Growing up in Richmond in the 50s-60s, our AAA baseball team played the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League. Maple Leaf Stadium was just a stones throw from the Canadian National Exposition.
Maple Leaf Stadium - Home of the AAA Toronto Maple Leafs
Map location of Mooers Field Speedway ghost track in Richmond, Virginia:
And, in 1943 they were staging boxing matches under the lights at Mooers Field.
In August 1942, the headline sports story in the Daytona newspaper had nothing to do with auto racing. Rather, it carried a Richmond dateline detailing a meeting between Eddie Mooers and Connie Mack conferring on the impending demise of minor league baseball due to World War II:
The Richmond Times-Dispatch (Va.) recently ran a 1946 photo from its archives showing Mooers Field baseball park in Richmond looking past the outfield to the ACCA rail yards.
The park and its team, the Richmond Colts , were owned by Richmond entrepreneur and automobile dealer, Eddie Mooers . Mooers and his brother owned a Packard dealership and later sold the first Volvos in Virginia. The Piedmont League Colts played in the park until 1952 when Class AAA International League ball came to Richmond when Baltimore's minor league franchise relocated to Richmond's Parker Field and became the Richmond Virginians.
Above - Owner Eddie Mooers at Richmond's Mooers Field in 1946 - Richmond Times-Dispatch photo
When Mooers lost his baseball spot in Richmond, he converted the facility at Norfolk Street and Roseneath Road beside the huge ACCA rail yard into a stock car racing track for several years, running on Saturday night. The track attracted the top Richmond weekly drivers, who were also racing at the new Royall Speedway (now Southside Speedway ) in Chesterfield County and at Richmond Speedway north of the city on U.S. 301 in addition to special events at the Atlantic Rural Exposition at Strawberry Hill - opened the same year - 1946 -as the photo above. Mooers Field also got drivers like NASCAR National Modified Champion, Johnny Roberts from Maryland.
Here's an Adolph Rice Studio photo from the Virginia Historical Society of Mooers Field in 1953 after being transformed from a baseball park to a stock car track. Eddie Mooers sold the land located just past the old Curles Neck Dairy in the mid-50s and the track was torn down. I can remember as a 4 year old boy in summer 1953 watching what my dad called the "jalopies" being towed up Roseneath Road past the Curles Neck dairy bar where we'd gone for Saturday night milkshakes. Looks like they were drawing a pretty good crowd.
I later went to the big Clyde Beatty and Cole Brothers Circus Combined Shows in the big tents erected on the vacant lot that once was Mooers Field.
The Early Career Of NASCAR National Champion Johnny Robert s Year By Year
1951
Westport Stadium, Baltimore, MD - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Nationally- 24th place NASCAR National Sportsman Standings
1952
Westport Stadium - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Maryland State - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Nationally - 22nd place NASCAR National Sportsman Standings
1953
Lanham Speedway, Lanham, MD - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Mason-Dixon Speedway, Sylmar, Pa - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Richmond Speedway, Richmond, VA - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Westport Stadium - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Wilmington Speedway, Wilmington, DE - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Delaware State - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Maryland State - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Virginia State - 4th place NASCAR Sportsman Division
Nationally - NASCAR National Sportsman Champion
1954
Georgetown Speedway - 10th place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Delmar Speedway, Delmar, DE - 5th place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Harrington Fairgrounds - 7th place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Wilmington Speedway - 4th place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Westport Stadium - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Dorsey Speedway, Dorsey, MD - NASCAR Sportsman Champion
Lanham Speedway - 3rd place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Mooers Field, Richmond, VA - 3rd place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Richmond Speedway - 2nd place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Joe Weatherly Speedway, Princess Anne, VA - 12th place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Delaware State - 3rd place NASCAR State Sportsman Standings
MarylandState - NASCAR State Sportsman Champion
Virginia State - 12th place NASCAR Sportsman Standings
Nationally - 2nd place NASCAR National Sportsman Standings
Many thanks to Danny Whitener for sharing a great collection of racing photos
http://stockcar.racersreunion.com/photo/albums/danny-whitener-collection
and to "Dangerous" Devin for posting the collection.
Those pictures bring back a lot of pleasant memories of days gone by.
Now, my old friend Billy Sawyer up at Virginia Motor Speedway is running the kind of schedule tonight I could handle... and it's on dirt! Wish I was closer.
Patsy, dear....
If you love seeing so many divisions you'll have to try Southern National one night. Tonight they have NINE feature races on tap in eight divisions... well, only seven divisions if you don't count the pedal car race. However, you'd have to sacrifice dirt for asphalt! At least they are advertising group qualifying. No mention of heat races, though. Sounds like an all day affair for the crews. Tech opened at 11:00 a.m. this morning for races tonight. Gosh, we used to work on Saturday morning and race on Saturday night. I am just an old fogey who time has passed by I guess.
Maybe we should hold a RacersReunion event at Bowman Gray and all stay at a local motel.
Great idea. Thanks, N.B.
