mess. There was about an 18" wall of mud down the middle of the back straight and you had to either run inside of it or, outside of it and make that decision coming out of turm 2!!:O: Scratch Danials and Gary B put on one h$ll of a race in the feature that day. Can't remember who won between those two. I also watched Al Smith dump the Watson DOHC at Dayton after Mosely. It was painted gold when Al dumped it. He was relatively unhurt also.

Opp could drive anything anywhere. In the first Winston Cup race at the Pocono Speedway in 1974 Opp drove to a top ten finish in his first ever start in that series. Eastern modified ace Kenny Brightbill joined him in the top ten that afternoon.

Anyone remember the Sunday afternoon in the mid to late 70's when the sun was so hot, the track was coming apart, and they had the fire department bring a couple fire trucks out and tried to cool the asphalt with water? It was so hot the water basically turned to steam and disappeared as soon as it hit the track. It's the only asphalt race I ever had to sit through the track getting watered during the event,, lol :rolling

I've still got some old ticket stubs, programs, etc from the old Dayton Speedway. I was just going through some of that stuff last week. :thumb