Dubuque Sports Bowl

Yes I do

I grew up in the Eagle Point area where the track was located. It was on "City Island" and operated until around 1969, after which it moved to it's current location at the Dubuque County Fairgrounds.

My Uncle (Karl Fink) raced there against the likes of Skip Kennedy, Bob Neseby, Glenn Chapman...to name a few.

As a child, (on the fewnights my family didn't actually attend the races)my friends and I would climb the hill behind our homes and sit on the bluff and watch the races.

It was a very big part of my life as long as I can remember.Iremember hanging on to the back of the damn water truck while a couple of nuts towed it around the track so we could water it when the water truck died...it was the ride of my life, but I'd do it again if i had the chance!I miss the Sunday morning trash pick up, I miss the fish flies, but I don't miss dumping the lime in the outhouses:)

From my previous post that should read "Bob Nesteby" and "Gene Chapman"

In 1966 I went to my first auto race at age 6 at the Sportsbowl and have been a nut about motorsports ever since. My Grandpa Chuck Egelhof raced there for quite a few years in the '50s and later helped organize the drivers and some of the events as well as writing a racing column in one of the papers. My dad Bob Casper did some spectator drags at the Sportsbowl and later raced stock cars at the Dubuque Speedway in the '70s.

Family legend has it that my Grandpa raced under the name of Digger O'Dell (the undertaker from the popular Life of Riley radio show) for an entire season while my Grandmother was pregnant with my aunt after he promised to lay off the racing during that time. She still went to the weekly races as she was a big fan and Chuck went down in the pits each night as far as she knew to "help officiate" even though he was actually driving!

At one time in the '70s my Grandpa showed me what remained of the track and I could still see a straightaway and a turn in the woods. I have since found the exact site of the track with the help of old aerial photos I found on the internet. The site of the Sportsbowl is now directly south of the Dubuque Water Ski Club grounds in the woods right along the river (just west of the Dog Track property and hotel and parking lot). We couldn't find any indications of where the track was or any of the old lumber walls, buildings, etc. The woods get flooded every year and I think everything got flattened and buried. From the looks of the aerial photo of the track it was extremely close to the water and I imagine it got flooded during bad flood years even back then.

Many photos exist showing the cars and drivers posing in the pits from those days, but I wish I could see some photos showing more of the track with the grandstands, etc. Does anyone have any?

Here is my Grandpa and the car he had a lot of success with, the #1 Energy car out of Monticello. Pic was probably taken at some other area track, but I guess it could be the Sportsbowl as I don't know what the background looked like around there.

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Cool picture...and comments! Thanks