Editor’s Note: In a nod to our 91 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 20, 40 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.
20 Years Ago — 2006
News: North Willkesboro Speedway could reopen with an ISMA supermodifed race May 12 under an ambitious — yet unfunded — plan put forth by STS Motorsports, Inc., representatives that met with fans and racers at last weekend’s Motorsports show.
In a booth displaying Mike Roselli’s Silver Crown car, STS founder and President Rob Marsden, along with Operations Director Jerry Sink and other principals, distributed copies of a 2006 racing schedule that includes modifieds, late models and WKA karts — as well as USAC, ARCA and NASCAR touring series.
According to Sink, already in place are financial, business, renovation and operations plans. Negotiations to buy the track, which has been dormant since 1996, from co-owners Bruton Smith and Bob Bahre are ongoing. Sink would not discuss details of those negotiations, but said that Smith and Bahre are receptive to the STS initiative.
An article last month in the Winston-Salem Journal reported that Smith has quoted a $12-million asking price, while Wilkes County has the track property assessed at $4.83 million.
Previously, STS approached the county about having the county purchase the track and STS leasing it, but county commissioners were unwilling to commit to such a plan.
On the eve of the Fort Washington exhibit, STS issued a press release stating that it now has a commitment from an investor for $1 million toward acquiring the track, arid that STS is now searching for additional investors.
Sink did allow that, as comprehensive as his group’s plans are, everything is contingent on the ability of STS Motorsports to purchase the track, and that purchasing the track is contingent on its ability to secure funding.
While the STS Motorsports Web site – savethespeedway.net – displays ISMA, USCS and ASA events for 2006, only the ISMA site shows a North Wilkesboro race. Similarly, a June 21 USAC midget and sprint-car doubleheader shown on the schedule distributed is not yet reflected on USAC’s site.
However, Sink said that they have letters of intent or verbal commitments from each organization.
Winners: One thing is for certain. Tim McCreadie will never have to buy another ride the rest of his life.
The second-generation modified and late model racer paid for a ride to compete in the 20th annual Chili Bowl Midget Nationals and brought his Steve Smith Racing No. 1a home a winner to produce one of the most stunning and most popular victories in the history of the indoor classic at the Tulsa Expo Raceway.
McCreadie, whose only previous midget race came last year — in a ride he also had to pay for — found the bottom groove around the quarter-mile oval to his liking and marched from 10th starting place to battle for the lead.
After a lengthy battle with Jay Drake, Cory Kruseman and Sammy Swindell at the front, McCreadie eased away during the closing laps of the 50-lap event as the capacity crowd roared its approval.
While the son of legendary “Barefoot” Bob McCreadie has a resume full of modified and late model victories, including eight triumphs on the World of Outlaws Late Model Series circuit last season alone, he still isn’t well known in the open-wheel world.
Thus, for the second consecutive season, he had to pay to drive at the Chili Bowl.
”Maybe I won’t have to put up any money to come down here anymore. I didn’t have to pay what I paid last year and it still goes against what I believe in doing,” McCreadie said. “I’m
called a hypocrite back home because l believe you get places on talent and a great race team, not how much you bring to the table on financial backing.
“Unfortunately, it is hard to get in a top-notch ride here without bringing financial backing. Greg Wilke put me together with Steve Smith and I have to thank them for taking a chance on me. I never thought that I’d be here. I thought a top five or a top 10 would be good, but it all fell our way.”
McCreadie acknowledged he ”paid a lot less” for his drive in Smith’s midget than he did for
his initial Chili Bowl ride last season when he finished ninth in his rookie run for veteran midget driver and team-owner Donnie Lehmann. ·
”I have a lot of people that had faith in me and I thank everybody for it,” McCreadie said.
“This is by far and away the biggest race I’ve ever won. I’m really happy.”
40 Years Ago — 1986
News: Ronald Reagan, the nation’s 40th president, apparently hasn’t forgotten his days as an auto race announcer.
Over the weekend it was learned Reagan recently granted a Presidential Pardon to former driver and champion car owner Junior Johnson for a 1956 moonshining conviction and extended an invitation to members of the racing Unser family to a private visit at the White House next Thursday.
As a sportscaster on Radio WHO in Des Moines during the mid-1930s, Reagan handled the microphone at the Iowa State Fair races in the days IMCA stars Gus Schrader and Emory Collins threw dirt high and wide at the Hawkeye half-mile track. It was from Des Moines that Reagan left sportcasting for an acting career.
The 54-year-old Johnson, a lifelong resident of Wilkes County, N.C., in the Brushy Mountains, was convicted of manufacturing non-tax-paid whiskey after being captured at his father’s still in 1956.
He served 11 months, until October 1957, in the Federal penitentiary in Chillicothe, Ohio. The pardon, granted by Reagan, Dec. 26, is full and unconditional, retroactive to completion of the sentence. It does not erase or expunge the record of conviction and does not indicate innocence, but generally restores basic civil rights, which are lost upon conviction on a felony charge.
“There’s no way I could have received a better Christmas present,” Johnson said after learning of the pardon.
After getting out of prison, Johnson began rating with NASCAR and won 50 of 310 starts before retiring in 1966.
He then became a team owner and, since 1967, his cars have won 119 races, over $9 million and five Winston Cup championships-three by Cale Yarborough and two by Darrell Waltrip.
Winners: LeRoy Porter got a ride in one of the Keene Brothers Trucking team cars Saturday night at New Smyrna Speedway.
Showing that he still knows how to win, Porter turned fast time, won the fast heat, and went on to notch a victory in the 25-lap feature.
Finishing a strong second was team owner Daniel Keene, who was testing a Dennis Boyd-built· V-6 engine for the upcoming World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing, scheduled for Feb. 7-15, here at New Smyrna.
Third to fifth were Lee Faulk, Joe Middleton in the Pinky’s Country Showplace machine and Mike Goldberg.
60 Years Ago— 1966
News: Thomas Binford has been named president of the Automobile Competitions Committee of the United States, the U.S. representative of the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, world auto sports governing body.
Binford, who has been president of the U.S. Auto Club for the past eight years, headed a slate of officers elected at the quarterly meeting of ACCUS in New York.
Charles Moran, past president, was elected Founder President, William H.G. France, president of NASCAR, was elected senior vice president, while the SCCA’s Ray Altman and the NHRA’s Wally Parks were named vice-presidents.
Winners: Chuck Rodee, driving the Ridenour Offy, romped to victory here Sunday in the opening USAC midget of 1966. Rodee, a former indoor Champion of the Allen County Coliseum, jumped into the lead of the 100- lap main event on the third lap and was never headed.
Rodee started the event on the tenth-mile cement track in fourth place and vaulted by Teddy Dean on lap three. Ray Elliott after starting second, challenged the veteran midget driver for first until lap 48 When he spun his Cooper Falcon in the first turn.
Dean, the pole driver, was out on lap 12 when he hit the second corner wall. Bobby Grim, the sentimental favorite driving a car owned by Coxie Bowman, set the fastest time and was fifth by lap 25.
On lap 44, Grim moved by Bettenhausen to take third and then with Elliott’s misfortune on lap 48, Grim was second.
Grim challenged his Indianapolis neighbor several times during the last hal of the event but Rodee’s car was handling beautifully and he finished the event a quarter lap ahead of Grim.
Eight of the 10 starting cars were running at the finish.
Third was Henry Pens, with Jimmy Davies fourth.
