When he flipped, the car landed on its wheels, but it was on fire and he burned to death, Andretti said. Little Langhorn. Many drivers flat refused to go to Langhorne. Kenyon later returned to racing and placed third at the Indy 500 and won numerous national midget racing championships. Photographer is unknown. The 1-mile track in eastern Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, was known as the Track That Ate the Heroes, the Big Left Turn and the Horne, among others. Sprint cars, midgets, motorcycles, and stock cars hadn't raced there for years, and for Indy cars -- by far the fastest of the bunch -- Langhorne was unmercifully bumpy, dangerous, and unpleasant. tremendous racing took place around the circular, oiled down, big dirt mile The In 1961 and 1962, Supermodifieds raced with the Modifieds and Sportsman cars. Bob Veith asked for "The track was always kind to me," he says. However, It was another track to conquer. VINTAGE INDY 500 Winners Aj Foyt / Mario Andretti Photo - Trenton Speedway - $5.59. The speedway's asymmetrical layout, with one end of the oval featuring a corner wider than its opposite, makes car setup a nightmare, and helped earn Darlington the name "Too Tough To Tame.". A Wild Dirt Track Crash From 1951. Riverside International Raceway is the sole dedicated road course to make this register. Hoag was the only driver to win the National Open on both the dirt and pavement surfaces.[12]. [10] The Strictly Stock series was renamed the Grand National series for the 1950 season, and the series is now known as NASCAR Cup Series. George didnt qualify his normal ride, the HOW Offy, You were hanging on the edge by a thread. Peters, Herman, Mussleman, Swiekert, His teammate, Charlie Musselman was next with Langhorne continued to host an annual stop on the Grand National schedule from 1950 to 1957. I was a little During the prewar years, the lap record was already a few ticks above 100 mph -- an astonishing speed considering it was a dirt track with no straightaway. almost 100 fatalities, after his Mercedes went into the crowd, opposite the pit But on the first lap his car got crossed up diving into Puke Hollow, hooked a rut, and launched an estimated 55 feet into the air. The promoters were understandably livid. AAA sprint car show was held on May 1, 1955, at the big, circular oiled dirt was a consolation race and Crockett won that, with OConnor and , Pat As with all forms of racing, the majority of serious accidents occur at high speed, so the accidents that happen tend to be of the puckering variety. at Langhorne, PA. a photo, again, one taken by Walt Imlay, of the start of the 1956 100-mile race Larry was thrown from the car, but suffered fatal chest and lung injuries. Langhorne Speedway, which opened in 1926 and was closed in 1971 to make way for a shopping center, also played host to Indy-car races. Freddie Winnai of Philadelphia qualified in 42.40 seconds, a new world record for a one-mile (1.6km) track, and went on to win the 50-lap main event. In September 1949, Langhorne hosted the fourth race of NASCAR's first year of . He qualified on the outside of the front row and took the lead at the start. lead over teammate Thomson and third place running Sostilio. A year later, Andretti got his own baptism by fire at the 'Horne. The race was in 1951 and surprisingly everybody involved in this wild . That 1964 race -- which Foyt won, with Andretti ninth -- was the last one on the original dirt surface. Peters, and Nazaruk. Because the track was round, you couldnt see very far ahead of you. I was part.of his pit crew for a while when Stevie raced for MK Speed Shops in Langhorne. thumb had to be amputated in the hospital. "It was the toughest track I ever ran on a motorcycle, and it was even worse in a stock car," he says. It's no coincidence that only the best of the best won at Langhorne, and the victory roll features many of the greatest legends of the '30s and '40s: Mauri Rose, "Wild" Bill Cummings, Duke Nalon, Ted Horn, the incomparable Rex Mays. The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah make up one such place, and every imaginable type of vehicle has been fielded there since Teddy Tetzlaff set the first world land speed record of 142.8 MPH in 1914. There I had seen so much happen there. Had seen a couple guys not coming home from there. The Mile is safer than ever before, but the racing is gone, and the track may soon be too. Event Overview Alternatively Known As: CAM2 Race of Champions First Event Run: 1951 Event Still Contested: Car Style: Tour-Type Modifieds Location: Oswego Speedway Quick Stats Most Wins: Matt Hirschman (8) Most Top-Fives: Matt Hirschman (12) Number of Races: 71 Number of Drivers: 965 Project Status: AGAIGG; Results are complete for approximately half of the Race of Champions. No Man's Land," calls the track "a man-maker and a man-breaker." Nobody liked it, and the ones who said they did were lying.". Iron Mike Nazaruk won that day, and a short Al gave his car a little breather there, and I kind of closed my eyes and got around him and won the race. Bryan charged on, and was racing goes. got the lead and pulled away slowly. George Moscot and his partner Ray owned the car . Amick was Jimmy George Amick took over the lead, and he was followed It's been gone for years now but this video shows you just how intense these guys were. It was very rough (in its dirt-track days). 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"It kept getting bigger and bigger, like an airplane coming in for a landing. race continued after a spell, and Musselman had the Harroun also drove with a mirror mounted to his car, an idea pioneered by Dorothy Levitt only a few years before. The 1970 Langhorne 150 was the sixth race of the 1970 USAC Championship Car Season. first two rows of the feature consisted of. Fried and Gerber announced the sale of the property to mall developers in 1967, but the speedway held on through five more seasons. The half-mile Meyer Speedway in Houston, which hosted a 1971 Cup Series race in which Bobby Allison and Richard Petty started on the front row in front of 9,000 spectators, went down in the late . either stayed home due to some illness that he had that day, or if he had could call the turn one area. The stands The first fatality in NASCAR's top series also took place during this race when Larry Mann crashed through the guardrail and flipped three times. vicious series of end over end flips, with Crockett being thrown out of the car If you suddenly ran up on cars, it was hard to dodge them. "It wasn't just the track," Dallenbach says. Joe Leonard was also involved in the same crash, and was credited with getting Kenyon out of the car, thus saving his life. quest for three straight wins took a hit around lap 66, when his cars engine After the race, Clarence said they took bulldozers and steam shovels and dug down 25 or 30 feet and didnt find any concrete. The plot was at the corner of Lincoln Highway and Woodbourne Road, where now stands a car dealership, a Kmart and a Sam's Club store. But I liked Langhorne because you could run fast there. below. Jan 1, 2013 - Langhorne Speedway flyer. "In fact, the year I finished second, I used the prize money for my honeymoon.". lap. Ive never lost sleep over debuting anywhere in the world, even with Formula 1 and whatever, Andretti said. needed more fuel. at Langhorne, on May 1, 1955. Like Bonneville, the speeds built into El Mirage and land speed record racing means monumentally dangerous crashes. A heavily overgrown wooded area has completely enveloped the infield and backstretch, while asphalt parking lots around the perimeter of the site cover up the rest. Apr 12, 2016 - The aftermath of Bobby Marvin's fatal crash at Langhorne, PA in 1963. The speedway hosted a wide variety of races over the years, including NASCAR events and the Indianapolis 500. Despite temperatures that reached 106 degrees, Bryan wasted no time getting back up to speed. Upon his discharge in 1957, Tilley began racing the Flathead Coupes at the three-eights-mile dirt Silver Spring Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, and in the early 1960s he moved up into the Supermodified "Bugs" that were all the rage. Billy Garrett, who had race, so it seemed, was gong to be a third straight win at Langhorne, for Jimmy 300 yards from that hole in the fence. It received this moniker due to the fact that a driver might be inclined to "puke" as a result of the extreme jostling his car would experience when hitting the deep ruts which formed in this section of the track as a race progressed. According to Riggs, nearly two dozen drivers were killed at the 'Horne, along with another dozen or so motorcycle riders, flaggers, and spectators. in row 3, Gene Hartley and Andy Linden in row 4, Johnny Thomson and Al Keller Watson-built Leader Card Special. a Champ car, ended up as the fastest qualifier with a time of 32,871. Its most recent casualty was in 1996. Then in 1951, Irv Fried and Al Gerber became promoters. According to the book Langhorne! Yanigan. "The whole place had deteriorated over the years -- the infield, the pits, everything.". to the speedway, for opening day May 1, 1955. Next to him, for the start was Bob Veith. In September 1949, Langhorne hosted the fourth race of NASCAR's first year of sanctioning unmodified cars, then called Strictly Stock; Curtis Turner won that race. car had gone through the fence, minus his helmet and most of his clothing. The No Man's Land by L. Spencer Riggs: "With all other courses up to that time being fairground horse tracks, Langhorne was the first [one-]mile dirt track built specifically for cars". It also marked the final IndyCar race to be held at the circuit. The facility features a 1/2-mile tri-oval as well as a 1/4-mile oval. A longtime local diner location could become a fast food joint. completed 97 laps. 6:00 on that Sunday evening. I was wearing thin leather gloves, and I had blisters out the wazoo. "During qualifying, he told me that there was a pole with a yellow light, and I should back off there no matter what," Andretti says. Another . All Rights Reserved. Unser led early, then was passed in mid-race by his younger brother, Al, driving a car owned by Parnelli Jones. Driver Don Thomas suffered leg injuries when his car careened into the infield. They talk about Darlington, but I think Langhorne was probably as tough as any track because of no banking and alland you had to really drive it. Andretti won IndyCar races at Langhorne in 1966 and 1967, leading both races from wire to wire. Charlotte Motor Speedway got off to an explosive start, hosting the NASCAR World 600 (now the Coca-Cola 600) in 1960, its opening year. The circuit hasn't hosted a national-level racing series since IndyCar in 2015. Veith led the first 16 laps, with Bryan leading laps 17 through 70. was taken by Walt Imlay. Bobby Grim raced directly underneath it. the last row. track that day, as the racing usually was at the horne. As Rutherford explains: "It was too fast in the rear-engine cars. Walters The swamp had devoured it. Rex White, 88 and the oldest living NASCAR Cup champion, ran three times at Langhorne in the 1950s with a top finish of fourth. The number of individuals -- drivers, officials and spectators killed at Langhorne officially totals 27. ", Another Langhorne devotee was three-time Indy winner Johnny Rutherford, who qualified on the pole in 1964 -- just ahead of Foyt -- in the last Champ Car race before the track was paved. A lot of racers believed -- mistakenly -- that Puke Hollow got its name because drivers felt sick when they roared through it. Catering chiefly to USAC's Championship Car Division, Fried and Gerber had the track's layout reconfigured to a D shape in 1965 by building a straightaway across the back stretch and paving over the uneven dirt surface with asphalt. Riverside did not cease to take lives, however. [2] Indy car ace Paul Russo, whose brother was killed at the track, told Riggs that Langhorne "gave me butterflies the size of B-29s." Langhorne Speedway, PA 5-14-1939 Henderson Crash - Betts #4-2 - 8mm Film Scan 2,898 views Sep 1, 2017 17 Dislike Share Save AACA Library & Research Center 1.47K subscribers Subscribe Silent Film.. Though asphalt makes up most of Indy today, the start-finish line remains a ribbon of red bricks three feet across. Spectator deaths have ceased at Charlotte since, but on-track incidents continued. barrel rolling along the low wooden fence. So how do we rank the most dangerous tracks in America? Background With a huge void created in the track's management, ownership of Langhorne Speedway was passed on to John Babcock and his family. The dust was worst in Puke Hollow, where the track broke up into a badly potholed washboard with slats the size of small waves. Well, Bryans If you could get in there at full speed and make it through, youve just created an act of God, Unser said. We may earn money from the links on this page. 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