From 1957, when he drove a Porsche Spyder, another Put-In-Bay competitor of note was Carl Haas, who came out of the Chicago region to become the U.S. importer of Lola racing cars, and in the 1980s, to form his multiple championship-winning CART team with Paul Newman.
The Henry family, of Bellevue, Ohio, is also prominent in Put-In-Bay history, with several members having actively raced there.
The most memorable was Chuck Henry, who raced from 1956 through ’58, with a best of second in the 1957 all-MG class. Henry died in a 1961 crash at Wisconsin’s Road America.
His grandson is Cap Henry, the 410 sprint car veteran who won 12 races last season.
Chuck Dietrich, another Put-In-Bay pioneer, drove all sorts of road-racing machinery, including an Arnolt-Bristol, before becoming the U.S. importer for Elva sports racers. According to Ford, Dietrich was once the all-time leading winner at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Chuck Stoddard was a longtime Porsche and Audi dealer in the Cleveland area, and he was the original U.S. importer for Siata. Early competitors at Put-In-Bay mainly hailed from the Midwest between Chicago and Cleveland, but other racers from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and West Virginia competed.
Races on the original circuit continued through 1959, sanctioned by the Northeast Ohio Region of the Sports Car Club of America. The pace lap would typically come to a stop on Delaware Avenue, in the middle of the village, so onlookers could salute the field.
Despite the very tight confines of the course, nobody was ever injured during any of the meets, despite nonexistent crowd control for the thousands of spectators who showed up annually. Accident consequences on the track were generally limited to wrinkled sheet metal.
Two things happened after 1959. First, Ohio legislators barred automotive competition on public highways. Since Ohio State Route 53 formed part of the Put-In-Bay circuit, using that portion of it became illegal. According to Ford, the growing crowds and number of participants made it increasingly challenging for organizers to obtain insurance coverage.
Racing at Put-In-Bay was briefly revived in 1963 by the Waterford Hills Road Racing Club, the SCCA’s Detroit region, on a shortened course that avoided the village downtown.
More than 100 cars signed in, but one of them, an Elva, albeit not driven by Dietrich, ran off the circuit and crashed violently into the front steps of a church when the driver apparently tried to avoid a dog.
Nobody was hurt, including any spectators, but after the Ohio State Highway Patrol became involved, the incident permanently ended around-the-island racing at Put-In-Bay. Regrettably, the entry list and results from this final running have been lost to history.
The Akron region of the SCCA was allowed to hold a few downtown autocross meets in Put-In-Bay after 1963. Sports car clubs, especially an Ohio-based MG group, held occasional reunions in the village, one of which honored Betty Henn. The attendees reminisced about the highly informal racing of the past, including the curve that avoided a cemetery and the fact that the driver of the crashed Elva in 1963 was found leaning calmly against a tree, smoking a cigarette.
In 2009, the chamber of commerce in Put-In-Bay and a cadre of enthusiasts, some of whom were at the original races, decided to hold a revival event as a vintage racing venue. Significantly, the new races didn’t use the original course, but instead took place at the Put-In-Bay Airport. Local police, however, provided visitors with guided tours along the route of the 1950s circuit.
That revival has become an annual event, hosting a plethora of vintage classes. Put-In-Bay remains a resort town with a boardwalk, hotels and sources of cuisine and libations. The 2020 running was parked by the pandemic, but this year’s edition of the Put-In-Bay Vintage Sports Car Races, as the revived event is known, is set for Sept. 21-24.
Besides providing a rollicking weekend, the races provide a bridge to the village’s competition past, something Ford agrees is likely unknown to most people who visit Put-In-Bay today.
“Chuck Stoddard himself said that back in the 1950s, there was no place for those guys to race,” Ford recalled. “You couldn’t run just anywhere and it was a long way to Watkins Glen. When Put-In-Bay was racing, there were no dedicated sports car tracks in Ohio. So Put-In-Bay stands, at least, as a proof of concept for the tracks that followed it.”