Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Brake Fix’s History of Motorsports series is brought to you in part by the International Motor Racing Research Center, as well as the Society of Automotive Historians, the Watkins Glen Area Chamber of Commerce, and the Argettsinger family.
Crew Chief Eric: On today’s episode of The Logbook, we’re taking you back to a 2015 celebration of the New York State Fairgrounds, a place where engines roared, legends were born, and a mile of dirt became a cathedral of speed.
The Moody Mile is at the heart of this IMRRC center conversation with a tribute to the racers, the storytellers, the innovators, and the dreamers who turned a simple oval of clay into one of the most iconic stages in American motorsport. From the early days of AAA champ cars to the thunder of Super Dirt Car Series, the Syracuse Mile has seen triumph, heartbreak, and a history written at over 100 miles an hour.
You’ll hear the voices of the men who lived it, Wes Moody, who gave the track its name with a lap so fast the announcers didn’t believe their own stopwatches. Glen Donnelly, [00:01:00] the visionary who refused to quit, even when the weather or the world said otherwise. Drivers like Alan Johnson and Gary Tompkins each carry their own stories of speed, fear, pride, and the unforgettable feeling of rolling out onto the Mile for the very first time.
You’ll hear about ice cubes thrown from campers, bodies built in horse barns, sprint cars run wide open for a full lap, and the quiet moments, the ones in the garage long after midnight where champions were made. You’ll hear the laughter, the scars, the memories, and the reverence for a place that meant more than just racing.
And as one speaker put it, it was the greatest spectacle on dirt. And now, with the grandstand silent and the track gone, the stories matter more than ever. So settle in, because this is not a eulogy, it’s a celebration. A celebration of men, the machines, and the Mile that shaped generations. Welcome, folks, to the Moody Mile, where history still echoes if you know how to listen.
JC Argetsinger: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning. We’re delighted to see this nice audience here. I’m JC Argettsinger, president of the International Motor Racing [00:02:00] Research Center. This morning is the driver’s panel, and I’m going to have, uh, Kip introduce everyone. Kip, would you come on up? Kip, you really deserve a, a round of applause here for putting this together, working diligently to get this wonderful
Kip Zeiter: cast.
I refer to myself as kind of the token short track guy in this place. And when we brought the Gary Ballou car in yesterday, it was like, “Yes.” We have had some very, very stout cars on display. We are very blessed with that. But I think the Ballou car certainly, uh, is one of the best ones we’ve ever had. So I hope after the guys share thoughts and histories and memories, both good and bad, that you come back to the center because we’re gonna do a history of the place.
I’ve seen excerpts of it. It is killer. It is just fabulous. And, uh, I hope you all come back for the afternoon session. I’m gonna introduce Joe Morata and Gary Montgomery, and then I’m gonna get out of the way. Everybody who has attended a race in central New York over the [00:03:00] last 40-plus years knows the voice of Joe Morata.
Joe announced at all 44 Super Dirt Weeks. Joe announces weekly at, at Oswego and all over the place. And Gary Montgomery, longtime writer for Gator Racing News, Motor Racing Network commentator. Gary’s history doesn’t need recounting, in part because I don’t know all the history. So anyway, Gary and Joe are gonna introduce our illustrious panel of drivers.
As I say, I’m gonna get out of the way and just let these guys swap stories and tell memories.
Joe Marotta: Thank you, Kip.
Well, I’m gonna tell you, this is really an honor to be up here, and to remember the Moody Mile is just absolutely second to none. And we’ve got quite a group of drivers here. Gary Montgomery down there on the other end. You know, as I started out almost every race here for the past 30 years, I would say, as my good friend Jack Burgess always said, “You’ve gotta have a favorite out there.”
And here are some of my all-time favorites [00:04:00] sitting right to the left of me. Mel Lane alongside of me. Uh, Mel, of course, who has run at the Moody Mile on many occasions, not only in a small block modified, but also in a big block sprinter, a 410 sprinter. Also alongside of him, guy who, uh, had a, a great run at the Moody Mile, former Mr.
Dirt champion, ladies and gentlemen, Gary Tompkins.
Next in line. Now, this guy is known for, well, he’s known for asphalt racing. He’s known for dirt racing. He is known for running a super modified, a small block super modified, a super stock on the asphalt. And this year, he had his very first experience of running on the Mooney Mile. Danny K., Danny Kapuscinski.
A gentleman who needs no introduction at all to the Moody Mile, to dirt track racing, obviously a [00:05:00] future Hall of Famer. Ladies and gentlemen, AJ Slideways, Alan Johnson
Now here’s a guy next to him, we call it the Moody Mile. And because of this gentleman on that Labor Day in 1970, when he went, exceeded 100 miles an hour, ladies and gentlemen, Wes Moody.
There have been an awful lot of leaders in history, but the leader of the Moody Mile dirt car racing, the godfather of the sport, Glen Donnelly
Another local guy, Ryan out of Waterloo, New York, started his racing at the old Waterloo Speedway. We were talking about it a few minutes ago. Had many runs at the Moody Mile at Syracuse, a very noted chassis builder. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Johnny Bayroch.[00:06:00]
And a guy who I have shared the mic for many, many years over many different racetrack, both dirt and asphalt, ladies and gentlemen, Gary Montgomery
To get this program underway, we call it the Moody Mile. And I would think the first gentleman that we should call up here on our panel is the guy who we nicknamed the Moody Mile. Wes Moody, we’d like you up here. Do you recall that day on Labor Day afternoon at the then called Syracuse Mile?
Wes Moody: Yeah, I certainly do.
Joe Marotta: Can you recall some of the events that took place on that day?
Wes Moody: Yeah. Well, we were, we were racing about, uh, four or five nights a week at that time, and we, uh, got to Syracuse, and we’re trying to figure out what kind of tires to put on. And had a pair of Goodyear tires that, uh, somebody gave me. We were all broke, and, uh, you know the, the deal back in the day.
Anyway, we threw those, those tires on, and Alan just [00:07:00] talking about, uh, some tires. Uh, probably the same set of tires, uh, Alan. We went out and oh, my God, that thing was fast. We were just blowing them away, and could never beat Kagle at Wheatsport rolling wheels. And, uh, man, I smoked him that day, and that was the best feeling of my life.
Joe Marotta: Do you remember, though, when you turned that quick lap?
Wes Moody: Oh, I certainly do. I’ll never forget it. It’s, uh … I still, uh, feel it right now.
Joe Marotta: As you were running that day during the hot lap sessions and actually running your qualifying heat, I understand that your car was pelted by ice cubes down in turn number three.
Wes Moody: Good friends of mine, R- Richie Evans and, uh, Sonny Seaman, they backed their camper up to the, uh, third turn. And, um, and, and, and I was running real hard with, uh, Tobias, as I recall, going into third turn and it felt like bullets hitting my car. I said, “What the hell?” Come around again and like, bullets hitting it again.
What the heck? And I guess they were, uh, both drunk up on the top of their camper, and they were, uh, [00:08:00] throwing ice cubes at me
Joe Marotta: That was quite an eventful day.
Gary Montgomery: I got a question for Wes. Which car was that? I, I wasn’t at the, or if I was there that day, I’ve forgotten. But, uh, was that the stagecoach or a coupe?
Wes Moody: That particular time, that was a ’57 X car that those guys are hitting me with the ice cubes with.
Gary Montgomery: Yeah, but was it a coupe-bodied car or a sedan-bodied car?
Wes Moody: It’s at the track record- Yeah … but that was a coupe.
Gary Montgomery: That was a coupe, all right.
Wes Moody: Yeah.
Gary Montgomery: I must confess that, um, we’ve called this thing, Joe and I, and other announcers have called it the Moody Mile for years, and that’s the reason for it.
It c- and I think it was, uh, the fellow, uh, Dave Wright from, uh, Gator News that came up with that nomenclature for the track then. But I always continued to use it because I thought the track had a mood. It was, sometimes it was moody, sometimes it was good, and, but it was Moody Mile for a couple of reasons, in my opinion.
But the real, of course, the source of that, it was you.
Wes Moody: Well, actually, uh, Joe Marotta and my dad started that same day. My dad w- and Joe, I don’t know which picked up on it first, but that same day, uh, they say we were flying high. That was, [00:09:00] uh, tough to beat Cagle and Chamberlain and those guys. Oh, my God, they were tough to beat, those guys.
And we smoked them, man.
Joe Marotta: Well, you know, here’s how it all started. Uh, we were in a couple of hour rain delay. They finally got the cars out there, and people were a little maybe restless in the grandstand. I said, “Man, I gotta do something to kinda perk this crowd up.” So I had the old-fashioned stopwatch, and I knew 36 seconds was 100 miles an hour.
So all of a sudden, this little coupe comes flying by, and he went a 35.9. And I says, “That’s over 100 miles an hour. 35.8, that’s over 100 miles an hour.” So I announce it. Now, there was a gentleman there by the name of John Duvall who was official here at Watkins Glen Speedway, a right-hand man to promoter Ira Veil.
And he says, “Ira, I’m only getting 37-second laps.” And Ira said, “100 miles an hour sounds better. Let the kids say it.” So then, uh, we had a [00:10:00] little bit of a break, and I climbed down the stairs, ran into Dave Wright. And Dave Wright said, “Hey, Wes Moody went over 100 miles an hour.” I says, “Yep.” He said, “It’s now the Moody Mile.”
I says, “Really? All right.” And so when I got back upstairs, it became the Moody Mile. Does anyone have any questions for Wes Moody?
Wes Moody: Actually, the day we’re running really good on the asphalt and, and winning, that, that was the day I liked it the best. And the next time you’re on the dirt, and, uh, we’re going like hell, man, I love this dirt.
Joe Marotta: Good answer. He sounds like one of those guys that are now, uh, running for some kind of an office, right?
Yeah. Yes. You know, we wanna talk to the gentleman sitting to the left of Wes Moody. I call him the godfather of the Moody Mile or the one-mile track, Super Dirt series. Glen Donnelly, how did it all start? How did it all get together?
Glenn Donnelly: [00:11:00] Geez, I don’t know, Joe. I can just remember I needed an announcer.
Joe Marotta: Oh, boy.
Glenn Donnelly: And you know, there was this guy, he was probably in his late teens, early 20s, was at the burley show. Do you guys remember those days when they had the burlesque shows at the state fair?
Joe Marotta: Careful, my wife is here.
Glenn Donnelly: Joe, how did it go, you know, when you were trying to get him on the inside?
Joe Marotta: Why, just last week, Mr.
Walter Winchell described her as the best undressed woman in show business.
Glenn Donnelly: Do you guys remember that? I don’t see too many heads going, but that’s how I met Joe Morana. I said, “Geez, he’d make a great announcer.” But on a serious note, every organization, and again, I was in sports all my life, and in particular football, and I went through college on a football scholarship.
So I always looked at the NFL, and of course, the NFL just started running what they call the Super Bowl. That kind of triggered a lot what we had to do in [00:12:00] 1970 when I got into this racing game. So the Super Bowl was always the best track you could come up with around the area, and at the time it was Syracuse.
So I had Weedsport, a few years later took over Rolling Wheels, and then a few years later, Canandaigua, and in the early ’80s, Middletown. Syracuse was the perfect place to end the season, and that’s when we started in 1972 with Super Dirt Week. After that first year, it was terrible though. Friday night rain, Saturday rain, we did everything on Sunday.
Bottom line is I lost about 7,000 bucks, but I had a contract with Schaefer Beer for five grand, and it was for three years. The obligation was there, that’s why we went back and went the second year. It’s a good thing we did because from there on it was what we’d consider in sports a home run. But again, everything that we tried to do was do it after what they would do in the NFL or any major league sport.
Even [00:13:00] today, where we’re coming into, uh, the 21st century and a new era, we’re playing with a new surface that we think will be a future for dirt racing. We did it at Rolling Wheels this year, and after five events, we think we got it pretty well down. The World of Outlaws come in and set the world’s record.
Rolling Wheels today is the fastest track in the world, 145 mile an hour on a basically five-eighths mile track, and that’s big. Even Syracuse, they couldn’t run that speed, you know, on a mile track. But the surface really makes the difference It’s where it’s tacky, smooth. Some of the guys, Gary, Allen, have run on the surface this year.
This is one of the things that I’m, I’m kind of looking forward to, and it’s not like I come up with this idea myself. The NFL and Major League Baseball, and in particular Major League Baseball, is the people that I’m really copying on this. You know, if you watched a Major League game 10 years ago and it started raining, they’d have to cover the infield.
Last year, the Yankees played [00:14:00] 17 games right in the rain, and it’s the same basic surface we’re using, and theirs all comes out of Wisconsin. A lot of stuff starts in Wisconsin. But in particular, that’s where, that’s where their surface… The only trouble is it’s real expensive. When you’re talking polymers and waxes and the stuff you’ve got to use to mix in with your clay, it gets expensive.
Rolling wheels just on a trial basis here cost us over 400,000, and when we put this track together in Central Square, we’ll have well over a million in it. I think that that’s the way to go. I think the future of the sport, you know, you got to look at these 16 to 30 year olds and what they want. You drive along the side of the road and you see these kids glued to something.
Look, they’re looking right at it. Wes told me it’s cell phones. I don’t… That’s what it’s come to. Joe, I, I don’t think we wanna look in the rear mirror, so that’s why I’m starting to talk about what’s out front, ’cause we don’t allow rear view mirrors in stock cars. We haven’t anyway, have we, Alan? I [00:15:00] don’t know.
I don’t know.
Joe Marotta: Okay, Glen. Gary, any questions for him?
Gary Montgomery: Well, I would just add that you gave a great introduction, but, um, Glen is responsible for, as far as I’m concerned, establishing this sport as we know it today, and as we’ve known it for the last 20 years or whatever it’s been. His vision, his crazy ideas.
Mostly his vision, then he figured out people to get to work for him to make th- those visions reality. And there’s been a long list of folks that have been involved in that, and I’m delighted to have been part of it over the years. And, uh, you know, he’s created an industry. The cars, I think the, the way they look, I don’t like it, but that’s, uh
It’s the way it’s evolved. And the fact that he had this vision and stuck with it all these years, and continues to stick with it, is just great. I really respect him, like him. Used to be his partner. He got mad at me, I got mad at him, but we got over it. And I look forward to his success at the Central New York Raceway Park.
Joe Marotta: You know, one of the things I’d like to say about Glen in the conjunction with the Mooney Mile, this guy never said [00:16:00] never. He was never a quitter. I mean, we were faced on many, many occasions with the worst weather that you could ever, ever see on a radar screen, and one way or another, we would get the show in.
You know, I’m gonna recall one story. When Glen Donnelly took over, uh, Orange County Fair Speedway, he and I went down on one of the first nights and rode down together, and then rode back together. He said to me, he says, “Well, Joe, what do you think?” I said, “What do I think of what?” He says, “What do you think of all the help, and the scorers, and the people in the tower?”
I said, “Well, Glen, I … Honest to God,” I said, “I think you were a little tough on them. You were really a little rough on them.” Well, by the time we got onto Route 17, he was sleeping. We got about halfway up the interstate or Route 17, and he woke up, and he says, “Did you ever play football?” I said, “Yep.” He says, “You remember your coach?”
He says, “During the game, he was ragging on you all the time. He was just always on your tail, but after the game, he was your [00:17:00] best friend.” And that was Glen Donnelly. Glen was kind of tough. He was up there in the tower. He was, he was a pusher and a mover, but he got the game done, and then he became your best friend again.
And I think we owe an awful lot of credit of the Mooney Mile to Glen Donnelly, ladies and gentlemen.
We’re gonna switch around here a little bit The Moody Mile has been run for, what Gary, since? 1903. 1903. Glen wasn’t there, I wasn’t there. But I’m gonna tell you, there’s been so many experiences on the Moody Mile. Danny Kampesinski, who I introduced earlier, had quite a year this year. Now he is the PR guy and the social media person up at the Oswego Speedway, and he has run on the asphalt a lot.
But one of his goals in life was to run on the Moody Mile. I had him on my radio show the week after. He wrote a very interesting article, and I think because of that, Kip asked him to be here. Danny, can you relate some of the experiences as a first timer on the [00:18:00] Moody Mile?
Danny Kapuscinski: Well, honestly, I feel kind of goofy being up here sitting in between Alan Johnson and Gary Tompkins
I, I think I have 40 laps of experience on the Mile, but it may have been the most exciting 40 laps I’ve ever run in my entire life. I started racing at Oswego all the way back in 2001. I was 16 years old. At that time, there weren’t a lot of teenagers racing at Oswego. I was a sophomore in high school, but my father built 13 different cars that ran at Oswego, and it was in my blood to always want to go there.
He did not like dirt cars. And I think, I think he referred to them as farm implements. I think that’s what he called dirt modifieds. He was a super modified guy. But I grew up loving racing of all sorts. My mom went to Rolling Wheels for years with, uh, Jimmy and Debbie Winks, and she would take me to Rolling Wheels and watch guys like Alan and Gary and Bob McCready race.
And we lived in Columbus, Ohio for about 13 years at one point too, and I remember turning on, I think it was the TNN Sports Cavalcade, and Syracuse would be on watching Brett Hearn run and, and all those great races. And so I always knew of the Mile. Never went to Syracuse until probably 2001 [00:19:00] or 2002. It was for a Fourth of July race, I think, at the time, and never really envisioned myself doing any kind of dirt racing.
But after I got done with Oswego, we ran super modifieds and small blocks. I went off to college at St. John Fisher, got my degree in communications journalism. Actually ended up working for World Racing Group for a while with Jack Spino and, and all, and all those guys, Tom Skibinski and, and spent some time, moved to Charlotte, came back to work for Oswego.
And a, a gentleman that I raced with at Oswego for a long time, his name’s Jason Simmons, owned a bunch of asphalt cars, decided he wanted to go dirt modified racing. He tried it at Fulton once last year. It didn’t really treat him very well, so he offered me the car. He said, “Well, if you want to take the car, put it in your garage, maintain it, work on it, you can go run anytime you want.”
So in between running it, we, we do the Oswego Kart Way on Friday nights. I have to be there every Friday, Oswego every Saturday. So I’d go to Weedsport. We went to Canandaigua one night. We went up to Can Am and, and had some fun with it. And it was an old Bicknell car that apparently Matt Shepherd had ran at Syracuse at one point.
But I had no experience with these cars and I really, I never envisioned taking the car to Syracuse. It wasn’t [00:20:00] something that, you know, I just didn’t feel like we would go there with any kind of ability to run well and be safe. And then the word came down that it was the last race ever to happen at the fair.
And like, well, I guess we’re gonna have to do it. So, um, we put the car together very last minute, couple days in between. We ran the Outlaw Show at Fulton with the same car, put a body and some shocks on it, and went to Syracuse, and it was just An unreal feeling. It was the closest thing I could relate to being at, like, the Daytona International Speedway, just showing up for the tech line.
I mean, have you guys been there to see the tech at Syracuse? That was my most nerve-wracking part of the entire week. We had a four-wheeler and a piece of rope to pull the car, and I’m next to Tim McCready in line, and I’m not even sure if … I hung the body on the car for the first time myself, and they got these templates, and I’m like, “Oh, my God.
Uh, they’re not even gonna let me on the racetrack with this thing,” you know? But we made it through, and of 93 cars, we time trailed 14th fastest, and ended up finishing 12th in the race. Couldn’t believe it. I think my asphalt experience helped a little bit with that. I was talking with Gary earlier. Most of the qualifying and practice we did early in the week, the track was rubbered up pretty well, and it was pretty wide [00:21:00] open, which kinda suited me very well.
And then come Sunday it was like, it was slippery, a lot more slippery than I was used to dealing with racing Supermodifieds at Oswego, where you got all the bite and horsepower you could imagine. So, like I said, it w- I don’t wanna talk forever, but it, I could. It was the best 40 laps I’ve ever, uh, experienced, and I’m so elated to have been able to experience it, but so devastated at the same time that I’ll never get to do it again.
Joe Marotta: Gary?
Gary Montgomery: Yes. I have no question for Danny, but I would shift gears if you’re ready to shift gears and talk to- Sure. Okay. Uh, let’s talk to the mayor here next to me, Johnny Barage. Named him the mayor of Seneca Falls when he lived there a few years ago and raced and won a lot of races and so forth. John has some experience on the mile, and as you mentioned earlier, we’ve got, uh, two guys up here with us today that have driven both modifieds And, uh, sprint cars.
John, I believe, made four starts on the mile in a modified. I’m not sure how many … I don’t, I don’t believe that. I know that for a fact. Do you know that for a fact? Okay. I don’t know. For Super Dirt Week that is. I’m, [00:22:00] I’ve got stats up the go- zoo, uh, from, uh, Don and Joanne Davies, and some of you may recognize that, those names.
Anyway, they, they provide statistics for all of the, the race, Super Dirt ra- races. And so I’ve com- they’ve compiled it, and I’ve sub- subtracted from that, found out you had four runs there in, in Super Dirt Week. But you may have run Fourth of July races and Labor Day races as well. But the interesting thing, most interesting thing about all that, I think, is the fact that you’ve done it both in a modified, probably a small block as well, and a sprint car.
And so talk to us about the differences between sprint cars and modifieds on the Moody Mile.
Johnny Birosh: Well, there’s, there’s quite a bit of difference between them. Uh, sprint cars, uh, at Syracuse, you’re pretty much driving around there wide open. You don’t let off the gas, and it’s quite a ride. Takes you a while when you first go out there in a sprint car to figure out that that’s what you have to do.
You have to talk yourself into leaving it wide open. Once you do, then you, then you’re getting around there pretty good. Modifieds, yeah, we didn’t race there a lot, but we did, [00:23:00] uh, run there a few times and, uh, ran pretty good a couple times. Got wrecked a couple times. Our best race there was, uh, Fourth of July.
We ran a small block against the big blocks, and we won the heat. We started fifth in the feature and finished fifth, and that was our best finish that we had at Syracuse. Even in modifieds, uh, it’s quite a ride around that place when you’re used to running half-mile tracks and 3/8ths-mile tracks, and you go there, and it’s really different and quite an experience.
Ev- everybody that ever got to race at Syracuse, I’m sure they’re glad right now that they did, seeing that it’s gonna be going away here. It was a great experience.
Gary Montgomery: I call it the greatest spectacle on dirt. I think that is the case. Uh, quality of the racing isn’t always great, but it is a spectacle for sure.
I must confess that I don’t remember too much of your winning and having good runs on the mile, but I do remember a day very specifically. You and I were standing at the start/finish line when the red flag was out after a multi-car crash, and we were surveying the damage of … And it was a sprint car at that time.
And I think the answer was it [00:24:00] wasn’t damaged, and I think you fired up and kept going.
Johnny Birosh: Yeah. Yeah, we could have. One time we fired up and kept going. We were in two wrecks up there, uh, the last time I ran a sprint car there. On the original start, there was… I can’t remember how many cars they started in the feature, but we started 16th.
A, a lot. A lot. Yeah. And, uh, we started 16th, and they started wrecking in, like, third or fourth place. Boy, we really got tore up. That was the only time in my whole racing career, 28 years, that I went to the hospital. Other than that, yeah, that, that place was, it was fast. There’s no question about it. It
Gary Montgomery: was fast, exciting, and guys like you and Wes and the rest of the drivers down the line here that have had the experience of doing that, I just marvel at the fact that it can be done, that there’s a man alive that, or, or a woman, that will do that.
We must complete this resume on the mayor here though. He moved from Seneca Falls to Penn Yan, and he now builds hot rods and street rods and that sort of thing. And so we’re honored to have the mayor of, uh, Seneca Falls, now the mayor of Penn Yan, with us here today.
Joe Marotta: John, you were, uh, noted as a chassis [00:25:00] builder as well as a driver.
When you were putting together chassis and building chassis, did you do anything special for a Syracuse chassis? Were they designed in any different way?
Johnny Birosh: The only car that we ever built different for Syracuse is one for Lynn Huff that was quite a bit different. But other than that, usually just the sheet metal.
You know, the body work was different. Two of these guys sitting on the stage here used to work for me doing sheet metal. Actually, they had my cars at different times too, Gary and Alan both. Gary, when he first started working for me, he was just doing odds and ends around the shop. He was like 16, 17. We were building a car for Syracuse.
We had some ideas for the design of the front end and the hood. And it’s, you know, it’s easy to put it on paper. It’s hard to, to make it reality. And I, I handed Gary a picture and said, “You gotta build this front end for this car.” He wasn’t very old, and he never did much sheet metal work or anything, and he just whipped that thing out, and it was perfect.
He’s been doing it ever since. But the body work on the cars is really, uh, [00:26:00] as you can see on the 112 over here, uh, body work really makes a difference at Syracuse ’cause of the speeds.
Joe Marotta: Gary, would you like to continue?
Gary Montgomery: Sure. We’ve already talked to Gary, about Gary Tompkins here just a second ago, Johnny did.
Let’s go to Gary Tompkins. Gary is a very talented driver, as you all know. Earned the Hard Charger award, I believe, for his, uh, I think seventh place finish, uh, this last month or so I followed his racing career, I think from the beginning when he ran a, uh, s- what we called, I think we called them street stocks or I’m not sure what we called them actually back…
Amateur cars probably. Amateur cars at Canandaigua. He ran a, a Mopar Dodge Challenger, I think it was, or maybe a Plymouth Barracuda or something like that.
Joe Marotta: You know what he tore up?
Gary Montgomery: Yeah, well, you know, he and a lot of other guys tore up a lot of- Yeah … really valuable cars. But nonetheless, that’s where he started and, um, and he most recently raced last weekend down at Charlotte.
So with that, we’ll turn it over to Gary Tompkins and he can tell us about some of his racing experiences. Gary, start at the [00:27:00] beginning. We know you were a tin knocker, and you are a tin knocker, and that’s, that’s another chapter. So maybe you can talk about both, first as a driver, then as a tin knocker and worker around Troyer and Bay Rush and so forth.
Gary Tompkins: Yeah, I started working for John right after I graduated high school after going to, well, CCFL back then, now it’s FLCC, looking for a part-time job. Bill Chaud actually got me hooked up with Johnny. I, I mean, I knew Johnny ’cause Johnny put the roll cage in my mint 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T plum crazy car. I started doing odds and ends around there, and at that time Mike McLaughlin was working for Johnny building bodies.
That was right when Mike was really starting to move up through the ladder. I started helping out John on his cars. You know, of course, racing, you bend up some body panels. He always made me straighten them out. Started making patches and this and that. And I used to build little models when I was a kid and stuff and make bodies out of cardboard and stuff like that.
So I always wanted to do something like that, I just never thought I’d be a tin smith. Then he started to have me do more and more in, in the winter of 1986, we actually, John and I both went up to Troyers and worked for a while. Of course, he decided he didn’t wanna stay there, but [00:28:00] I did for 10 years. But I still worked for John, you know, build- It was fun ’cause I’d work at Troyers during the day and everything’s gotta be, you know, a certain way, and they gotta have the designs and stuff like that.
And I’d go out to Johnny’s and it’s, all his body’s work was just simple, straight, let’s get it on the car. It looked, it looked good, but it just wasn’t as exotic as what Troyers was. It was fun, you know, building stuff in a horse barn and going out there and beating the big boys, so. I also, uh, when I worked at Troyers, I think it was ’89, Alan, you started last and won?
Yeah. I built the body for that car. Part of the body was falling off, and all I could think of was, “That body’s gonna fall off, they’re gonna get black flagged, and they’re gonna blame me.” But fortunately, that didn’t happen. Uh, fortunately he won. Got a lot of bodies that went through, uh, won some races up there.
Actually, uh, if you go to the Dirt Museum over in Wheatsport, Phil Taylor number 1 car, the asphalt modified car, dirt asphalt modified car, I built the body for that. That was a pretty special thing, too. But I always wanted to be a driver, ever since I was a little kid. You know, my dad used to take me to all these racetracks.
I said, “Man, I, I can’t wait to be able to race cars someday.” You know, one of my favorite times of the year [00:29:00] was going to Syracuse, sitting up in the stands just watching those guys go around that track. It just … It was such an experience. It was such a exhilarating just watching them cars go around that track, the speeds they were going.
One of my favorite races that I wasn’t involved in was the year, the 1979, when Jack Johnson won, ’cause finally a New Yorker won that race. You know, ’cause all the PA and New Jersey guys were always winning that race. But I always wanted to drive there, and when we started racing sportsman, they actually had us have, like, an invitational go up there.
We got our car ready to go up there, and I couldn’t wait. We get on the track, and I end up having motor problems, and we make a lap. So that was, that was heartbreaking. But I don’t remember my very first time around the track. I know I was probably nervous I can’t say I was ever scared about that place, but you really had to give that place a lot of respect, ’cause if you messed up, you were gonna wreck and you’re gonna wreck hard.
I, I mean, I know Alan can attest to that, and John too. I was very fortunate. I’ve never wrecked hard there. I’ve, I’ve wrecked there, but not very hard. But the speed there, it does take a lap or two, even a modified, to get used to the speed. Now, we’re inside these cars and they, they make noise. We can hear them, but the [00:30:00] noise is always a little different at the end of the front stretch, especially going into turn one there compared to what you’re used to on a short track.
Just everything is vibrating a little different than the m- you know, the motor sound’s a little different. Just the fact that you’re going so fast and then you’re trying to race side by side with somebody or wheel to wheel. Now, obviously, over the years people will say, “Oh, you can’t pass there.” And for a while it was tough.
This past year though, we started 36 and, you know, we got seventh and passed the majority of the cars, ’cause that’s just the way the track was. But obviously, uh, I’ve got two seconds there. I’ve 100 feet away from two wins. Vic Coffey beat me there in 2002. That was the year they had … They got rain delayed, and then on lap 120 they had a red flag, and I was talking to my crew on a radio and they were making fuel calculations and said, “We’re not gonna make it.”
So we come in and put fuel in it. Well, we put a little too much fuel in it, ’cause Vic Coffey come in and put a little less in and he beat us out and couldn’t beat him. I followed him around, and I think Alan is even ahead of us that year too, and, and he ran outta gas along with about eight or 10 other guys and, and, uh, we ended up finishing second to Vic Coffey that year.
2004 is our other time we got second there. That was the year that we were going for [00:31:00] Mr. Dirt. I was driving for Jim Beachy that year. We had a fast car all week, probably the fastest car there, but I started outside pole in the feature because, uh, we had a very good first lap in time trials, and then the driver tried to be a hero the second lap and almost stuck it in the third turn wall.
We were runner up front all day, and we were fighting Brett Hearn for the Mr. Dirt. You know, we sort of had to be where he, you know, near him all day to make sure the points didn’t change much, and I still remember the vision of him getting pushed down the center track on the back stretch by a tow truck, and I said, “Well, he’s out of the race,” and the call coming over the radio, “You can’t race hard anymore.
You gotta relax and, and drive around and finish this race.” So they let me race the last five laps. I caught up to Tim Fuller, who was running second. Kenny Tremont was running f- first, running the lead. Kenny ran out of gas coming out of turn two. Tim went out around him. I went underneath him, and uh, I spun my tires a little bit.
Timmy beat me to turn three, and I followed him across the line. So the only thing too, and this isn’t well known, Glen used to have a, an award called the Maury Holbrook Award. I don’t know if Joe remembers Maury Holbrook. Yeah. He, he was- I sure
Mel Lane: do
Gary Tompkins: Yeah, he used to do the, the track surface there, the, the track prep, [00:32:00] and it was the fastest time of the week.
It’s funny, Wes is talking about going 36 seconds. Well, we won it in 2005, and, and we did it in practice, and I still remember the lap. We went 28.111. Obviously, it’s not a track record, ’cause it wasn’t an official lap in qualifying, but I just remember that lap because I was, uh, you know, 15 car lengths behind Billy Decker, who was 15 car lengths behind another guy, and it was sort of like a draft all around the track.
A car just… I’d never had a car feel like that around there. It just… I mean, we were fast that week, but we weren’t that fast. It was a special lap. It just, uh… One of them things, you think about it afterwards, it’s like, “Holy cow, the car was that fast?” Uh, you know, we raced this year, during Sunday, 35 second laps, and that year we were that fast, ’cause the track was that good, and the cars were that good.
But I always say Syracuse is one of those places where I love to drive around, but I, I hate to race around it, just because it can be so frustrating. You’re always on the edge, and you know if you mess up, you’re gonna pay for
CROWD Q&A: it. True that you always gotta go to the bottom, stay to the bottom coming out of two.
Gary Tompkins: Uh, not this year. Actually, the last few years. In 2012, they actually put clay on the track, and that did away with a lot of the cinders. [00:33:00] Actually, uh, Dan talked about this year, going there with the car he ran at Fulton. Well, we ran in 2012 with our car, and we got the bright idea right after Fulton, “Hey, let’s go to Syracuse.”
We, uh, put a new body on it, changed motors, went up to Syracuse, time trialed sixth fastest. Well, the reason why we time trialed sixth fastest is because you couldn’t step on the gas And you were hunting for bite. That was the year that Brett Hearn won. It actually got rained out just after halfway, but we were literally running up by the wall all the way around the track at times just trying to find bite.
This past year, on Sunday, the track had slicked up a lot. There was a hole in the bottom of turn one. You could drive through it, but it really messed your car up. And of course, you don’t want to break your car. But if you went around it, you had to either slow down, go to the bottom, or just let the car drift.
And, uh, like I was telling some guys earlier, by the end of the day, we were almost at the wall coming out of turn two. And we were actually at the wall going into turn three, too, just trying to find bite. So, and we were running 35 second laps, which when you’re going that slow, you know, you can drive different places on the track to try to find bite.
You’re not trying to drive the track like an asphalt track. You can drive it [00:34:00] more like a regular dirt track when it’s like that.
Gary Montgomery: I marvel at the fact that you can remember all that stuff and all those laps. I’d like to back you up, and I know we don’t look to, in the rear view mirror, but, uh, you talked about building model cars and always wanting to be a racer and going with your dad and mom to watch the races and so forth.
And then you did eventually get that Charger RT, I guess, or Challenger RT. A Challenger. Not, not, not even, not, not even a simple one, but an expensive one. No. But anyway, when did you decide you could become a race car driver and would stick with it? And I suspect you never imagined where you’d end up, but just continue racing.
Gary Tompkins: Um, I just, ever since, uh, you know, my dad is … He’s got the gift of gab, and he always talked to the guys that were from Canada. You know, Buffalo Way, uh, Cliff Norton, Terry Edwards, Lloyd Holt, Mi- Mikey Grant, and those guys. I’d wake up on Saturday and Sunday mornings with race cars in my driveway. They still were dirty, and they still had the
You could actually … Sometimes they were still warm. And just looking at them and saying, “Man, I wanna drive these things.” I have been very fortunate. You know, I’ve had to scratch and claw, you know. I, I, except for when I drove for Mr. Beachy, and a couple other times too, I’ve never really had a big sponsor.
We’ve had to scratch and claw for what we’ve got. [00:35:00] Ever since I can remember, I’ve been wanting to drive a race car, and, and particularly dirt modified. Now, back when I was racing street stocks, I had the notion that I really wanted to drive a sprint car, but one day my dad told me he wouldn’t walk across the street to see a sprint car race.
And he was a great influence on my racing career, so I knew where that was headed. It wasn’t gonna be a sprint car, so …
Gary Montgomery: Joe, you wanna keep going or-
Joe Marotta: Sure. Mel Lane has been sitting here very patiently. Mel has had quite a few experiences at Syracuse. Now, the unique thing about him, not only did he run a small block modified at Syracuse, but he also ran a sprinter.
Like to have you talk about the difference of competing on the Moody Mile with the two different cars.
Mel Lane: Well, there’s quite a difference with a sprint car being so much lighter and more power than the small block modifieds, but the modifieds were great back in the early ’80s. I went four times and with a low budget car, and we
I did, uh, win a heat one year and finished eighth in the final. That was my best, you know, with that car. And then when we went back, [00:36:00] entered with the World of Outlaws in ’90 or ’91, I ended up 11th in the A Main feature. Sammy Swindell won it, and I ended up 11th on the lead lap. It was really successful. I mean, it was, the car got more comfortable as the race went on, and it was very fast, but try to not do anything crazy.
Joe Marotta: Between running a modified on the racetrack, and I’m talking here again strictly to Moody Mile, different lanes, different grooves, different places you get into it, get off of it.
Mel Lane: Well, with a sprint car with a wing on it, uh, it was like Johnny Beyross mentioned, when you get the car right, you, you don’t have to lift off the throttle.
The wing will just hold you right down onto the track and-
Joe Marotta: So you would go full throttle around that mile?
Mel Lane: Yeah.
Joe Marotta: Really? Whoa.
Mel Lane: Yeah, and, uh, that’s a tremendous feeling. I mean, to be able to have the car work that good to do that is exciting.
Joe Marotta: And then running a small block modified, obviously different lanes that you would use, and you would get onto it at a different point, shut it off at a different point.
Mel Lane: Uh, [00:37:00] yeah, and, and with the modified, we, we never build a special car or had the money to spend to do it proper, so it, it was more of a field filler, you know? I mean, we did good on the short tracks and, but the mile was, was tough.
Joe Marotta: The experience of running the mile, and I’m sure every one of these fellows that are seated alongside of me here, is just phenomenal.
Danny Kay, uh, kind of summed it up. For him, it was like running at Daytona. You also feel that way?
Mel Lane: Yeah. I’ve, I raced on 42 different dirt tracks, and i- it certainly is the fastest and most unique feeling racing there.
Joe Marotta: Well, you sure did a great job. Thank you. Any questions for Mel Lane?
CROWD Q&A: I wonder how the times compare between the sprint car and the modified.
Mel Lane: Well, uh, sprint cars are, are a little quicker ’cause they’re lighter and, you know, they have similar horsepower. I think Billy Ponch holds the record there at 24 point something seconds on a mile. We did go back, I didn’t mention it, [00:38:00] but I went back as an owner and had Lance Young drive for me in a URCESS Challenge, and we ended up winning that race.
Uh, Lance was the same way. We, we b- had a car built special for that and, you know, it just worked very, very good, and he averaged, like, 127 mile an hour for the whole race and could run her absolutely wide open. That was a good experience, still.
Gary Montgomery: Syracuse, the mile, isn’t known as a sprint car track. Eldora is known as a sprint car track around these parts, around the world probably.
You’ve run a 410 sprinter at both tracks. Talk to us about the difference between Eldora and Syracuse.
Mel Lane: Well, I, I, h- I have not run at Eldora. I’ve run at Knoxville, Iowa, which is- I’m
Gary Montgomery: sorry. I meant Knoxville. That’s what I really
Mel Lane: meant … right, Knoxville. Yeah. That is an excellent track. It’s, you know, it’s a big half mile, so the speeds aren’t quite as great.
Same deal. I mean, the first year that we went there, there was 164 cars that took the time trial, so I mean, it, it’s a huge, big deal. It’s not quite that large anymore in car count, but that’s a great adventure to go to. But it’s different than [00:39:00] Syracuse. Syracuse is just, we’d slow the steering down to try to make the car, you know, not jerky at all compared to the sh- short tracks.
And so just quite a bit of difference, but both huge events.
Joe Marotta: Well, that leaves us with one driver. He’s a three-time winner at Syracuse, many time track champion at many, many different dirt speedways around the Northeast. I remember this guy winning his first modified feature in the Tom Ewing Corvair bodied car number 14J, and that was at Candadaigua Speedway.
Alan, it’s been one hell of a ride, hasn’t it?
Alan Johnson: Yeah, Joe, it’s been since
Joe Marotta: 1974. 1974. And of course, your success at Syracuse has been second to none. You’ve seemed to done well both on the short tracks, the medium sized tracks, but you’ve also done well at the mile at Syracuse. Can you relate some of the Syracuse stories?
Alan Johnson: Well, I’ve been there enough times, you know? I’ve been there since ’74, so what’s that, 40 times or so? So, you know, I’ve had some good runs, but [00:40:00] I’ve had some pretty bad ones, too. Um, mostly I remember the wrecks more than you remember the wins. The track’s gone through a lot of transitions since ’74. You know, it, it seems like every time you go there, it’s different.
Like Gary says, you’re there one time, it’s 28 seconds a lap. You’re there a couple of days later, and it’s 35 seconds a lap. It’s just a challenging place. You try to go up there with good equipment, but it’s kind of hard to find an owner that can spend that kind of money for one race. You know, I’ve been lucky.
I’ve been probably four or five times where I’ve been there and I, and I was probably in, if not the fastest, one of the fastest cars. You know, all the rest of the times I, I wasn’t. But, uh, it’s a, it’s kind of a race where just survival, having the right pit strategy, and not running out of gas, you know, you’re gonna be successful there.
And, and a lot of luck
Joe Marotta: Alan, can you recall the year that you had to run the non-qualifiers race on Sunday afternoon, and you had to qualify through the non-qualifiers race, and I think you started in the 55th starting position, if I’m not mistaken, and came up and won it?
Alan Johnson: Well, that’s going back to the luck factor.
No, but we were pretty good, uh, we were pretty good [00:41:00] going back to that week. We were okay. You know, we were a mid-pack car, maybe however many cars you used to get back then. I think it was 80 or 100, whatever you used to get. We were probably 35th fastest on the charts. But, uh, we had a problem with the car where it was popping out of gear all week long, and I had the transmission apart in my own trailer trying to fix it.
I didn’t know a transmission part from a rear end part. So, you know, we struggled with it all week trying to get it fixed, and never did get it fixed, so that put us in a non-qualifiers race. We were a little off on setup. Like I said, we were probably half as fast as anybody there, you know, about mid-pack.
We threw a setup at it. Saturday night, I borrowed some shocks from Kenny Tremont. Completely off the wall compared to, you know, like something Troyer would set you up with. Went out there, and we started pretty far back in the non-qualifiers race, too. The car was just awesome. I mean, like, I got out there, and, like, I just passed a car a lap, you know?
It was just great, but I thought I was gonna run out of time. Got up to the last lap, and I, I still remember Mark Clury following me around, and I knew I was better, but it’s so hard to pass there. I didn’t think I was gonna be able to do it, and, uh, just gave it everything I got coming out of four, got up alongside of him.
And, you know, it’s questionable if it [00:42:00] was a tire nap, but I figured, I figured Glen still had his provisional, so I wasn’t really worried about it. But anyways, uh, they called it a tie and we got in the race, and I ended up missing the drivers’ meeting ’cause they had the drivers’ meeting while the non-qualifiers race was on.
So I started last, like you said, and, you know, I, I was doing all right working up through. I, like I said, I had a really fast car. We threw a setup at it that it, it was just great. It was super fast. The race was going on, I got up to… People were pitting and not pitting, and I was up to fifth. I’m trying to get in my spot on the, on the yellow.
The guy’s not letting me there. He’s fighting with me, and he’s a lapped car, so he’s not letting me in there. So Glen’s getting tired of cars going around in continuous yellow. I didn’t know I was supposed to go to the outside, run a fifth. I thought I was supposed to start fifth. I, but I was actually supposed to be the fifth in line on the outside, but I didn’t know it.
Back then, I don’t think communication was that great on the radios. I don’t even think we had a radio, to tell you the truth. But Glen was getting tired of running the cars around the yel- on, under the yellow, I guess, so he put me last. Still got a bone to, still got a bone to pick with him about that. But anyways, uh, [00:43:00] I went last and like, I didn’t know what was going on and went where they told me to go.
So I worked my way back up. By the end of the race, I was third again. You know, that was the year my brother and, uh, Frank Kozie was kind of fighting for the same piece of real estate going into one. I’m the one that ended up with it. They both ended up in the wall. So, uh, you know, it was just a matter after that, I think there was five or six laps left or whatever, had a tire going down.
Gary’s body was falling off of it. No fault of him. He didn’t put it on. Yeah. You know, we had, you know, that’s pretty much the way the race went. We ended up winning it.
Joe Marotta: Alan, you drove for many different teams. One of the teams that you drove for that really impressed me was the Jim Beachy Pillsbury team.
I’ve seen many introductions and many, uh, different ways that drivers brought their cars out onto the speedway during the, um, big race, the 200 on Sunday. But I think second to none was the time that you guys brought the Pillsbury Doughboy car out onto the speedway. Every one of the crew was dressed up in a Pillsbury type [00:44:00] uniform, the big flat hats and the big puffy hands.
And as they pushed the car out onto the track, everybody waved at the audience, and I think that was one of the greatest introductions that anyone has ever done at the Moody Mile. And you were part of that, and thank you for that. I’ll always remember that.
Alan Johnson: Well, I don’t know if I was part of that. I, uh- Well, I was walking about 50 foot behind the car when they, they were pushing it on there.
I, I got into it after they all left. But I thought that was kind
Joe Marotta: of- I think I heard a yell from the tower … kind of comical. I think I heard Glen saying, “Where’s the driver?”
Alan Johnson: Beachy was wondering that too, but- Uh, I couldn’t quite work up the courage to put the hat on, so, uh, I kind of snuck in after that was all over with.
Gary Montgomery: Well, Bici was probably the most colorful car owner that you raced for, drove for. You’ve driven for, uh, many, but let’s go back to the beginning, Tom Ewing and the guys from Victor. The story that I have heard, and I believe it to be true, is that you were probably, I don’t know if you were 14, 15, whatever you were, but, [00:45:00] uh, but you had never driven a standard transmi- I don’t know if you had…
Didn’t have a driver’s license, so you hadn’t driven on the road at all. Never driven a standard transmission car around the fields or anything. So they had you out in the parking lot, I think, at Wheatsport or someplace or other, teaching you how to drive and shift a car. Is that about right?
Alan Johnson: That’s not quite a true story because-
uh, I don’t know where that story came from. My dad used to have Jeeps. He had 117 acres of property out in Middlesex and used to have, uh, Army Jeeps when we were kids. He had trails all over the place, and they had the standard transmission in them, and I, I learned to drive standard probably when I was 10, 12 years old.
Gary Montgomery: Okay, I’ll never share that story again then. I can at- I can attest to the 117 acres out
Alan Johnson: in Middlesex. What, what else, what else you got, Gary? I gotta straighten you out?
Gary Montgomery: Yeah, we’re gonna straighten a few things out here before this day is over between you and I. But I’ll go back to, uh, you talked about remembering a crash a- at Syracuse, and, uh, I remember one very well.
I don’t know what year it was, but Joe and I were in the tower, and you crashed in turn one into the wall. I think at full speed. I don’t know. I couldn’t believe that you wouldn’t be hurt. The word came over the radio that the driver was okay, and I went back over the radio, [00:46:00] “Are you sure you got the right driver?”
And they were sure, and you were okay. But that was a, as I recall, a, a wicked, vicious crash. And I don’t know what year it was, but it was turn one. You probably do remember.
Alan Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, I, I, uh, I actually broke a helmet in that crash. Looking at where the roll bar was, where my head was, I’m kind of thinking my neck had to stretch four or five inches to hit that roll bar.
It knocked me out. I remember, uh, Dick Larkin and I were trying to get into one, and I guess he had a wheel underneath me and I didn’t know it. Sent me right up into the wall. And yeah, that was one of the bad ones.
Gary Montgomery: That was a bad one. But we, we mentioned this briefly, but I have, as I mentioned earlier, I have statistics from Don and Joanne Davies and, uh, that show that Alan, and this is just again for the, uh, what we now know as the Syracuse 200, 36 starts, three wins.
’83, ’89, and ’03. So a 20 year spread between those two, and you won’t get to do it again, but it was a great run while it lasted. I mean, on the m- on the Syracuse Mile, that is.
Alan Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, it was, uh, it was a lot of fun. A lot of years, you know. It’s hard to believe, for 40 something years. I missed a few ’cause I didn’t have rides for them, but just a lot of work.
You know, [00:47:00] I can still remember burning the midnight oil to try to get the cars ready for that week. And, you know, at John’s I had one or two of his cars there before, and being in his garage till midnight just seemed like it come up and there wasn’t enough time to get the cars ready, you know? ‘Cause we’d race who knows how many races up till then.
You know, just one race at a time trying to keep the car going for the next night. And then Syracuse would come and about as unprepared as we could be, but, you know, we burned the midnight oil and we, we always made it. I’m kind of thinking maybe with Glen here we could start another, uh, 40 years. I don’t know how, how many years we’ll make, but we can always try.
Joe Marotta: Any questions for any of the group that is up here with us right now?
CROWD Q&A: I’d like to know how much time is spent in the garage in, you know, in the off season. How much time, like now when they start, like work, you know, it’s always interesting because actually the off season is short, but How much time will be being spent, you know, working directly with the cars?
Gary Tompkins: Gary? Uh, I was at Bicknell Racing Products yesterday, and they sent 11 cars out of there yesterday, and they’re supposed to send in another three or four on Friday. Parts probably will come up this [00:48:00] coming weekend. There are gonna be a lot of guys wanting their cars then. They started building the 2016s, I think, in September.
And right now, if you order a car from Bicknell, it won’t be until March you can pick it up. I don’t know how the other car builders are, but I know they’re that busy. You know, it’s pretty much a r- a year-round thing now. It’s just to stay on top of the game, you really gotta be going the whole time trying to get ready for, you know, whether it be a next race or the next season.
You cannot really slow down a whole lot. It just go, go, go all the time. You know, I have a question. You often heard of a regular Saturday night special, and then your Syracuse car. Did any of you ever have just a car put away for Syracuse? Um, when I drove for Honeycutt, 2002 we bought a Syracuse specific car.
The frame was basically the same. The difference, uh, Allen actually had one when he drove for BT too. The front sheet metal, the front of it was closed off a lot more, duct work to the radiator. The front wings went all the way down to the frame. The doors were different heights. A lot of different stuff to, to make the air not only go through the car straighter, but also put the downforce in a different area [00:49:00] ’cause, you know, you’re on a mile that’s almost like asphalt, so you can do a lot more of that stuff.
We’d get done with it. Now, back then, when we got it, they actually still raced Labor Day.
Joe Marotta: Was that a good testing-
Gary Tompkins: Yeah. It was, um- For,
Joe Marotta: for Super Dirt Week?
Gary Tompkins: Yeah, ’cause we, our first race was Labor Day with that car, and we got fourth with it. We didn’t have the motor that the guys in front of us had, but we were way better through the corners than any of those guys in front of us.
We just couldn’t pass them. And Labor Day, even Fourth of July, the track is really narrow, uh, the groove is. But we learned, you know, okay, we got something here, so we went through it again for, for Super Dirt Week. Super Dirt Week ended. We take all the running gear off the car, put the frame of the body over in the corner, put the running gear on another car, run the short tracks with that, buy all new running gear for that car for Syracuse again next year.
We did that. Well, I left Honeycutt in 2008 or 2009. They still had the car, and they’re still doing the same thing. Johnny Byrush, how about you? Did you have anything special for Syracuse?
Johnny Birosh: Yeah, we used to try to build a car, uh, special for Syracuse. We didn’t run there much ourselves, but For different customers, we’d try to build a car, uh, especially for [00:50:00] Syracuse.
And like I say, usually for the sheet metal work, usually it was at the last minute. One time we, uh, ran Syracuse, we, uh, we started a brand-new car 10 days before Syracuse. Meant that that was just straight tubing in the tubing rack. And then 10 days later, we, we went to Syracuse, and that car was really fast, and I- it was the best I ever…
I never qualified very good there. I never ran many races that they time trialed. And I qualified 10th, and I remember the, the day of the race, uh, we went out for final practice, and I drove right around Jack Johnson like he was parked, and we were, uh, starting right next to each other. And Jack told me, uh, before the race, he says, “If you don’t mess up, you’re gonna win this thing.”
We went, like, 12 laps and broke a oil pump in the motor, and that was the end of it. But that was a special car for Syracuse, and that was when Gary started working for me. He built the body for that car, the nose, and the hood, and everything. And that car was really, really good in the wind. I know these guys that drive those cars up there, you get a lot of buffeting.
[00:51:00] Helmet, your head, and everything moves around, especially when you’re passing cars. And that car, the way the sheet metal was on it, when you drove down the straightaways, it was just like sitting in your regular road car. The sheet metal was perfect on that car. The body work really does make a difference at that racetrack.
One other time we built a car, a special car, for Lynn Hough. That car was really good. That was the same way. We built it two nights before Syracuse. We were out back of the shop painting the frame with spray cans at 2:00 in the morning. And that car was really fast. He ended up having a water pump failure.
But then the following year, he had a small block in the car and, uh, won the small block race with that car.
Gary Tompkins: One more thing about John, the year before we built that car, that was the white car, right? That was the white car?
Johnny Birosh: That was the white car, yeah.
Gary Tompkins: We built the car called the Circus Wagon. That was the car that wrecked when, uh, Sammy Swindell tried to make a lane underneath Johnny coming out of four, and there was no lane, and it wrecked them both, and then poor buzzy come along and crushed them both.
Now, that car there was the Corn Husk car at Wedsport the following year when he had the race won, so. Oh,
Joe Marotta: yeah. That Johnny did some, uh,
Gary Tompkins: harvesting. Yeah, [00:52:00] did some farming. I remember that. Yeah, so that car was fast that year, too. I, I really felt good about that car. But yeah, the year that we built that car, I don’t remember who…
Rod Eisenberg was one guy.
Johnny Birosh: And then we had an engineer from, uh- Cornell … Bill Trout had a aerodynamicist from Cornell University- Yep … come up to the shop, and, and we went over a lot of little things on the car. Some of it was stretching the rules, but what he had us do was, he says, “Now, look.” This guy was really smart.
He says, “You gotta do some things- that are blatantly illegal so that they make you- Yep … change them when you go through tech.
Gary Tompkins: Make them feel good.
Johnny Birosh: He, he had us make the lips a little bit too long, and they’d measure it and go, “Well, you can’t have that like that. You gotta cut it off.” “Okay, we’ll cut that off.”
And he says, “Maybe some of the other stuff they won’t see. They won’t pay attention to that.” And so that, that’s what we did. We put a lot of work into those cars for Syracuse.
Joe Marotta: When you were in that one car that was pretty fast, that you went around Jack Johnson and so on, was that Ford powered?
Johnny Birosh: Yeah, that was Ford powered.
Yeah.
Joe Marotta: You always kind of stuck to the [00:53:00] Fords.
Johnny Birosh: Yeah, yeah. When I drove for Billy, we ran Fords.
Joe Marotta: Gary, did you ever run any of his Fords or…?
Gary Tompkins: No, but I ran, uh, when I ran Sportsmen, I ran Chrysler products.
Joe Marotta: Yeah, I know. You
Gary Tompkins: cut up that good Mopar. Well, they were… Yeah, they, but while even with Sportsmen, I had a, a Mopar.
Yeah. And, uh, the gentleman, Joe Lepine from Danbury Competition who built his Fords built my Chrysler.
Joe Marotta: John, did you ever feel that the Ford had an advantage or disadvantage at the Moody Mile?
Johnny Birosh: Well, that year with that white car, I felt we had an advantage. Actually, Will Cagle drove that car and had- The Classic or whatever it was called
a Winner’s Classic race at that time, where if you won one of the qualifying races- Yeah … and there were 16 guys in the race and, and Will wasn’t, he didn’t have a car there. But he said, “Well, let me take your car and run a lap, and I’ll split the money with you.” So he did. He come in and he says, “I never drove a car like that.”
He says, “Boy, I wish I was driving that car.” He says, “Man, that thing is really fast.” And it was. It’s just too bad it broke. That was kind of my luck up there.
Gary Montgomery: Yeah. At any rate, I’m gonna keep going. Okay. I’ll, I’ll just read this, this fella [00:54:00] has written here, talking about the beginning and the end of the, uh, racing on the mile at Syracuse, and this specifically is the beginning.
“The Onondaga Historical Association has a letter in its files dated June 12, 1900, in which Timothy Woodruff, lieutenant governor to Theodore Roosevelt, urges Frederick Stevens, the future state senator, to get up an automobile race for the state fair. It’s one of the biggest ever, and we could really make something out of this.”
That’s a little paraphrase on the end. So that’s what was going on in 1900. All of you know what went on in 2015, so the beginning and the end.
Joe Marotta: Well, I gotta tell you, I, I think, guys, you did a great job representing a lot of the history of the Moody Mile. I mean, uh, it’s 2015. The checkered flag is out. The memories are there, and sure great that all of you folks have, uh, competed.
We have another question?
Rick Hughey: Talking about so many unique cars, I was wondering what Glen’s thought was when he saw [00:55:00] the Blue car show up.
Glenn Donnelly: That’s a good question. This is before or after I had a long talk with our tech people. Well, the bottom line is we sent Don Bushbacker, who was our head tech people, he went out to, uh, St.
Louis, Missouri, where they were building the car. So he looked at it. The only thing, he come back and said, “Look, all the cars that are on the, the circuit right now are built to the minimum specifications. Blue’s car is gonna be at the maximum.” And it’s a Lincoln Continental, and believe me, I couldn’t find anything in the rule book that said you couldn’t do it.
And of course, the rest is history. They came, and after Merv Triegler, J- And Jeff Bodine … in fact, Jeff Bodine was, was… Yeah, remember, he won Daytona, like, six years later. But yeah, everyone, and if you were there on that Sunday, you saw a whole different field of cars. All of a sudden they went from minimum specs to maximums.
That was one [00:56:00] of the highlights of being at Syracuse. You know, probably, which we don’t talk about much, probably the, the spectacle at Syracuse that I probably look at and say, “I mean, this was a real wow,” 75 three and four when we had the USAC Champ cars there. And there’s where you saw the biggest names in motorsports.
You know, Al Unser, Mario Andretti, Vukovich, Bettenhausen, Pancho Carter. I mean, these guys were the biggest and the best in the world. And you talk about a show, that’s why even the track surface, it was prepared that we didn’t run it in, those Champ cars run it in. They were all Firestone tires at the time, and they were running inner/outer liners, just like Cup cars do today.
That’s how far advanced that USAC Champ division was back in, in the early ’70s. Bettenhausen got a flat going into turn one. I remember Merv Trickle and I were right there in turn one watching these guys, and it [00:57:00] was incredible. When the track was still heavy, it wasn’t packed in. I mean, our modifieds wouldn’t even go out on a track like this, you know, in today’s game.
These guys, you know, and the tires were huge. It wasn’t like … And Alan, you remember back in those days when they were, we would run the so-called drag rubber, and that’s what these guys had. And he come flying down through there, dirt flying in the air, and he went into turn one, never lifted. Put it right in one of those buildings.
And then three days later, Wes and I went up to see him in the hospital, and he’d been messed up ever since then as far as … But the night before, they were at Reading, Pennsylvania, running sprint cars, and hear Bettenhausen had a broken nose from a rock or something that hit him in the face down at Reading.
And he was running for Penske at the time, and Penske fired him because of the sprint car race instead. So I mean, you know, these are things that, you know, you don’t hear much about because they had a big fight between USAC and Champ [00:58:00] cars, and it all went away right after that. But believe me, the best division that USAC had was that dirt Champ division, when you saw all the top names in those cars and how that race
So I don’t know. To me, it was a, it was an unbelievable experience to see the biggest names in racing run on dirt in those, uh, Champ cars. Other than that, I’ll tell you, I hope to turn the chapter next year and hope you all come to our new, uh, facility. I, I’ll, I’ll guarantee it’s gonna be the wow factor when you come in and see what we’re gonna build up there.
And hopefully it’s a resurgent for Alan Johnson, who put on a hell of a lot of shows from that first show at Weedsport, and I’m not talking in a stock car. Right, Alan? It was Snowmobile racin’. His father and I were partners on an 800 cc. Remember Larry Berman drove it, ’cause Alan was too young at that time to get on an 800 sled.
I did. It’s always been about speed. Every [00:59:00] race that we went to at Syracuse, it was all about preparing the track to get the most speed out of it. And we didn’t care what it cost or what you had to do. If there was something new or something we had to use on that track to get it, you know, we would try and do it.
And like I say, to put the modifieds, it was a real satisfaction when you could see a sprint car go around there in 24 seconds, and in today the guys say it’s too fast. You don’t wanna run there. But yet they came to Rolling Wheels. Remember, their average speed there was 142 miles an hour. At Rolling Wheels this past October they were averaging 145 miles an hour.
That’s what racing’s about. It’s about sp- I don’t care how you cut it. Like when Wes set it with 36 seconds and then we were running in the 28-second bracket. I mean, these were satisfactions that you look for in motorsports. And I don’t care whether it’s Indianapolis, Syracuse, or the new track we’re building, we’re all looking to set the records.
And some of the stuff that we wanna do is considered 21st [01:00:00] century. And hey, let’s wait and see what we have in the future. Right, Wes?
Wes Moody: You
CROWD Q&A: got it.
Glenn Donnelly: And you know, you talk about what Wes does in it. I ought to let him tell you. You know, he, he’s gonna go out and work in the garage putting a car together. Yeah.
Yeah. But it’s not because he wants to do that.
Wes Moody: Well, you do it because you love it. You know, we’re putting together a, um, a number 22 Billy Rafter, uh, coupe, a ’36 Chevy coupe to go into the museum. I mean, I just doing it the old way, getting, uh, building parts, building brackets. And I mean, it’s just, it’s a labor of love.
I mean, we go racing because we love the speed and the thrill and the competition. You get in that garage, and it’s for the love, just for the love of racing.
Glenn Donnelly: But if Jackie was gonna tell you, it’s so that you get out of her hair and your wife’s there.
Wes Moody: Yeah, that’s it. They throw me out of the shop. They throw me out of the, uh…
Not allowed in the ev- in the Christmas shop.
Joe Marotta: You know, the one thing I’d like to say. During Glen’s regime for Super Dirt Week and building the empire that he did, there were some unsung heroes. Mark [01:01:00] Kosweski, one of the track maintenance people. Maury Holbrook, someone talked about him earlier. Track preparation was, was his thing.
And I’m gonna tell you, there were some secret ingredients used into the mile, right, Glen, that made that track work and, and come up really good. One of the guys is here, right here, Jack Spino, who was, uh- Always the man in victory circle and working the press booths and stuff like that. He was really good.
And another guy who was a dear friend of, uh, Glenn and myself and many, many others, his nickname was The Chief. And when he was, um, inducted into the Dirt Car Hall of Fame, I called him the Chief of Connections. You know, one of the things we did not bring up, during the running of the big race, the 200s, halfway leader always got a $10,000 bonus, and that was all done and procured by this guy named Aaron Freshman.
So it was a great team from the front to the back, s- left to right, and it really made Syracuse [01:02:00] what it is and what it was.
Gary Montgomery: Just before the 200, I had the distinct privilege of introducing all the former champions of the race. There, at that time, there were 44 races had been run. By the time the day was over, 45 had been run.
But there were 22 winners in those first 44, and after the yesterday’s or that race that day, there were still just 22 winners, but still 22 winners. 450 drivers have qualified for and raced in the 200. Now, it had different names over the years. It was 100 to start with, and it was even called a 300, I think, at one point.
But, but anyway, so we introduced all the drivers and gave them a jacket to be worn. So there were 22 jackets like this. There are now 23. For that, I have the distinct privilege of presenting it. He didn’t think he was ever gonna get this, and, uh, but nonetheless, we have the winner’s champion jacket for Alan for his three wins on the Moody Mile[01:03:00]
Joe Marotta: And I think that pretty much wraps it up. Of course, we’re gonna be doing our afternoon session. Kip, uh, you’d like to say something?
Kip Zeiter: First of all, I’d like to thank everybody on the panel. I, I sat down and I promptly realized that some of you may wonder, where is Brett Hearn? Well, Brett Hearn called me Thursday afternoon, had a personal problem he had to take care of.
But Brett suggested that I give Gary Tompkins a call. I am very glad I did, and I am very glad that Gary said he would participate in this, ’cause I thought Gary, in addition to everybody else here on the panel, was absolutely fabulous. I did not anticipate that we would have the Moody Mile guy here, and that is such a treat.
And Mr. Donley, I’m so glad you were able to come. Just wanna thank everybody that participated in the panel. I thought they were all fabulous. You need to give them a, a round of applause, if you would, please.[01:04:00]
My name is Kip Seider. If you weren’t here for the morning session, on behalf of the International Motor Racing Research Center, I wanna thank you for coming out today for our Syracuse Mile: A Look Back program. If you, uh, were not here for the morning driver session, shame on you, ’cause it was great. As far as I was concerned, we could’ve still had that going.
These, these gentlemen were just terrific. Before we get into the, uh, the meat of this program, there’s really a lot of people I need to thank, and because I can’t do this extemporaneously, ’cause I will forget someone, I wanna thank all the gentlemen that are participating in the afternoon session: Dr. Gary George, who will give you an absolutely amazing history of this [01:05:00] fabulous track; Jeff Hockman from the World Racing Group; Gary Thompkins again; and our kind of our moderators, co-moderators, Joe Marotta and Gary Montgomery, who worked seamlessly together this morning as they have for many, many years.
And I also got to thank everybody that works, the staff of the IMRRC for dealing with me for the last couple weeks, ’cause it’s been stressful. Anyway, I’m gonna turn this over to, uh, Joe Marotta. I am so thankful for being able to be given the opportunity to do this program. I lobbied for a couple years to do this, thinking that Syracuse was such a historic track.
At the time we actually put this on our schedule, we have to do these things about a year in advance almost, the jury was still out as to whether Syracuse would be running more races or whether this was gonna be the final year. Obviously, as we all know, this was the final year, ending a tradition that goes back to 1903.
Several people said to me, “You should make this a political statement.” The politics are done. Syracuse is done. So it doesn’t make sense to make it a political statement. What I preferred to think of it [01:06:00] as was a celebration of the great men and women who drove this track, a lot of people that lost their lives at this track.
It is such a historical part of the motorsports landscape. I was there, along with I’m sure many of you, for this year’s final dirt race, and it just seems, uh, impossible to me that it won’t be around anymore. Now, Glen Donnelly, along with Wes Moody, Glen started saying, “Well, I don’t like to look in the rear view mirror, I like to look ahead.”
I wanted to stop him and saying, “But Glen, we are here to look in the rear view mirror” actually. He did a lot of that in addition to, uh, talking a lot about this new facility that he’s developing, and it promises to be a showpiece, and Super Dirt Week will go on courtesy of State of New York funding and Jeff Hockman and his World Racing Group, and it promises to be a real showpiece, so, uh, we’ll probably all gather there next year.
But for this afternoon, we’re here to celebrate the history of the Syracuse Mile. And at this point I’m gonna turn the mic over to Joe Marotta. Sit back and relax and have fun.
Joe Marotta: Kip, thank you for all your hard work in putting this together. It’s really kind of neat[01:07:00]
The Syracuse Mile. I grew up probably a mile away from it. Grew up in the village of Salve. I used to be able to go up into my backyard and look down into the State Fairgrounds. In 1949, just after Labor Day, my dad said to me, “We’re going to the races.” Wasn’t called the Moody Mile back then. It was just called the Syracuse Mile.
I said, “The races?” He says, “Yep, we’re gonna see the Triple-A Champ Car races.” “Wow. Okay, let’s go.” So we go down, my father and a couple of my uncles, and here was all these people sitting in this grandstand. And then all these cars were pitted on the racetrack, and all of a sudden they start firing up. And I heard this noise that I’ll never forget.
It was an Offy. And boy, I gotta tell you, it rattled the State Fairgrounds, it rattled Salve And it certainly impressed seven-year-old me. [01:08:00] Anyways, I sat there and watched the race. I remember the dust flying. I remember the cars cranking sideways as they came down the front straightaway. And another thing that I remembered on that given day was a guy in the tower by the name of Chris Economaki.
Man, he really impressed me. I remembered the lines that he used. That following couple days, couple weeks, couple months, I impersonated this guy by the name of Chris Economaki. The offies really impressed me, and I did try my hand at race car driving, but I was much better as an announcer. So anyways, this Chris Economaki really, really impressed me, and I could not wait until the next year, the Saturday after Labor Day, until my dad took me to the State Fairgrounds again to see the AAA champ cars.
There were drivers like Tony Bettenhausen there, Bobby Sweikert, Jack McGrath. They just totally, totally impressed me. And again, I heard [01:09:00] that voice of Chris Economaki. Many years later, I was announcing a race down at the Charlotte Motor Speedway at the dirt track, walking through the pit area, and I run across this guy by the name of Chris Economaki.
I walked up to him and I says, “Chris, my name is Joe Morato. I’m the announcer at Syracuse.” He said, “I know who you are.” I says, “Chris,” I says, “I remember in 1949, the first race my dad took me to.” He says, “Really?” I said, “At New York State Fairground, Syracuse, New York.” He looked at me and he said, “Hey, is Pizzo’s Restaurant still behind turn number two?”
I says, “Yes, it is.” He says, “Boy, I tipped many a brew there.” One of the things I said to Chris Economaki, I said, “I remember those first couple years that I went, you used some terminology like the throttle jockey.” “Oh, the throttle jockey out of Tinley Park, Illinois, Tony Bettenhausen.” I said, “I also remember you using the speed merchant.”
“Oh, the speed merchant. [01:10:00] That was Bobby Sweikert.” He really impressed me, and so did racing, and so did the New York State Fairgrounds. Later it became named the Moody Mile. We threw the final checkered flag just l- a little over a month ago. I’ll never, never forget the memories, and I think today is gonna be a day, I don’t wanna call it a eulogy, I wanna call it a tribute to the Moody Mile.
Dr. Gary George is here. Tuesday we had a meeting up at Wheatsport. I had pages and pages of notes, and I still have some of the notes that I wanna talk about. But after I saw Dr. Gary’s presentation, and I says, “Man, this is history. This is it.” Ladies and gentlemen, as my good friend Jack Burgess always said, “You’ve gotta have a favorite out there.”
Syracuse was my favorite, and here is Dr. Gary George
Dr. Gary George: Well, thank you, Joe, and thanks everybody for coming out today. I got, uh, quite a story to [01:11:00] tell today. Being a retired college professor, I will be asking questions, and yes, there will be a test after And probably some of my students out here are smarter than I am. They always were when I taught. I don’t expect, you know, you’re gonna get me probably on a few things.
Anyways, let’s move on to this first slide. I could not have done this, and I think, uh, we’ve already mentioned that Jeff Ackerman and Mike Maney, they’re motorsports historians also, really worked hard to put this together, so it’s not just me. Some facts about the fairgrounds. I’m not gonna go through every one of these in detail.
I think the important thing to realize about the State Fair is it’s the oldest state fair in the United States, and it was really started by a bunch of farm folk and some legislatures and, you know, some politicians, unfortunately, at times, w- especially w- in light of what ha- has happened to Syracuse, to promote a larger than a local fair.
So it was originally held in Syracuse, and they had quite a crowd the first year, and they did big things like plowing contests, [01:12:00] which was a big deal back then, ’cause everybody was in farming. They were starting to look at manufacturing goods that were being done. The second fair was in Albany, which a lot of people don’t know, and then it changed.
It traveled all over the state to 11 different cities. Now, you can imagine that every city was vying for the State Fair, so it became a tremendous political football to try to figure out what town was gonna wedge its way in to get the State Fair because eventually the, they knew the state would be involved with money.
And that politics continued, if you look at the history of the fair itself, right through to the end, for us at least, with the State Fair, uh, the racetrack, the Moody Mile as we know it now. So Mr. Geddes, and you know when you pull in by the track, you see the town of Geddes, he donated most of the land for the original fairgrounds, which was quite small compared to what we have there now.
And in 1890, [01:13:00] 1892, I believe, they decided to let the state in, and the state took over the facility with an 11-member fair commission appointed by the governor. Let’s look at what we’re really after today. This was the track, the mile track, when it was first built. Now, I want you to notice, you see the railroad tracks here, the West Shore Railroad?
The track now, the front straightaway is right against that. So originally the track was built at a skewed angle that ran from the railroad track all the way up to State Fair Boulevard, which is that road you see there. And the fairgrounds facility was pretty small. There’s a dotted line there that you see, and that was the grounds.
This map here is 1917. Before that, in 1890, they built a half-mile track inside that ha- the mile track. The mile track came at a later date. And they ran horses there. But Mr. Geddes wanted the biggest harness race in the world to come to Syracuse. That was the Hamiltonian. So in the early 1900s, they started [01:14:00] bidding for a license to run the Hamiltonian at the Syracuse Fairgrounds, and it was a mile.
They built a mile track. This is the proposed new track that we knew it a few weeks ago with the dotted lines. The old track was over there. The old track had a giant wooden grandstand, not as big as the one that would be built on the proposed track. Now, there’s something interesting to notice here. This was pro- proposed in 1912.
Nothing really happened until the early ’20s. Anybody know what happened between 1912 and the early 1920s? World War I, very good. Guess what they did with the fairgrounds? They used it for a army training base, so there was no racing there. It took a while for the army to move out and for the fair to get back going again.
So the ’20s, the roaring ’20s, as a lot of people know them, a lot of kind of stuff happened, and a lot of racing. I’m gonna show you some pictures. I wanna talk to you before I show you the pictures, though. There was something [01:15:00] very fundamentally different happening in America. The track building for horses coincided with something very new.
It was called the motor car, and the fairgrounds provided a perfect place for people to see these new contraptions. You gotta remember, in the early 1900s, very few people had cars. It was a novelty to see a car coming down the road. Wow, the fairgrounds was the perfect place to showcase them, so let’s go race them and make some money for the fair board.
They were always looking for that cash, weren’t they? And the first race was won by Jules Gounaud at an astonishing, the crowd went berserk, and they had about 40,000 people there for that first race, 60 mile an hour average. Wes Moody, 100 mile an hour in 1970. So this was pretty darn fast for cars that were literally like that.
You can see the guy’s got a seat, he’s got a radiator, and he’s got a gas tank, and he’s dressed in a suit and tie, and he’s off to the races. Here’s, uh, [01:16:00] down the front straightaway. They had the judges stand there. This is the crowd. You can see the grandstand, a big covered grandstand, large crowd. Well, the first overall big winner was Ralph DePalma, seven victories.
He liked Syracuse and he ran very well there. Another picture, uh, this picture, don’t think the track is that wavy. Sometimes we think it is here at Syracuse, I think, but it isn’t. It’s the picture itself. But I do want you to notice one thing. How many of you are familiar with that building that is just past the grandstand?
The police station. Yeah, I know it. I’ve been in there before. It wasn’t pretty. I don’t wanna go in there again. That was there. This picture is about 1924. So the track has been turned around, and take a look at the guardrail they got. Picket fence. And these are six cars, I think there’s six there. By the way, they only started six cars in a main event, a 100-mile race.
Any idea why only six cars? How many [01:17:00] race cars were there around the United States to run at the national level? About six. And secondly, the dust was so bad if you tried to run any more, it turned into a very dangerous situation. Here’s a line-up here for one of the races. You can see the cow barns back there in the third and fourth turn.
Here’s a picture of a car getting fueled up at the fueling area. This was the start of a race. Now you can see the picket fence a lot better. In the ’20s, uh, how many, how many of you have heard of barnstorming? Well, barnstorming was basically air shows with race cars and motorcycle racing, and they would run triple shows at the fairgrounds.
The top picture there is the motorcycles, and they got a large amount of people just come out to see the motorcycles. And then you had the air show, and this is a great picture in the ’20s of an airplane flying in front of the grandstand at one of the air shows. So it was the barnstorming era. Well, why don’t you take a look at this prize list.
Take a look at what they paid to win for a 100-mile national [01:18:00] championship event. $5,000. That was a lot of money in 1923. Lots of money. I want you to look at something too down here. Here’s your flags. Look what they’ve got for a red flag Course is clear. Now, why in the dickens would you have a red flag go and the green flag you’re starting your last lap?
Any ideas? Color traffic. Traffic lights. Absolutely. There weren’t any traffic lights. How did we learn red means stop, green means go? Traffic lights. So to them, this made sense. Well, there was some tragedy, and I know Joe has got a few comments on this. Jimmy Murphy, 1924 French Grand Prix winner, was killed in turn two in, uh, 1924.
It was a month, he got on a boat, came over here and raced at Syracuse and died. Jimmy Gleason in 1931, a terrible crash on the front straightaway. Now you see the cars are starting to look like kind of sprint car type [01:19:00] things. Jimmy Murphy was probably, I think, the only active Grand Prix driver to ever drive on the Syracuse Mile, and I believe that to be a fact.
Mario Andretti ran there, but he wasn’t an active Grand Prix driver at that time. He went on to win the world championship. Seven before he was. Okay. Well, we, we were debating that fact the other day up at Weedsport, so that’s an interesting fact, okay. But it’s pretty significant this guy won the French Grand Prix the week be- or the month before and then died at Syracuse.
Joe, you got some comments you want to say on that? I’ll give you the mic here.
Joe Marotta: Well, Jimmy Murphy had wrapped up the championship, but he came to Syracuse to race anyway. And of course, there were open races around the United States at that time, and there was a big race one week later in Sacramento, California.
A car owner came up to him and said, “I’d like you to drive my car in Sacramento, California.” There were no planes, there were trains, and you certainly weren’t going to be able to drive across the country in a week back then. So he committed to drive in Sacramento, [01:20:00] California, and he also said, “I don’t like to do this, but I’m gonna, I’ll do, I will take the train.”
Just prior to the race, the owner of that race car gave him tickets for the train. He put it in his inside lapel pocket. Back then, as you could tell, they didn’t wear fire suits. They wore, uh, suit and ties He had the tickets inside his lapel pocket. When he was killed, he was speared with one of the fence posts that we saw there, and it went right through those tickets through his heart.
And that’s a true story.
Dr. Gary George: A terrible accident. Probably the worst racing accident in motorsports history happened in 1911. Lee Oldfield, who had been battling for DePalma with, for the lead at Syracuse with a few laps to go … Well, actually, 10 laps to go, started to have a tire going down on him. The tire was burning up, flapping, and he did not pull in.
He ended up blowing a tire near the second turn and went through the fence. If you look at the [01:21:00] pictures, look at how close up there in that right picture the people are to the stands, to the racetrack. They’re all over the place, so it was easy if a car went through. It’s amazing they didn’t kill more in this.
Anyways, uh, Lee Oldfield, no relation to Barney, by the way, who won some races at Syracuse. They had a police guard outside his door at the hospital. He did get injured in this wreck. And they were gonna arrest him for manslaughter. Ralph DePalma came back from the next race, took the train back to Syracuse to testify to the grand jury in defense of his fellow driver that he had been racing against, and got him out of Syracuse, literally.
I don’t have enough time to go through every race winner through the ’20s and ’30s. They didn’t race during the war. They restarted in ’49. You know, the war was over in ’45. Why did it take them four years to get started racing again? Any idea? It was absolutely. It was an Army air base where they used the middle of the mile track for an airstrip, and the government didn’t…
well, the Army [01:22:00] didn’t wanna move out of there. Made a nice camp. They liked it. It was by the lake. It was cool. They liked it. Didn’t like the winters, I guess. Anyways, this was a program from the 1949 race that Joe talked about that Tony Bentenhausen won. Then we move up to ’54. 1954, Bob Sweikert and Don Freeland put on an unbelievable race there.
Fought it out for the whole way. Again, take a look at the crowd, how close they are. They’re right there by that concrete wall, and these cars are going over 100 mile an hour easily. Sweikert won that race at 90 mile an hour average, which was a first. Well, Sweikert gets number two, and boy, that picture shows it all.
That Syracuse Mile is tough. And there’s George Amick on the side. Shows him up there racing George Amick, and he went on to win that one. You gotta remember, these were on l- the Labor Day type weekend, during the day, and it was hot. Tony Bentenhausen wins number three at Syracuse. There he is. Now, who’s that guy right there?
Chris Economaki. There’s Chris [01:23:00] Economaki that, uh, Joe was talking about, and he did love Syracuse. If you read his articles and his column back in the ’50s, he always talked about going to visit Harley Marsh and his buddies in Syracuse. Well, they wrecked them pretty good. This is quite a picture of McGill up on top Jack McGrath.
You can see his helmet there. He got a couple black eyes, they said, out of the whole thing. Uh, I don’t think I’d wanna do it again. Take a look at the crowd, how close they are. Got some kid waving there or something it looks like. Jimmy Thompson put on some great shows, especially in ’58. There’s a good picture of the back straightaway, the start coming off turn two, I believe, and the midway, and all the people standing there.
Thompson wins it. Thompson leads the pack. Look at the crowd. The big cars in that timeframe were extremely popular. The people loved them, ’cause it was a big IndyCar drivers came to Syracuse, and that’s when I was looking up in the air at them. This is a lineup on the back straightaway [01:24:00] further down for that day.
Take a look at Jimmy Thompson coming off the turn. That’s racing. Let’s move on. Al Unser made his appearance here, and boy did he ever, with that double ed Ford camshaft car. Teammate with Mario Andretti, which I have a picture right there. Well, the city of Syracuse kind of brought central New York into the realm of USAC and the tradition of AAA, with the city of Syracuse special.
They had a championship car as well as a sprint car. They did run sprint cars in the ’60s. There was a lapse with the big cars due to some change of date problems. They changed the date from the fair weekend to the next weekend, and people just didn’t come out. They went to the fair, but they went to see the races when they were at the fair.
Gary Bettenhausen was their driver, Tony’s son. Now, the 1974 crash was a terrible crash that ended Gary Bettenhausen’s IndyCar career for all intents and purposes. He did go through the top of the building in the first turn. It was an absolutely terrifying wreck. I was there. I saw it. Roger Penske [01:25:00] visited him in the hospital and said, “Please, please do not race those midget sprint cars or championship cars on the dirt.
They’re dangerous.” And according to what Speed Sport News said, “They’re good enough for my old man.” Roger fired him on the spot. He went on to have a good career though, still. ’75, Bruce Walkup and Sheldon Kinser at the fairgrounds. If I had to do all of the Indianapolis car stars that really raced at the fairgrounds, we’d be here for a long time, and I wouldn’t have enough slides to put all the pictures.
I picked some of the ones that were kind of my favorites most likely. I was probably biased. Definitely A.J. Foyt. Roger Ward won, too, in the early ’60s. Parnelli Jones was always a top runner here and did like Syracuse. Roger Ward, quite honestly, from what I’ve read, did not like Syracuse. He ran good here, obviously.
Lloyd Ruby, the famous Bobby Marshman, uh, from down in Pennsylvania, Don Branson, Len Sutton, Jim McElreath, and of course the [01:26:00] famous Troy Ruttman, and many, many others that you’ve already kind of seen. So there was something new. We’re about ready to do another social change here. After World War II, the IndyCars and the big cars and midgets were still extremely popular, but man, they were killing drivers right and left Everybody that came back from the war thought they were a race driver, and they were getting in these champ cars, big cars, and they were getting hurt, killed.
Guess what? Everybody could get a stock car. There were a lot of pre-World War II coupes and sedans that were available to every backyard hopeful. Hot rods and roadsters had been raging in the West right after the war, and actually before the w- war. Some of your big Indianapolis car drivers, like Johnny Parsons, drove hot rods out there.
Kind of think stock cars developed in North Carolina. Really, stock cars started in 1903 at Syracuse with stripped down regular cars with the fenders taken off, the seat left, the radiator, like the car you [01:27:00] saw on the second slide. In the West after the war, this w- this type of racing was really raging.
They were running seven days a week. So I reveal, he raced there for many, many years in the big cars and the champ cars. He, uh, was a promoter. Joe has already talked a little bit about him. He took the opportunity to stage a stock car race. This was something new for the Northeast. Hadn’t seen these stock cars.
They’re just starting to hear about Bill France and NASCAR. So why don’t we have a state fairgrounds race to supplement the champ cars in 1945? They did, and did they come out. They came from all over the United States to race at Syracuse on the Mile. This was a very interesting race. This was unheard of in the champ cars.
Women in a race car? They can’t do that. They’re not strong enough to get around those turns and slide the cars. Who was the first woman to ever win a race at the State Fairgrounds? Anybody know?
Gary Tompkins: Okay, I got ya. [01:28:00]
Dr. Gary George: In reality, there were two women in it. Sarah Christian won her first heat, finished fourth in the feature, contending with the men for the win.
Dorothy Baldwin was in the event from Baldwinsville. I don’t know if there’s a relationship there, but I suspect so with the naming of the town, and she turned out to be Ira Vail’s right hand person for many, many years as a head scorer for all the races they had under Ira Vail. Ray Hill won that first race.
He was from Connecticut. Sarah Christian, by the way, came all the way from Atlanta, Georgia. She was a NASCAR driver down there. And you can see the car, the door’s open. They chained them shut or taped them shut or whatever they could shut them with. Many entrants. There’s a picture down looking through the pit area, front straightaway.
Lots of cars, but many found the wall. Many found the wall. We heard some about this, that this morning. Well, take a look. Here’s what we got. These are kind of a collage of the races. Three abreast. They started them three abreast. And boy, they’re just looking for trouble at [01:29:00] Syracuse, aren’t they? And they did.
They wrecked a lot of cars. These are the flatheads. I just want to bring up something here real quick about the stock cars. The rules were in flux. It was like trying to hit a moving target. They were changing year by year. It was very hard to figure out what the rules were. They mainly ran flatheads up there till the early s- till ’68.
Then they went to the overheads, ’cause all the other tracks, the flatheads had pretty much faded away with the exception of Waterloo and a, a couple specials different places. In this timeframe, I, I’m gonna talk to you about some of the really famous drivers that drove there. And at this point, I would like to have one driver and a son of a driver that were racers at Syracuse.
One in particular, Roy Coterie, is here. He’s got a lot of stories about his dad to tell. I’m gonna show you some good pictures that I think are his pictures. And I’d also like to have a driver that raced Syracuse a couple times, a guy by the name of Bucky Dew. He’s from Trumansburg, New York, just inducted into the Hall of Fame up at [01:30:00] Morris.
Many time track champion at Glen Aubrey, Syracuse favorite.
Believe it or not, a lot of the champ car guys said, “Well, those stock cars are a bunch of junkers.” There was some really neat innovation going on, some good, some bad. Here’s a guy by the name of Suicide Al Sanders. He drilled holes through his car for two things, to let air out that got in, but also to put the radiator in the trunk to give it downforce from the weight.
Now, that car was kind of totally destroyed at Syracuse in the ’50s. Fortunately, he walked away. I want you to take a look at something. Cliff Cotterie was really trying to come up with neat technical ideas. Take a look at the side of the car on the bottom, the ’60. What does it look like it’s got? It’s got a plexiglass window.
It’s hinged. You can pull the hinge down to get in and out of the car. But he was using that, and Joe talked a little bit about that, about using drafting and coming up against [01:31:00] the wall to conserve the airflow so it didn’t get disrupted into turbulence. He had all these little tricks that added up into amazing one, two, three, four, five, six State Fair championships in three various cars.
And there’s a picture of Cliff down on the bottom left there. Well, how could I forget one of my favorite Super Modified drivers, Nolan Swift. And there he is racing with Cliff Cotteri at the fairgrounds. And there he wins a tough Labor Day hot afternoon race. They gave a plate away to the winner. Well, boy, there were some brutal crashes, and I told you that already.
This one up here on the left, Jeff Ackerman, I asked him, I said, “What’s a state trooper doing there?” He was asking for a sobriety test and his license. And you can see 29. That’s Sam Carista, a Super Modified driver for many years. He took a bad tumble there. And this one down here on the left is, uh, Kenny Mill, where the top was completely tore off the car.
It’s darn lucky he did not get killed in that. There, I [01:32:00] believe on the back, is the beginning of about a 40 car pileup. And you can see the S33. That is the original Bill Wimble car. There were a number of different drivers in it, so I’m not sure exactly who might’ve been driving that. All right, well, I, I know the S33 had a lot of different drivers in it, but that was, eventually would be the Bill Wimble car that w- a lot of us would be more familiar with.
Well, here’s quite a story right here. Larry Nye. I kind of let the cat out of the bag. I was gonna ask you a question. Who was the first driver to ever win at Syracuse that had a fire suit on in the stock cars? Well, you got the answer. I, I let you cheat a little bit on this, so… But he’s got a fire suit on.
This is the end of the race, the last lap going into the first turn. That is Cotteri on the inside who’d blown a motor. Mike Miller got in the oil and ended up touching the wall and cutting a tire down. Larry Nye is back in third spot, you know, watching all this happening, and all of a sudden he’s got the checkered flag.
He was about as surprised, he said, as anybody in the whole place. According to the stories I have heard, he did not tell me it was not true [01:33:00] when I interviewed him, he was so nervous with that trophy, and it’s a heavy trophy, too. He has it, and I’ve held it. He dropped the trophy on the trophy’s girl toe and broke her toe So, and how can I forget my good friend Dutch Hogue?
He came in when the overheads were starting to dominate, and they were running the overheads. And with his famous Turner Brother cars, he won too. Another dear friend of mine, Don Diffendorfer. I interviewed Charlie before he passed away. Two-time champion in the old Bentley-Warren car, and they were playing with aerodynamics.
Take a look at how they’ve bent the roof down and played with little wings in the back and all kind of stuff. Diff was a great guy. Irish Jack Murphy, he was very popular. He was kind of the one that would have a lot of crashes, but he was a good runner, and a top Super Modified driver by the way too.
Well, I got a question for you. First night of night racing at Syracuse. It wasn’t in the ’70s like a lot of people think. Any ideas? It was an Ed Otto promoted show, 100 miles.
CROWD Q&A: [01:34:00] 1962
Dr. Gary George: Well, you’re starting to get there, but you’re a little early. I’ll tell you. How about Tim Flock’s 1955 win in the Keir car, those famous 300, 301, 302 cars.
He won that first night race. And by the way, an interesting story that Mike, uh, Manay and I … Well, he actually found it buried in the National Speed Sport News in a small article. Two weeks later, Ed Otto said, “Well, I got the lights in there,” the temporary lights, and he probably leased them for a month. He said, “Let’s run a stock car, midget,” and by all things you would ever think about, a sports car race on the mile.
And they ran a … Jim Luke won the modified. Vern Harriman won the midgets, and the, the sports car race was … I did not keep up with Skoda back then, or wasn’t very familiar with them. But they did run. And they actually, another thing, they had planned to build a road course at the fairgrounds and run a true road race there, using part of the mile track and the roads that we drive on there to get into our camping areas, which would’ve been quite an interesting
I think I’ve been on some road [01:35:00] races back there during Super Dirt Weeks, and they weren’t pretty either. But anyways, they canceled that show. Uh, these are the Grand National NASCAR. Ed Otto did almost all these promotions, if you’re familiar with him. Famous NASCAR promoter. You had Buck Baker, I think somebody was talking about that, over Speedy Thompson in ’56.
They brought the convertibles in, and, uh, Curtis, uh, Turner won in ’56. ’57, the convertibles came back, and a guy by the name of Possum Jones won it. These races had quite a few of the local guys in it. Dutch Hogue would usually enter. Uh, you’d get True Love out of New England would come out and run. He was a NASCAR driver, and there were some other guys.
You had Chuck Mahoney. I mean, I can name quite a few you see in the finish. There were some Salt City races that they had there in various forms, and they ran the first one in ’58, and a guy by the name of Ned Jarrett, who was trying to make a name for himself, he was racing for points for the National Sportsman Championship, which he won.
He won that race. ’59, ’60, ’62, and [01:36:00] ’64, if you remember those races, Bill Rafter was dominant. I don’t know what he had in it for horsepower, but it was quick, ’cause that was the most of those races. Kenny Mills snuck in in ’63. Talk a little bit about the disaster of the ’70 USAC race. Well anyways, the Salt City race was normally associated with the modifieds, and they ran that usually three weeks after the fair.
One of the worst wrecks ever was Bill Wimble in the 33, turned two, the terrible fire. Uh, he was pulled out of the car by Ernie Gaham. Good friend of his. What be, would be ironic is that before that year was over at Daytona, Marvin Panch out of a burning car, both those drivers, among other people, Tiny Lund was one of them, and ended up with a ride that won the 500 in 1963, I think.
1970s, Rich Harmon won a USAC stock car race. That was a disaster. It really was. They had a terrible wreck on the back, just at the beginning of the back, uh, straightaway, uh, coming off turn two again. Turn two kind of turned into Calamity Turn, if [01:37:00] you’re familiar with Daytona or Charlotte. You know, Calamity Turn is turn four.
Turn two is Syracuse Calamity Turn. There was a big wreck on the back. Jim Champine, driving Roger McCluskey’s backup car, was involved in it and ended up briefly in the hospital. He made it to Oswego to race that night. But anyways, a driver did get hurt very seriously, and he died about three or four weeks later, which there wasn’t a lot of publicity on, which didn’t need to be.
It is a point of history. That was the end of the USAC, uh, stock cars. Hey, anybody ever go see the motorcycles run on the mile, the big mile in that? Boy, some kind of racing, huh? And I’m not a two-wheel type guy really, but I did keep going to those races and really enjoyed them. They raced there for a number of years, and then they just didn’t do them anymore.
Maybe Joe can give us some idea of why that might have been. How about the trucks? Anybody go to the truck races? They were kind of neat. Uh, Shawna Robinson, I got told, tore down the half the back straightaway one time. She was a upcoming star with NASCAR and, [01:38:00] uh, still, I think is still involved in racing.
And hey, snowmobiles. We talked a little bit about snowmobiles today. They were fast, and I think Joe’s got some stories to tell about both those things. So I’m gonna put him back on. Then we got one more slide, and we’re gonna take a break and, uh, come back for the afternoon session. You’re gonna see a quick video right to start with.
Really good one.
Joe Marotta: Gary, you’ve done a wonderful job. Fantastic. How about a big hand for him?
Well, the thing I’m gonna comment about, a couple of stories, uh, kind of funny stories in a way. One of them is the snowmobile racing. Can anybody tell me what champion from another sport ran snowmobiles? From another sport. Boxer. A boxer. Smokin’ Joe Frazier. Smokin’ Joe Frazier was quite a snowmobiler at heart.
Glen Donnelly was promoting the races, and they decided to have a pro-am race. So Smokin’ Joe [01:39:00] Frazier was there with his entire family and a fleet of Arctic Cat snowmobiles. And we’re announcing from the old tower then, from the infield looking out. It was colder than heck cold. Other than the snowmobile racing, some of the big rigs that, uh, he showed up there, the big rig racing that took place, and there was some really exciting racing that went on during that.
Charlie Baker was one of the drivers. Randy Slack was one of the drivers. Shawna Robinson had been a racer, and I believe she’s married, Gary, to a racer as well. Married to Elton Sawyer. Elton Sawyer. Could be, yes. She come off at turn number two at one time, got a little bit wide, and took the back wall down and totally down.
We had to stop the race and rebuild that wall back there at that time. Other drivers, uh, Dick Murtagh, he was kind of the big runner back then. And then there was another guy that made appearances in the big rig, a guy by the name of Kenny Schrader. So it got to be very popular. And when you saw that slide, that grandstand [01:40:00] was totally filled.
Yeah, go on back to it. Look at that grandstand. It was totally filled. The unbelievable thing, there was hardly any race fans that we knew that were in that grandstand. It catered to a totally different audience, the truckers. And not only did they run at Syracuse on the mile, but they ran at other given tracks, including Cayuga, Canada, which they drew some very, very big audiences and very, very big crowds on that.
Was mentioned also that there was motorcycle races there, and I happened to be the announcer of the motorcycle events. The promoter of that event was a guy by the name of Jack Brandt. Jack contacted me one day up at Fulton Speedway, and he says, “Joe, I’d like you to do the, uh, motorcycle races for me.” I says, “Motorcycle races?”
He say, “Yeah. What do you know about a motorcycle?” “It’s got two wheels.” “Good, you’re hired.” So that got me into the snowmobile business. But boy, there was some outstanding riders, and you don’t call them drivers, I found out that day. They’re riders. Kenny Roberts from Laguna Hills, California, was one of the [01:41:00] top runners back then.
Jay Springsteen. They put on some fantastic shows. Here again, the audience was fantastic. A- and here again, it drew right from another crowd. During the era of the godfather, Glen Donnelly, and his promotions at the mile, obviously he catered to the modifieds, obviously to the small block modifieds, and then of course brought the sprinters in and brought the World of Outlaw Sprinters in.
But one of the things he always tried to do is draw attractions from the outside. And some of the attractions he drew from the outside were from other speedways and specialty cars. One of them being Super Modified cars from the Oswego Speedway. Whoever saw Super Modifieds, as we know them, on the dirt, on the mile at Syracuse.
Everybody said it isn’t gonna work, but I think we had 30-some cars down there the first year. They were turning some fantastic speeds. The guy that set fast time was a guy by the name of Bobby Stelter. He drove [01:42:00] car number 04, the Salve Automotive car. He was fast. He set on the poles. Matter of fact, when we time trialed, uh, and I think on a Thursday night, Gary, I think you were there.
Thursday, Wednesday night, or Friday night. It was in the dark. Purely in the dark with no lights. Bobby Stelter turned fast time. The race went on, and Bobby was leading them back to second, back to third, back up to the number one spot, and all of a sudden come out of turn number four, and he pulled the car to the outside, and the car quit.
So caution came out, tow trucks came out, the safety crew came out, and a radio call came to the tower. “Glen, we got the car, but the driver isn’t here.” Now, Dick O’Brien, who was the manager of, um, the Oswego Speedway, and he was also a newspaper writer, he would be up in the tower with us and kind of seated to our right.
And Bobby Stelter had been known over the years to tip a few. So when we got the call that the car was there and not Bobby Stelter, Dick [01:43:00] O’Brien quickly said, “He jumped the wall. He’s up at Bridge Street Tavern.” And the race continued
By the way, winners of the Super Modified race were folks like Joe Gosek, Gene Lee Gibson, and also a guy by the name of Bentley Warren. And one time they mixed the sprinters with the Super Modifieds. The Lloyd Sprinters were the hot ticket back then. Jimmy Champigne was racing in his Super Modified. He was doing pretty good, probably running seventh or eighth position, and when the Lloyd Sprinter went by him in the back straightaway to take his position, and went by him so fast, Jimmy looked over and says, “I am buying one of those cars,” and ended up buying a Lloyd Sprinter.
As a matter of fact, you mentioned Andy Fusco, or we talked about Andy Fusco earlier. Andy Fusco wrote a book about Jim Champigne, and there’s a complete chapter in there about his dirt car, sprint car racing, and he talks about the [01:44:00] Lloyd Sprinter. Other things that have happened down at the State Fairgrounds, auto thrill shows.
Back in the day, back in, uh, starting after World War II and through the ’50s, there were some auto thrill shows, guys like Joey Chitwood Irish Horan, Jack Kochman, just to name a few. That brought in some big, big crowds, and it certainly was a big attraction for the Moody Mile. We talked about sprint cars, and Glen Donnelly got together with a guy by the name of Ted Johnson.
Ted, of course, was the owner promoter of a outfit called The World of Outlaws, and they brought the Outlaws to the Mile at Syracuse. And probably the biggest word that I could say is fast, F-A-S-T. Extremely fast. As a matter of fact, we’re talking about 100 mile an hour laps. How about a 26-second lap by Billy Paluch, which stood right up, uh, well, it’s still the track record even, uh, when we put the checkered flag out, uh, a couple of weeks ago.
There has been some terrible [01:45:00] tragedies at the Moody Mile. One of them that I can recall happened on a Fourth of July night. We were running the sportsman cars. Coming out of turn two was a young fellow from up in the North Country, up in the Watertown, New York area, by the name of Kevin Fleming. His car came down out of turn number two.
About halfway down the back straightaway, got mixed up. Car was turned sideways. Kevin was okay, but another car coming out of turn number two from Canada, apparently the caution he did not see, and he T-boned the car at full speed. Glen Donnelly came over next to me and he said, “I just had Doug Milton on the phone.
He was in charge of the safety group. He says we got one dead and possibly another death.” I mean, what do you say? What do you do? Glen Donnelly being the promoter that he was, never quit. I said this earlier today, the show must go on. He says, “We’re gonna clear the wreckage in the back straightaway. We’re gonna lower the lights,” being that it was a Fourth of July night, “and then we are going to shoot the fireworks [01:46:00] off.”
We completed the entire fireworks show, which was probably about a half-hour show, cleaned up the racetrack. All of the safety people took care of their duties and what they had to do, and then the race continued. We all knew what happened, but you just didn’t say it, and we always remember Kevin Fleming.
Now, one of the other things that happened at Syracuse that was kind of a tragic situation, the only time, and I believe it was the year 1976 going into ’77. In 1976, we tried to get Super Dirt Weekend two times, I believe, and was canceled, so we brought the race back in April of ’77. Coming out of turn number two, there was a terrible accident.
Guys who were involved, Wayne Rodeman, his complete roll cage was ripped right off, but they probably destroyed six or eight race cars in the back straightaway. Gary, I think you were working with me at that time. Okay. One of the fellows, he had [01:47:00] the little Scottie dogs on the side of the car. Ty Scott. Okay, that was an easy one.
He was involved in the situation as well. As they were cleaning up the accident back there, an Air Force jet came over and broke the sound barrier. Ba-boom. Now let me tell you, you saw the pictures of that tower at Syracuse, that grandstand and where we were suspended underneath the roof of the thing. At different times, during windstorms, during crashes, during fireworks, that baby shook, and it rocked and it rolled.
Gary, you can remember some of those days up there. Well, when that jet broke the sound barrier, it rocked the living hell out of that tower. Lindy Vicari was standing behind me. I says, “Holy mackerel, if this grandstand goes down, if this tower comes down, there’s no ambulances. They’ve all left for the hospital.”
And Lindy, in his wisdom behind me, says, “Hey, this tower come a-down, [01:48:00] don’t worry. That’s all you need is undertakers.”
How about if we take that break? Yeah. Okay.
Dr. Gary George: Okay, I guess we’re gonna take a break right now. I just wanna acknowledge two people, Mike Manet and Jeff Ackerman, who really helped me put this together. Give them a hand
Gary Montgomery: I went to a lot of races there, but not nearly as many as you did, and I never did any motorcycle stuff or truck races or snowmobiles or any of that stuff. But one story that I’ll, the only story that I’ll share with you relative to early experiences at Syracuse. Well, I was there the day of the, the Wimblefire that they showed.
I forgot what year that was. I better remember. ’63. So I remember that because of the fire. In 1956, [01:49:00] showed on the screen here earlier, there was a NASCAR Grand National race, and I was, uh, 13 years old, I guess, in ’56, summer of ’56, and knew about these guys, Lee Petty and Herb Thomas and the Flocks and so forth.
And I don’t know how I managed this, but my brother, who’s a few years younger than I am, and I, we got in the pits early before the races started, and we had a program or something. I wish I knew what that was and where it wa- is now. But I was getting autographs, and I’m not an autograph collector, but at the time I thought that was a neat thing to do.
And Lee Petty and Herb Thomas were sitting in the back of probably a race car that they’d actually run, run a race there that day, but they were in the backseat of a vehicle of some sort. And I handed this document in for their signatures, and they both signed it, and we walked away. And later on that day or the next day, we were going through this, I believe it was a program, and there were the signatures that I thought I had, but there was another one there, and it was Tom Thumb.
Well, by process of elimination, we discovered that that Tom Thumb was actually Lee Petty. And so from that day forward for a few years, I didn’t have anything good to think about or to [01:50:00] talk about Lee Petty because he had signed my, didn’t sign my autograph book appropriately. Several years later, I encountered him at Daytona.
All this is a very long time ago, but, uh, I shared this story with him then. And he chuckled and let on that at least he remembered having done that, and of course not for me, but… And so he may have done it for a lot of people, I’m not certain. And I shared with him how I really didn’t like that, and he said, “Well, if I’d have signed it Lee Petty, we wouldn’t be having this discussion today, and we wouldn’t know each other, and, uh, so that was the good thing.”
And from that day forward, for a number of years, I would see Lee and Richard and so forth. We always exchanged this Tom Thumb story, and he always acted like he remembered it, so not certain of that. But, uh, but I remember it very well, and, uh, after that exchange in Daytona, he became my favorite, and then his son my favorite, and his grandson and all the rest of those Pettys as well, including Adam, which didn’t last very long.
But Joy, I just marvel at your stories, your memory. Again, we worked a lot of these things together. I don’t remember them, and you do. I can’t even remember what year or century, uh, century I got, but the, the rest of it. [01:51:00] But all of this is just outstanding. We had a great presentation this morning. I think at this point there’s more to do here with Gary.
Joe Marotta: Gary Tompkins. Jeff, I’d like you to come up here as well. Gary Well, you spoke quite a bit in the morning session here. You were kind of a fixture at Syracuse for quite a number of years. One of the things I remember in particular about you, you had a great, great year. You’re a former Mr. Dirt champion, and you drove for a guy back then by the name of Jim Beachy.
Gary Tompkins: Yeah, he was, uh, he was a different individual. All class, though. You know, it… Everything was first class with him. Like we talked about before, um, you know, he had three, uh, corporate sponsors on the car and, you know, everything had to be done right. And not that he was a jerk about it, I’m just saying, you know, we did everything right.
The team prepared the car right. Unfortunately, they showed that video of Tim Fuller winning and I’m second, so thanks a lot whoever put that up there. But it just, it was probably the best couple of times, two years of my life really, that I could drive, uh, equipment that everybody else had. The same equipment.
And, uh, and we proved that we can be competitive with everybody else, uh, when we did [01:52:00] that.
Joe Marotta: Just to back up the story a little bit if you weren’t here this morning. Jim Beachy, uh, had a driver prior to you by the name of Alan Johnson, who was here this morning, drove the Pillsbury Doughboy car. Won the Mr.
Dirt Championship. On, I believe, Christmas Eve of that year, Alan Johnson resigned from the li- uh, from the ride. Beachy called me practically crying on Christmas morning. He says, “I can’t believe it. He resigned f- from the ride.” And he says, “I, I, I just don’t know. I don’t know if I’m gonna pull out. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”
I says, “Come on, Jim, you gotta stay in there.” Couple times after Christmas we talked, and he says, “Who are some of the drivers you would think about to put into the car?” I named about four or five drivers, and when I got to, like, driver number three that I mentioned, it was a guy by the name of Gary Tompkins.
He said, “Do you like him?” I says, “Yeah, he’s a pretty good shoe,” even though he tore up a Mopar in his young day, okay? He says, “Keep it under your hat. I kinda like him.” And you were given the ride, and that had to be quite a phone call, quite a conversation. Yeah, and you know
Gary Tompkins: [01:53:00] what? He called me, I didn’t call him, so that even makes it even better.
Joe Marotta: Well, you were one of the names on the hat, let me tell you.
Gary Tompkins: But I knew there was a lot of guys that called him looking for a ride. I, there, when we were meeting, actually, there was a couple times where people were calling up looking for that ride, and named drivers, very good drivers. But, uh, I was very fortunate he picked me, and like I said, uh, we had two awesome years.
I, I mean, we finished third in points in, in 2005, but there was a lot of other issues, the reason why we didn’t do that. The performance was there. Other than that, you know, we had some issues, uh, reliability, but it wasn’t because of what the crew did. It was parts reliability that really hurt us. We were, or else we might’ve been, you know, won a championship again.
Uh, one quick note about Alan Johnson. Uh, first off, Alan Johnson is one of my favorite drivers of all time. I’ve followed him since I was a little kid. I always wanted to drive like him, but then I found out once I was driving I can’t drive like him. You know, he drove for Bill Trout. They parted their ways.
I got that ride. And then he drove for Jim Beachy. He, they parted ways. I got that ride. One day at Rolling Wheels, uh, we parked next to Jeffrey Rubelavich, and Alan was driving for him. And actually, he parked in the spot where we usually park up by the fence, where, uh, Paige Trucking car parks now. I said, “Hey, Jeff, you’re in my spot,” but no big [01:54:00] deal.
Next year I’ll be in his spot, ’cause I’ll be in the other ride. And, uh, and Jeff didn’t think that was funny, but all the crew did. But, uh, alluding to what Alan went through last … You know what? Those guys, for whatever reason, they do what they do. You know, obviously everybody knows that Alan can drive anything you put him in, as long as it’s pretty close to quality.
I don’t know why he quit. I never really asked. I don’t really care, ’cause I got the ride. And look, we’re all here for racing. You know, that’s why I do this. But for me, too, I wanna be friends. I wanna make it fun to go to the racetrack, and, uh, it was fun those years. Even, you know, obviously we had success, but we had fun, too.
Um, my wife got along with all the wives. We’re all still very good friends to this day. It was just a, two magical years.
Joe Marotta: Well, one of the things I wanna talk about, Jim Beachy was probably one of the classiest guys that ever owned a dirt modified, without a doubt. His, his presentations, everything he did was with class.
And that first year that you drove for him, you win the Mr. Dirt championship. We talked about this earlier today. Tell us about the banquet and the uniforms. Or I should say the tuxedos. The year before when Aylon won, they wore tuxes,
Gary Tompkins: [01:55:00] typical tuxes, black and white. So we went Mr. Dirt. We, all right, this is, we’re gonna go, all gonna go, we’re gonna get fitted for tuxes.
Okay, so we all go get fitted. He wouldn’t let us see what they were. We didn’t know what they were until we showed up to the banquet, and we go into his room, and he’s got the tuxes there. They’re all white with, I believe the vest was blue, red cummerbund, red tie. So needless to say, uh, it was a class act, but still, of course, racers being racers, uh, I, I got about nine or 10 drink orders, people trying to order drinks from me, but, but, uh Yeah, but you kept the tips.
Yeah, well, you know, that’s, you gotta do what you gotta do to make a buck. But, uh, you know what? But he wanted to make a statement and make it memorable, and he did. Of course, we got out on Bad Boys as soon as we could, as soon as all our presentations was over. But, and then when you listen to him when he went up on stage, and they, and they asked him, you know, how it came about, you know, and he went through the list of people to thank, and it’s just every little person.
Nobody was too small to get thank if they helped in some little way. Uh, it was just amazing. Now, actually, when I drove for him, I still drove the Honeoye Auto Parts car. Yeah. So I drove that on [01:56:00] Saturday nights. He welcomed Doug with open arms, welcomed that whole team with open arms. We actually became almost like a three-car team because Randy Kasakie kept the series car at his house, Jamie kept the short track car at his house, and then we kept the Honeoye car for Saturday nights at, uh, in Honeoye.
So it was, uh, it was something else. Now, I get the ride. They just picked up a new car. Jim owned the Torro store on Erie Boulevard in Syracuse. Yes. It was a cold, roads were slippery night. They had put the new car there, our new series car, in a, in one of them cube vans. All four tires are bald. He goes, “Take this down to Randy Kisacki’s house.”
Okay, no big deal. You know, I wanna please my new owner. We get in that thing and we’re, me and, uh, a friend of mine were … We were probably sideways as much as we were straight going down 81 down-
Joe Marotta: Dirt track can help.
Gary Tompkins: Oh, yeah. And, uh, going up the hills, uh, in Johnson City, uh, down by Binghamton, you know, you think a team like that would have some big, huge shop.
We pull in the driveway, there’s a three-car garage. One bay is for the race car, and then s- come racing season, two bays are for the race car, but there’s always one bay for the wife’s car. And that’s where they worked on the car. They had a three-car garage attached [01:57:00] to the house, and, you know, like, a truck body out back that had some parts and stuff in it, and that’s where three championships were won from.
And three in a row, too, with two different drivers, which is pretty impressive. But that’s how they did it. They didn’t care about being fancy. They got done what had to be done. To this day, it still resonates with me because I think there’s times I still get rides because I was a f- former dirt champion, you know?
And, uh, but yeah, it was definitely a, definitely a fun time.
Joe Marotta: Thinking of the mile, you came so close. And to win at the mile, that is like winning a World Series championship, winning a Super Bowl championship, winning a free dinner from Jeff Hochman. You know, all of those three things, uh, combined together.
Tell us about your experiences on the mile.
Gary Tompkins: For some reason, I don’t remember the first time I was there. I’d, uh, in a Bla- Big Block. I remember there as in a Sportsman, and I remember that because I spent a lot of time getting the car ready to go up there. And since I’m a tin smith, I made a lot of special body panels a lot of other guys didn’t have.
And, uh, we’d go up there and immediately have motor problems and I didn’t even make a lap. Talk about heartbroken. I don’t remember the first laps, per se, [01:58:00] of going around there. I just remember seeing that huge grandstand, seeing the people lining the racetrack. When you’re making laps around that place, for me anyway, I can sense the people watching, ’cause you can see the people standing up by the fence.
Go through turn two, there’s always campfires in turn two, and the smoke always drifts across the track, and you can always smell the campfires. Go down the backstretch, you can see that huge scaffolding at the end of turn three where everybody’s standing up there. Of course, you come out of turn four and that huge grandstand’s just staring right at you.
And just the humanity. It’s not a race, and it’s, it’s an event. I mean, even when we went there for 4th of July, Labor Day, stuff like that, it was still a special place. There was no place like it, obviously. Yeah. You know, it’s a mile track. I mean, I’m sure there’s USAC fans here, but, you know, I, I read a book once when I was in school about the mile tracks.
I really s- so wish I had it. It just, like it just raised them up on a pedestal, and this, this is one of them. This is one of the mile tracks, and it’s unfortunate it’s gone. You know, I, I’ve, fortunately I never crashed hard there. I’d, I’ve gotten close. Uh, actually, probably my worst crash there was, uh, 2012.
They’d put clay on the track actually that year. I know Glen was talking earlier about, you know, he always wanted to make that track fast, always drew him [01:59:00] to make it fast. Well, all I could think of was dollar signs for tires, ’cause it just killed tires. But the last few years it really hasn’t hurt tires.
2012, uh, we went there with our short track car, time trial it sixth. Was leading the heat pretty comfortably, really. I just started cruising. I caught lap traffic. The guy that I was getting ready to lap, some Frenchman, I have no idea who he was, but he had one heck of a motor, but he could not turn the car, ’cause he would stop getting into the corner.
And, uh, I caught him at a bad time getting into turn three. And people don’t realize what turn three is, but there’s a concrete abutment on the inside of the track. And there’s jersey barriers up to it and jersey barrier behind it, but it sticks out a little bit. And if you hit… Actually, there’s a lot of guys that hit it this year and peeled their left fronts off.
Well, I hit it and pulled the left front right off the car, and I just limped into the pits. I couldn’t believe it. That’s actually probably the worst I’ve ever wrecked there, m- um, leading, you know, when I was leading a heat race. But the fact that, you know, it’s a big production, and I love the fact that you’re camping there, you wake up in the morning, go to the pits, and you start racing.
That’s a racer’s dream. You know, you don’t have to drive down the road or nothing like that. You just walk across the track and there you are in a race car. It’s unfortunate it’s gone. I really do hope that Glen’s race will become something big, but it will [02:00:00] never, ever replace what that is. You can’t replace that.
Yeah, you can’t replace that. Yeah. And I, and I wish people would stop trying to say that they’re gonna replace it. You can’t. There’s no place you’re gonna go, there’s no track that we’re gonna race is ever gonna equal what that place meant to us as racers. You know, I know going to Glen’s track next year, I can take my Seriate car and I can be competitive.
You really can’t do that at that place. Uh, there’s just so much more going into it that, uh, you have to be prepared for. It’s not only mentally tough, ’cause you have to think of all scenarios while you’re driving. Your crew has to think of all scenarios, uh, tire wear, fuel mileage. When do I pit? Who’s everybody else pitting?
Who’s broken? What lap speeds are we, you know, we’re trying to keep up to do all this? How is the car? And you’re doing that for 200… Not 200 laps, 200 miles. Uh, there’s no track that we’re in the car longer. The next day you’re just mentally shot. And like I said, I, I don’t, I don’t see how there’s ever will be any race that will compare to that.
Joe Marotta: Well, Gary, I gotta tell you, you were a great competitor at DeMile, and, uh, you’re doing a great job here too today. Would you like to be an announcer sometime?
Gary Tompkins: Believe it or not, I have stage fright.
Joe Marotta: Can you believe that, folks? Can you believe that?
Gary Tompkins: That, that’s why I’m not [02:01:00] really looking out into the audience.
I’m sort of looking down at that podium there. But, you know, I, I’ve gotten over it a little, over. It’s been a challenge to do that.
Joe Marotta: Well, you know, a lot of times when I do banquets, when I first did banquets, I’d get very nervous because everybody was staring at me, and I go, “You know, I announce in front of,” well, wait a minute, “behind tens of thousands of people.”
So I would ask everyone in the banquet to turn around and face the back so I could see the back of their heads, and it worked out a whole lot better. You know, I got to relate a little story. Earlier today, we talked about the Gary Blue car, and of course, the Gary Blue car is on display over there at the research center.
Glenn talked about it a little bit. I remember the exact days and times. It was on Thursday afternoon when this hauler came into the New York State Fairgrounds and, uh, it went over to the farm machinery building, which is now all destroyed. It, it, it burnt down. And they waited until just about everybody had done their inspections, and then they finally brought it in.
And Gary Ballou’s crew did have some [02:02:00] guys maybe called muscle men to keep people away from the car. Well, I had the right badge, and I muscled my way in, and they unloaded this car, and I went, “Holy cow. Look at this thing. It’s unbelievable. Wow.” Now, you didn’t have cell phone cameras to take pictures of it back then.
So I immediately leave the building, and I hightail it all the way up to the tower, and I said to Glenn, “Glenn, have you seen that Gary Ballou car?” “Yeah, it probably isn’t gonna do a damn thing.” “Wow, it sure looks fast to me.” “Yeah, well, we’ll see tomorrow.” So the next day, which I believe was Friday, beautiful day.
In the pit area, there was a section all roped off with se- Blue security guards around it. They had the car totally covered, and finally, the big moment came when they uncovered the car, and they fired it up, and they brought it out onto the speedway racing surface. It took about two slow, maybe [02:03:00] three slow laps.
The fast cars were turning probably thirty-fours, maybe a couple of them in a thirty-three nine lap, and all of a sudden, Gary Ballou gets into it. Now, I got my trusty stopwatch. I carried that stopwatch with me all the time. It’s the one that I gave to Wes Moody. And I click off, and I look down, and I go, “Wow, thirty-three two.”
Glenn looks at me, and he says, “You ought to throw that damn thing away. It’s no good. That ain’t the right time.” I hit it again. Next time around, it’s a thirty-one. Now, there were two or three other guys standing up alongside of me, and they all got their watches out, and they’re down into the thirty-ones.
Glenn looks over, walks over to the corner of the tower, picks up the phone and calls his compadre, Howie Commander, who was in the press house. “Howie, I think we’re in trouble.” And that’s how the week kicked off. We saw a lot of innovations that week. [02:04:00] A lot of guys took their roofs and made them larger, made a wing out of them.
But no one, no one ever compared to the Gary Ballou car, and that’s the one that’s on display. Couple things I remember of it during the race, probably the only time he didn’t lead is when he came in to make his pit stop. He made his pit stop, came back out, quickly made his way back up to the number one spot.
The show was being recorded that week by, um, ESPN. Gary knew exactly where the cameras were, and if you ever see a replay of it, he waves at the cameras once he gets into the lead. That’s how dominating that car was. I asked Gary on many occasions, “Did you ever show all your cards?” He’d look at me and give you that quirky smile and said, “No.”
So the car had a whole lot more potential in it. If you take a look at the car in there, take a look at some good things. The roof design, that roof, I understand, weighs about 400 pounds. It is a wing. And like we said today earlier, all the rules [02:05:00] back then were minimum rules. They looked at the rule book and says, “Well, there’s no maximum rules.”
So they went wide and high and won the race. Jeff Hockman, come on over I think you got some videos that you would like to show us.
Jeff Hochman: I got some videos coming up, but before we get into the videos, the one we played earlier, uh, Gary, I had a little something to do with that. That was a pre-video though, pre to the event.
I didn’t even know you were gonna be here. Something cool in that video, I think you saw Gary Ballou say, “Thank you to all the fans that are booing me.” This year, I, uh, one of the cool things, uh, I get to do is welcome the drivers up to stage at pre-race and wish them luck. And Brad Hearn walked up, and he’s the new Gary Ballou, and everybody booed him, and he looked at me and he says, “Well, I guess I still matter.”
So I think that’s pretty cool. The guys that get booed are the ones that you gotta watch out for. Before we get into the video, I, you know, my, uh, my experience with Super Dirt Week hits all kinds of levels. I started out as a fan. [02:06:00] I worked for a sponsor. Now I’m, uh, part of the group, World Racing Group, that’s a current promoter of the event.
You know, started going to the races with my father, who sold pit passes for Glen. My first race, 1978, Gary Ballou won that year in a normal looking car. Got to enjoy that, and, uh, I remember getting a program in 19… I, I don’t know what year it was, ’cause Gary and I were talking about it earlier. The first race I remember is ’78, but the first program I remember had Toby Tobias on it.
And I think he won in ’74? ’75. There you go. You guys know more than me. But, uh, so I r- I remember that. But Super Dirt Week to me at that time was going to watch fast cars, doing what my dad does. You know, that was going to the diner in the morning and having breakfast. Sorry, a little choked up. Dad’s no longer with me.
Then I got to work for the SKOLA Racing Super Dirt Car Series, and, uh, got to promote, promote these drivers, Gary Tompkins, Brad Hearn, Murf Trickler back in the day, [02:07:00] Kenny Brenn, and, uh, got to promote the Super Dirt Car Series. I, if you go to the Dirt Hall of Fame, you’ll see me holding a banner behind the winner of a race.
And, uh, now went on from there to work in, uh, NASCAR for 15 years. Got this opportunity to come back and, uh, get back what I love with dirt car racing, and now a part of a group that puts on not just Super Dirt Week, but we got the World of Outlaw Sprint Cars, Late Models, including the Super Dirt Car Series, doing events throughout the country.
So, uh, it’s pretty exciting. This was a, uh, special year for us. First year was ’78, then I was a Will Cagle fan. Will Cagle in, uh, Wedsport and all excited, and next thing you know, Will Cagle’s thinking about retiring. I’m not gonna tell you the year yet. We’re gonna roll into a video. But this year and this event kinda took me over the edge and really put me into the motor sports for the rest of my life.
RECORDING: These cars doing the same thing, not handling as well as it was. [02:08:00] Here we go onto the last lap, headed down into turn number one.
Yeah, the crew just praying, just hoping that that car’s gonna make it work. They know he’s running on fumes. He told them on the radio that he’s concerned. McCreadie, of course, driving hard. He’s got plenty of fuel as they head down into turn number three. It is still Earnhardt right behind him. Johnson and McCreadie making one final bid as they come out of the final straightaway.
Jack Johnson goes for one final shot. It is not enough. Brad Hearn, number 20, the youngster from New Jersey has won the Shaver 200. And in this part of the country, Brock Gage, that makes you an instant legend. Right, Steve, and it’s just about like winning the lottery as well, as he’ll take home over $50,000.
Back with the winner. Incredible scene down here. Everybody done.
Brad- Unbelievable … [02:09:00] you run out… Did you just run out of gas? We, we just ran out of gas coming down off of turn four. You were, you were worried about fuel, the crew said, for quite a while. With 10 laps to go, I couldn’t tell if it was we run out of fuel or if we had carburetor trouble, but it started sputtering with 10 to go.
I- A fantastic effort. Beautiful. I, I can’t believe it. All right. What a show by Brad Hearn. A victory here. Okay, let’s go to Steve. All right. Thank you, Jack. You know, I said earlier Brad Hearn was popular. Look at this. Up on top of his race car at the finish line. What a celebration. Okay, let’s
Jeff Hochman: go to Brock with the- So here I was, a guy, a young kid without a driver.
Will Cagle’s retiring, and this young, cool guy with a really cool-looking car goes out and wins, to me, was the Super Bowl or the World Series or the Daytona 500, and that really kinda put me over the edge. At that point, I was gonna be in motorsports forever. So like I said, I, I went away for a while and got this opportunity to come back.
Uh, Super Dirt Week, I was there for its glory days. Glen Donnelly was, uh, surely a visionary and somebody I still look up to. Super Dirt [02:10:00] Week kinda took, not a turn, but it was kinda on its down for a little bit. And, uh, about 10 years ago, I came back on board. About six years ago, saw this opportunity to not only work in modified racing, which I loved, but to be the, one of the key promoters in putting on this event that I called the Super Bowl as a kid.
You know, was able to, uh, get hooked up with World Racing Group, and, uh, they gave me the opportunity to, uh, lead the charge. You know, this year everybody’s gonna say, or, that this year’s crowd was because it was the last one. That’s true, but there’s a lot of last ones. There’s a lot of last ones of big events that don’t have big crowds.
I like to believe that the last five years, not just because of the drivers, not just because of the competition, but also because of the event, has developed what you saw in the last Super Dirt Week at the Moody Mile. You know, it’s tough for me to say up here, but Super Dirt Week still lives. [02:11:00] The Moody Mile may be gone, but Super Dirt Week will live, and it’s my job to make it 75% 80% of, as Gary said, and I agree 100%, there will never be another Super Dirt Week like at the New York State Fairgrounds.
But it’s my job and World Racing Group, it’s not all me, to make sure that it’s 80%, 90%, whatever we can do to maximize that event, and I’m looking forward to it. Looking forward to the challenge. I’m excited that Glen’s putting together a state-of-the-art facility. He knows what the event needs. So, um, I, I think I got the right man right by my side to get ready for next year’s event.
Joe Marotta: How about a big hand, ladies and gentlemen? Jeff Hochman. Thank you
Recalling some of the memories, boy, I got quite a few of them. One of the things we used to do back in the day when it was a 200 lap event or even a 188 lap event, and they would call it the Miller [02:12:00] 300, and that was 300 kilometers, but it equaled out to 188 miles. The halfway point paid $10,000, and this became a race within a race.
A lot of guys figured, “I don’t have a chance for that big $50,000 win at the end of the 200 or 300,” whatever you wanted to call it. But man, $10,000 is a big, big payday. Now, keep in mind, the cars did not get the mileage that they get now. To go 88 laps, to go 100 laps, it was tough. And like I said, it was a race within a race.
And some of them, what they tried to do, if there’d be an early caution coming out, let’s say lap 10, lap number 10 or 20, 15, whatever, they would dive into the pits, just take on fuel, come back out, and hopefully get good track position. Then maybe when they got up around lap number [02:13:00] 65, 75, another caution come out.
The leaders would come in because they were looking for the big payday at the end of the race, and these other guys would position themselves up. And so many of them, so many of them would get up there. Now, let’s say it was a 200 miler and there was 100, and when they got up to the 100 lap, doggone it, lap number 98, they’d run out of gas.
Lap number 99, they’d run out of gas. Joe Plazek from Canada so many times almost made that halfway point, but ran out of gas. And then you had the guys like a Pat Ward or a Vinnie Vitale come along, and they would be right there to take that halfway point. And that was a big, big part of Super Dirt Week and the big race.
And the guy that you really owed a lot of credit to that was one of the guys behind the scenes. His nickname was The Chief. His name was Aaron Freshman. He passed away in 2008. He was inducted into the Dirt Car Hall of Fame in 2008. And I did his [02:14:00] induction, and I said his nickname was The Chief, and it was the Chief of Connections.
And this guy just absolutely had all the connections, and he would procure that sponsor for that halfway thing. And most of the times it was PNC Food Markets. Some of the other people that I would like to acknowledge that was a big, big help in producing Super Dirt Week, we mentioned him earlier, I think it was also on a video, Andy Fusco.
Andy Fusco passed away this past March. He was a good friend of mine. He was a good friend of everybody in the racing industry. Andy Fusco was an attorney. Andy, uh, his first position was with Glen Dolly, and then he built his law practice in Auburn, New York, married, two children. And he was just- Just an absolutely fantastic behind the scenes guy.
You know, you’ve seen in movies like The Godfather where they always worked with their concierge, well, he was the concierge. He was the guy, the go-to guy. He [02:15:00] was a big, big help. Earlier today, Jack Spino was here. Jack has probably been at every Super Dirt Week doing Victory Lane and doing a doggone good job on it.
Then there was a guy by the name of Maury Holbrook. His name probably never came out in the headlines. He had an assistant by the name of Mark Kosiski. They were the guys that took care of the track. They were the track groomers, the preparers. And I gotta tell you, Gary Montgomery can attest to this, Glen Donnelly never said no, never said quit, never finished a race unless it was finished.
Those guys were always prepared to take their equipment out on the racetrack. Now, one year we ran into a saga of rain. Rain, rain, rain. We got into Sunday, it rained, and it continued to rain. Glen was constantly looking at the monitor, turned around and says, “Boy, we’re screwed.” And I says, “Well, what are we gonna do?
Come back tomorrow?” “Nope.” And all of a sudden Glen turned around and said to me, “Joe, [02:16:00] your parking lot packers.” It stopped raining. Now, the parking lot packers were people with passenger cars out in the parking lot. As a matter of fact, Gary Montgomery took a rented car out there. And on that one given Sunday, we had 248 cars on the Moody Mile.
We also had one guy mooning the entire grandstand. But that just put in a little bit of humor Now we got the race in, but we started the race under a green caution for about 20 laps. I being the announcer, I believe you were there with me that year, Gary. We never said we are canceled. Never said that we were canceled.
So the race goes on. We started under a green caution. We brought them in after 20 laps of precautionary yellow, stayed out so they could clean the side of the cars so we could score the cars from the tower, and the race went on. Jimmy Horton won the [02:17:00] race. Pat Patterson did his live TV show from the fairgrounds.
There were race fans at the Marriott, at the Holiday Inn, at the Hampton Inn, at the Quality Inn, that said, “The announcer said it was canceled.” We never said it was canceled. Never. We were on a hold, but never said it was canceled. They took Jimmy Horton into the little booth. They interviewed him right at the conclusion of the race, even prior to the trackside ceremonies, and then we got phone calls from the Holiday Inn, from the Marriott, and I happened to have a phone next to me.
I pick it up, “Hello, this is so and so. I’m calling from the Marriott here in Syracuse. The announcer said that you canceled.” I said, “Nope, never said it. The race is on, the race is done, and it was won by Jimmy Horton. Goodbye.” And those are the type of things you run into when you put on a production like Super Dirt Week and like Syracuse.
It seems though, if there was one little cloud in the sky, boom, it would drop down onto Syracuse. [02:18:00] I’ve talked enough. Dr. Gary George. I got a couple more stories, but I want you to- Well,
Dr. Gary George: I hope everybody had a good appreciation of the history of the Syracuse Mile and the Moody Mile. I tried to cover 100 years in a very short time.
If I missed some of your favorite drivers, and there were a lot of them that won races, especially the fair races, some great champions from tracks, uh, all over the northeast, I am sorry about that. Otherwise, we would never get out of here tonight, and Joe and I have both run out of steam talking, if that’s possible.
Anyways, uh, the important thing is, and I did not bring this out, and I want you to take this home with you, is that of all the mile tracks, and I think Gary Tompkins talked a little bit about that book, and by the way, that book is in the archives over here if you wanna come down someday and read it. It’s, it’s there.
I know the one you’re talking about. Anyways, the Syracuse Mile is the, was, well, will be the old, third oldest mile dirt track in the United States. Indianapolis, uh, at one time was [02:19:00] partially dirt, whatever it was, and of course, you had the Indiana State Fairgrounds, which is a big competitor to the New York State Fairgrounds even today as far as grandeur and all that.
Syracuse is third. One race, only one race I had of the fabulous Milwaukee Mile, and I think that’s very, very significant. We now lose that legacy. Although today we’ve celebrated that history, and I hope that I was able to give you some insight into some of the great drivers that raced here up until 1972.
Joe was pretty much, and some of the drivers that were here, filled in that portion of it. We decided to do a format like this to get the drivers. And I’ve never been in a race car. I’ve worked on a lot of them on pit crews, lettered them, and all kind of other stuff, promoted race car shows and things like that, but never sat in a race car, but have been going to the races all my life.
We thought it was important for the show that we have that type of [02:20:00] insight, and of course, Jeff’s insight from the promotional angle about those races that he’s so graciously given us some great video on. We’ve got a dedication, a grand finale, very short. It’s gonna bring tears to your eyes. That’s the grand finale.
Joe Marotta: We will always, always cherish the memories here at Syracuse. From the days of AJ Foyt, from the days of Tony Bettenhauser and Maury Rossi, all the way up to the Big Block Modifieds, to the big wrecks that ran here, the snowmobiles that ran here, I’ll never forget it. Thank you.
Dr. Gary George: Thanks for the memories. I believe that concludes our program today.
I hope everybody enjoyed it.
Kip Zeiter: I’m sorry, what a mistake for New York State to close this place. This has just been a tremendous day. I am so thankful for everybody who has participated. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t watch that without getting a little bit [02:21:00] teared up. That is a piece of history that we are never gonna have back again, and I think it’s a shame.
But I am immensely thankful for all of you who showed up, and thank everybody who appeared this afternoon as well as this morning. Thanks a lot.
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The symposium is named in honor of Michael R. Argetsinger (1944-2015), an award-winning motorsports author and longtime member of the Center's Governing Council. Michael's work on motorsports includes:
