Thanks, Dennis. What a sad site to see an unused racetrack.
Thanks, so much Roy for the personal memories of Fredericksburg Speedway and riding in the cars with your dad and Goofy Proffitt. Perhaps YOU are in the photo in the article riding with Goofy. I'm not a Facebook member, but if one of our Facebook members could copy and post some of those car photos, particularly the 3 ACES car, I'd be very grateful.
A 1959 edition of the Fredericksburg paper noted that six Fredericksburg folks were up for awards at the MARF banquet in Arlington, Virginia - to be emceed by announcer Ray Melton, with Joe Weatherly and Bob Welborn to be in attendance. Pete DePaolo was to be the guest speaker and the article mentions that Melton, Weatherly and Welborn had just completed "roles" in the soon to be released Thunder in Carolina movie.
MARF was the Metropolitan Auto Racing Fans Club of the Washington, DC area, a highly respected group with many members.
One of the potential folks up for an award was the Fredericksburg Speedway's Goofy Proffitt - a driver with a wonderful nickname who can be seen in the original article above with a race car full of children. Proffitt was a winner at Fredericksburg, but he must have had a temper to go along with his "goofy" disposition. A 1955 article notes that Goofy Proffitt was suspended for two weeks at Fredericksburg after starting a fight in the pits. The promoter said Proffitt had been warned for three consecutive weeks about starting fights!
The Frank Southworth in the new article above prepared the famous "3 ACES" car driven by Al Grinnan to many Fredericksburg wins. If anyone has or can find a photo of the 3 Aces car, I'd sure like to see it.
Got this response back this morning from member Jack Carter regarding whether he knew if the cars his dad owned - the #37va DeSotos - had raced at Fredericksburg Speedway:
Dave I don't remember hearing them talk about running at Fredericksburg Speedway. But they could have because they traveled a lot back in the day running at many tracks. My brother and I were just kids back then and didn't get to go to all of the tracks that were miles away. We had so much fun back then even going and com
ing, I guess that I will never forget those times at the races. Dave here are 14 tracks that I remember listed below the car ran on.
Brunswick Speedway Lawrenceville, VA
Dinwiddie Speedway Petersburg, VA
The Dog Track Moyock, NC
Wilson County Speedway, Wilson, NC
Edgecombe Speedway, Tarboro, NC
Strawberry Hill, Richmond, VA
Langley Speedway (Dude Ranch) Hampton, VA
Georgetown, DE
Myrtle Beach Speedway Myrtle Beach, SC
South Boston Speedway South Boston, VA
Sportsman Speedway Elizabeth City, NC
Occoneehee Orange Speedway Hillsbough, NC
Chinese Corner Speedway Norfolk, VA
Peanut City Speedway Suffolk, VA
Sent a note to our RR member JAck Approved Redd to see if he ever got over to the Fredericksburg track. Also wondering now if member Jack Carter's dad ever ran those beautiful #37 DeSoto powered cars he owned between 1955-1963 driven by Butch Torrie at Fredericksburg.
1963 photo of DeSoto powered #37 owned by Jack Carter's dad, driven by Butch Torrie out of Hampton, Va.
While researching information on one of the drivers in my posting titled "Racers Helping Racers Nothing New" - I came across a wonderful November 1999 story in the Fredericksburg, Virginia Free Lance Star by Larry Evans titled Pushing the Pedal to the Metal . It is the story of Fredericksburg Speedway , from its opening in 1953 until its closing in 1963.
It is a great piece with terrific photos, including one of Joe Weatherly winning the inaugural 1953 race in the famed #9 "Rhodes Special" Modified.
I've tried to get clips to post, but I'm afraid I've not done a very good job.
Here's the link below to the entire archived story with photos :
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=u-wyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=mAgGAAAAIBAJ&pg=2384,1329927&dq=jimmy+dillard+auto+racing&hl=en
Please forgive the way I've chopped this up and not used a number of the photos:
We've often related here the story of rival teams coming together to patch up the L.G. DeWitt ride of Benny Parsons after a crash at Rockingham in the final NASCAR Winston Cup race in 1973, assuring the two of the Winston Cup points championship.
Racers have a long history of helping each other.
The story below ran in June 1957 up in member, Wally Bell's neck of the woods in the Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance Star .
A lot of folks aren't familiar with the old Fredericksburg track, but look at just a few names in that 1957 field:
* JOHNNY ROBERTS - Would go on to win NASCAR's National Championship in the Modified Division in 1960 and 1961, before being killed at Lincoln Speedway in 1965.
Johnny Roberts in a Baltimore Sun file photo.
* RAY HENDRICK - Would gain the nickname "Mr. Modified" and be named to multiple auto racing and sports halls of fame, winning an estimated 750 NASCAR sanctioned races.
* AL GRINNAN - In 1968, he'd be voted NASCAR's "Most Popular Driver" in the Modified Division and later NASCAR's Virginia Late Model Sportsman Champion. 20 years after this 1957 story, Grinnan was still racing for fun and winning at North Carolina's "Gem of the East" - the Wilson County Speedway dirt half-mile.
* ELMO LANGLEY - Would graduate to NASCAR's top series as a driver and car owner and later be named by NASCAR to drive the pace car for Winston Cup events. He suffered a fatal heart attack at the wheel of the NASCAR pace car during an exhibition race in Japan.
* LIONEL JOHNSON - Would try his hand in 13 Grand National races between 1965-1966.
* CLAY EASTRIDGE - In addition to fielding the Grand National rides for Lionel Johnson, Eastridge in a one race deal furnished a 1964 Ford for Danville, Virginia's Wendell Scott to run in Darlington's 1965 Southern 500. The car was running after 500 miles and Scott brought it home in 10th place!
In Fredericksburg, 56 years ago, racers were helping racers and what drivers that almost forgotten track was drawing. Wish I could turn back the clock and take a peek at those boys kicking up a little dust down the road from where Gen. Stonewall Jackson was killed and where Gen. Robert E. Lee kept superior Yankee forces lost in "The Wilderness."
Got the additional note below from Frank about the events in the photos:
A couple of things I forgot to mention:
In the roll-over shot, the guy waving the red flag in the foreground
was also the track announcer, courtesy of a wireless headset, and he
was good. I think the crowd shot also showed the tent in the
foreground, which was the scoring stand - these guys actually had
transponders for all the cars, so a couple of laptops replaced that
small stand full of dedicated scorers (like us) from the old days.
There were three roll-overs Saturday, and one of them did in fact
restart and continue racing. One restarted but then drove back into
the pits, and the guy in my photo couldn't get his car to start again,
although he might have come back to race later.
What you can't see, at least not without looking really, really
carefully, is that these cars were "passenger-optional." Somewhere
between a third and half of them had a passenger seat. I saw one with
passenger roll at Littlestown last year - that was the car driven by a
young lady just turning 16; the car had a special birthday paint job
and sported mylar balloons as part of its aero package (maybe they
made it lighter).
It's gonna be weird getting back to "normal" racing.
You have often seen me mention on these pages my good friend and former Richmond schoolmate, Frank Buhrman. Frank is the one you should blame for tutoring me and teaching me most of what I know about auto racing, beginning in 1964.
For many years now, Frank has resided near Gettysburg in the small locality of Carroll Valley, Pennsylvania - within easy driving distance of some of the east coast's most famed and revered dirt race tracks... i.e. Williams Grove, Hagerstown, the late Silver Spring among many.
As he noted in the e-mail below to me, he took in a different kind of show this past Saturday in Arcadia, Maryland... about an hour's drive southeast of his Pennsylvania residence.
This involves dirt and vehicles, so it seems a perfect fit here.
Some folks went to Bristol last Saturday and some to the demo races at Arcadia. I bet I know which group had the most fun.
Following is Frank's note to me and some photos he snapped with his phone. Enjoy.
Attached are some shots I took with the phone last Saturday at the
Arcadia (Md.) Volunteer Fire Company Carnival Grounds and Demo Derby
Track, where around 30-35 junk vehicles in three different classes ran
what are referred to by this promoter as "demo races." The track,
essentially the demo pit with a small extra section punched out on one
corner to add a "hair-pin turn," is probably about 1/10 mile, with
dirt mounds on each corner to keep guys from cutting - although as one
photo shows, they will try to climb them. I really had fun and for $12
would go again, although I wish it wasn't an hour away. Last year a
rival promoter had these races in Littlestown, Pa. (calling them "full
contact races"), a lot closer to us, but apparently they couldn't come
to terms with that fire company to return. I don't think the next
Jimmy Johnson will get his start here, but it's decent entertainment.
CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE
