Here are some great pics of the Michigan State Fair Mile in its glory days. The track is basically still there, but only an outline at best. The grandstand was demolished a few years ago. And the state has shut down the state fair also.

http://www.waterwinterwonderland.com...id=1757&Type=9

Scroll down a bit for the pics.

I never did attend a race there but from accounts that I have heard it was a pretty racey joint. Last fall I ventured over there while visiting my sons in the Detroit area. Not much left and it is in a sad state for sure. The only thing that could help it now is a wrecking ball. Sorry to see the miles go by the wayside. They will never be replaced in my lifetime.

10 years or so ago our then gov. Engler tried to build a one mile asphalt oval at the state fairgrounds in Detroit. The mayor and local residents killed it.

man I love ol pics like that

The pic of Tommy Thompson winning over what must have been a super field of drivers in the day was way ahead of my times, but I can remember him as a top dog at the Sportsdrome in Jeffersonville In around 1956 or 57 in a white 55 chevy. he was racing guys like Bill Kimmel Sr., Bobby Watson, Hugh Randall, Jessy Baird, Andy Hampton, Bud Russell, Shorty Thompson, and Charlie Glotzback.
Wasn't much on TV back then and they payed a precentage of the front gate to the racers. I can still remember when I was about 7 or 8 years old and "Ma" Kimmel (that was Bill's Mother) daring the promoter, Bob Hall to come down out of his office with the rest of the purse she said he had shorted the racers because she had counted the fans going in. I thought that was pretty neat. Can you think what kind of purse we would have now if they payed a percentage of the front gate? Could that be part of our problem now?

Thanks for posting Don. That track is a little too old for my time. Too bad as it's 20 miles from my house!

They last raced there in 1966 when someone came in and cut in a half mile track using a portion of the mile track's front straightaway. Grandstands or part of them were eventaully condemmed. The fairgrounds eventually turned the infield into a giant softball complex in the 1970s or the 1980s, but like everything else in Detroit, it eventually failed. I was born and raised in Detroit, but you could not pay me enough to go back there now. Sad place.