Brady Bacon, who promotes a Silver Crown round at the iconic Indiana track, also raced there as a teenager. He not only won but met his future wife in victory lane.
“Winchester was by far the most intimidating track for me in my career,” he acknowledged. “It has a legendary history and status. Those were both factors on top of me being a teenager and not having a lot of pavement experience. We did a test there before my first race, but it was very daunting. I eventually learned that if your car is good, it is much easier.
“There is a speed threshold there,” Bacon added. “Once you break that barrier, the more you’re planted into the banking and the more grip you have. I was fortunate enough to win there and haven’t raced at Winchester since. I tell people I wanted to go out on top, and I can’t afford another wife.”
Racers are asked to do their job like everyone else, and like people in other occupations they also take on tasks they would rather dodge. Greg Leffler was the 1979 USAC sprint car champion and he had a chance to race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and on the national championship trail. He knew exactly what he was doing and why.
“My thought process was that if I was going to get to Indy, I had to prove myself at all the paved tracks, especially the high banks,” he said.
Tony Stewart followed Leffler’s path and parlayed short-track success into an opportunity to race on some of the country’s biggest stages. At the end of the 1995 season, he was on his way to Winchester with USAC media director Dick Jordan. Stewart was wrapping up his glorious Triple Crown season and had already clinched the USAC sprint car title. As he neared his destination, Stewart noted that the high-banked track scared him a bit. Jordan listened to his friend’s words and said, “Then don’t race Tony, it is a dangerous track.”
Without missing a beat, Stewart responded, “All race tracks are dangerous.”
To that point comes the recollection of seven-time USAC national champion Levi Jones. His response to the question at hand goes right to Stewart’s point.
“Most intimidating track?” Jones asked. “It was a go-kart track my dad and his buddies built and raced on in the early 2000s. They were roughnecks, welders and farmers. Tough guys who didn’t hydrate with water on those Sunday afternoons. Bragging rights came at all costs — stitches and broken bones. How did I deal with it?
“I stopped going, but I remembered that every time I raced professionally,” Jones noted. “I knew I needed to go all out because those guys would have given anything to turn one lap in my shoes, so I just learned to breathe at Winchester, Salem and Terre Haute.”
This story appeared in the August 9, 2023 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
