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THIS IS A PAGE FOR STORIES OF YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY'S OF YOUR TIMES AT THE RACES. EMAIL YOUR STORIES TO ME AT:
coupefan@sbcglobal.net , KEEP THEM CLEAN AND ENTERTAINING, PROVIDE YOUR NAME ALONG WITH THE STORY AND I WILL POST THEM ON THIS PAGE.
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WHEN I WAS ABOUT 3 1/2 TO 4 YEARS OLD (1969), MY PARENTS AND I WENT DOWN TO THE PITS AFTER THE RACES ONE NIGHT AT BELLE CLAIR SPEEDWAY. MY FATHER KNEW RAY EBY AND I ALWAYS HEADED TO HIS CAR FIRST, ONE NIGHT WHEN RAY WAS GETTING READY TO LOAD UP HIS COUPE FOR THE NIGHT HE PICKED ME UP AND PUT ME INTO HIS CAR. I STOOD ON THE SEAT AND HE PUT MY HANDS ON THE STEERING WHEEL AND TOLD ME TO HOLD THE WHEEL STRAIGHT. THEN HE AND HIS PIT CREW ALL PUSHED ME UP ONTO THE TRAILER, I THOUGHT I WAS DRIVING! DEFINITELY ONE OF THE BEST TIMES I EVER HAD WHEN I WAS A KID.
DUANE MARBURGER JR.
I was 14 years old, in the summer of 1967. Gordon Mallory was winning the championship at Bismarck Speedway. My Friend Robert Halbrook and I went to the track every Friday Night...it was a stone's throw from town, near the Bismarck Municipal Airport.
We would go down by the pit gate and check out the action from there. Gordon would pit there, by the pit gate each week. Robert and I often built car models as a hobby, and I decided to build a model of Gordon's Coupe...
A 1937 Chevy Coupe is what he raced. "B" Class #25, it was red, white and blue. One side red and the other side was blue, they were separated by a white stripe down the center of the car. This was the easy part...it didn't change. What did change, however, was the tires/wheels. Since they ran street tires in that era, they would change weekly depending on what was available to the drivers. Some times there would be white walled tires, other times would be red-line tires. This became like a game for me, to "keep up" with what he was running and change the car based on how it looked each week throughout the season.
I took the model car down by the Pit gate one night and showed it to Gordon...and he was fascinated that I had built it. He thought it was pretty neat, especially when he realized that it was built out of a 1940 FORD Coupe. It did look just like his car, since it was missing a lot of the things like a grill or fenders that were easily recognizable and could distinguish the make of car.
Fast forward to around 1999-2000. A friend of mine was dating Gordon's former daughter in law. He dropped by my friends house one day to visit his grandson and we began to talk racing.
I had no clue who this man was as he asked about our adventures at the track. Only after he began to talk about HIS racing days, did I realize who I had struck up a conversation with... Later, after talking about the model and him realizing that it was me who had built it, I once again took the model for Gordon see. He recalled the details of our visit 33 years prior.
I still have the model, today, 44 years later. Sitting in a display case proudly representing these memories from such a great time in our local racing history.
Randy Horton "Sr"
I am writing this at 3:00 in the morning, my mind is clear and I can remember events of long ago better. My favorite pastime in the 1950's was to go to Walsh Stadium with my dad and watch the stock car races. In the 1940's we would go and watch the midget races, around 1950 I saw my first stock car race and I was hooked, such a variety of cars, mostly Flathead Fords 32 Model B's on up with an occasional Nash, Studebaker, Hudson or Buick. what made it interesting was that the race was never stopped unless someone was hurt or there was no more room on the track to go around the wrecked or overturned cars., the drivers had to get out of the cars, run and jump over the wall to get off of the track.
One night a neighbors 1939 Lincoln Zephyr 3 window coupe showed up, it still had the headlights and all of the glass, all you needed was a seat belt and a helmet. He took off the fender skirts and some how managed to race and then drive it home that night untouched. I saw Tom Crook in the number 3-D crash through the wooden fence on the south end of the track, later I drew a picture of what my mind saw that night. My son still has that drawing in a frame.
One of the strangest sights that I remember seeing was a nice peach colored 1941 Ford convertible, top down and no roll bars. He didn't do so good and I only saw him that one night. Later that year I saw that same Ford convertible sitting in a junk yard on highway 66 near Pacific.
The funniest sight I've seen was a little green beat up 32 Model B Ford coupe with a driver behind the wheel named Uronimus roaring down the back straight away at Walsh Stadium in the middle of a pack of 39-40-48 Fords all in a real tight formation, there was a huge cloud of dust following the pack and somehow the little green coupe got spun around and was lifted in the air above the cars and dust cloud. What a sight and what a wild race!
In 1956 I was 13 years old, I asked a neighborhood girl that I liked to go out on my first date to Walsh Stadium to watch the races, I paid 25 cents each for us to get in. It was the last race at Walsh Stadium, they began to tear it down that September in 1956. If I remember right, I think that Habe Haberling won the last race that night in a beautiful black ford coupe. I helped my date over the wall that night after the races and for the first time I actually stood on the track for the first time.The girl I took on my first date to the races? 12 year old Mary Fran that would later be on the Bob Newhart Show.
In 1962 I talked a couple of friends of mine into going to the stock car races at Lake Hill Speedway, I had been going to the races for years but they had never been. Larry Maurer was one of them and within two weeks of going to his first stock car race Larry had his own 1949 Ford coupe out on the track. He was only 15 years old but he looked like he was 19, Big Larry loved stock car racing! Larry built his cars around 2nd street and President street in St. Louis, I would paint and letter his cars, down the street lived the Lowry boys and Joe Hawks Riverside junk yard was two blocks away. Ollie Becker and Joe Bargetti were a couple of people that drove Riverside cars.
Now for the best race I have ever seen, it was in the early 1980's at Belle-Clair Speedway. I think it may have been a feature and Ed Dixon was in his black Modified and was racing for the lead when his left front wheel was torn completely off of his car. Ed was leading the race for several laps, not giving up an inch and was racing on three wheels. The race ended for Ed when the officials stopped him and said it was too dangerous for him to continue racing that way. The crowd was not very happy and he probably would have won that race on just three wheels if they would have let him finish. It was very dangerous though, if Ed
would have had to make a hard right hand turn to avoid someone and would have dug the front end into one of the ruts in the corner where Tonto was standing at the pit gate he would have cartwheeled his car over Tonto's head and out of the stadium. What a great race that was to watch!
I have seen Studebaker's roll over, popstart the engine and keep on running to finish the race without stopping, I saw Bill Peach who always finished last in his pink coupe lead a race for a lap or two with great surprise from the crowd, I saw Farouk's pants fall down while trying to get out of his car after a rollover. The most beautiful sight was all of those colorful coupes, the lights gleaming off of their roofs. Ollie Becker always fudging at the standing starting line, the cars pushing, engines roaring as the flag man walks by with the green flag ready to wave. HE'S DOWN TO THE THIRD ROW! HE'S DOWN TO THE SECOND ROW! HE'S AT THE FIRST ROW! WATCH HIM!....WATCH HIM! THIER OFF! THEY WILL NEVER MAKE IT PAST THE FIRST TURN!.
That's enough, I'm going back to bed.
Duane Marburger sr.
I would always take a camera with me down to the infield during the races, one night in 1968 Elmer Lowry was having carburetor problems and he was working on the carb and trying to fix it to get into the next race. He had the carb off of the car and was sitting on a stack of tires working on the trunk of his #153 1957 Chevy. I snapped a picture of him working, when the flash bulb went off he jumped back thinking that the gasoline in the carb somehow blew up. He looked up at me, shook his head, everyone laughed and then he went back to work. this is the picture I took, Elmer Lowry is working on the carb and his son, a young Buddy Lowry is to the left of him.
Larry Maurer's first race 6-24-1962
Lake Hill Speedway
I'm 19 years old, so I grew up in the latemodel decade, however I have some great memories from back in the 90's. Belle Clair Speedway is the place, I was about 7 years old. I remember begging my dad to take me with him to the races one friday night and he finally agreed to take me. When we got there we went and sat in turn 4. The latemodels came out for hot laps and dad pointed to his favorite driver. He was in a red Ford Thunderbird, with a yellow #28 on the sides. It was of course, The King, Dandy Don Klein. After the races dad took me in the pits and i sat in Donnie's car and got a t-shirt. And here I am, 12 years later, and every friday night i am at Belle Clair Speedway cheering on Donnie Klein, only now I'm not sitting in turn 4...I'm in the pits with the rest of the Klein boys watching him.
Another great memory of mine was back in 2001 when Donnie swept at Belleville on the hundred lapper night and won the heat, dash, and the 100 lap feature.
Donnie is an amazing driver, even now at 74, and he will always be the man!!
Katie McGuire
