11/7/2017
Bloomington Speedway
RIDING THE RIM
RIDING THE RIM
Bloomington Speedway
November 7, 2017
As the autumn leaves mark the transition from the racing season, it becomes easy to revisit memories of summer evenings past. I received the following contribution for our Riding The Rim column and had to get it posted as soon as I could. A little digging and I even found a photo I took on August 24, 2001. I am sure you will enjoy this reminiscence.
My Favorite Bloomington Speedway Memory
I would love to say that my favorite memory of what I lovingly call the red clay oval was my first visit. My dad always said that I was one month old when my parents and I went to Bloomington. Dad told stories of a car ending up in a lake in the infield and said that it was a cold day.
My favorite memory came along about 49 years and 11 months later. My birthday fell on a Friday and for me it was business as usual. I recall standing near the concession stand, watching hot laps. At some point, my good friend Dave Foist and I began talking. There was nothing unusual about that; Dave and I have had hundreds of such meetings before and since. But Dave mumbled something about going up the hill to meet some people. That seemed a bit odd, but I told Dave to have fun. When he asked me to tag along, I was more confused than suspicious. But I dutifully followed Dave up the hill to the picnic area.
As I neared the top of the hill, I knew that I’d been fooled—and surprised. It was a surprise birthday party for me at age 50. Assorted family and friends had assembled for the occasion, organized by my wife with crucial assistance from Dave Foist and Bloomington’s marketing guru, Chuck Welsh.
The turnout astounded me, a collection of family and friends all having a chuckle at my expense, as well as some birthday cake. There was a lot of laughing, storytelling and the cake steadily became smaller. It was tough to try and keep up with what was happening on the track with so many people making a fuss over a 50 year old geezer.
I don’t recall all the details, but I do remember that Dickie Gaines won the feature that night and I found myself at the start/finish line after the race. It may have been a HARF Night, which meant the feature winner received a neat t-shirt, as well as a year’s free membership. It was my first time to talk with Dickie, but, thankfully, far from the last.
To make the spotlight even brighter, public address announcer Kimb Stewart read a letter from John Levan, the editor of www.openwheelracing.com, the website that I wrote for in those days. The brighter the light shone on me, the more I squirmed. But it was a special night all the same.
In the past 15 years since that special night, a lot has happened. We lost Chuck Welsh a little over a year ago. Chuck’s smile alone made everyone at Bloomington feel at home. It’s been almost nine years since John Levan passed away. John was instrumental in encouraging me to write about racing beginning just before 2000. One of those who celebrated with me, Ron Harris, lost his life about five years later in a motorcycle accident. Ron was only days from taking an anticipated early retirement.
Good things have happened as well. Dickie Gaines still races on occasion and lets folks know that he’s still around. I’ve made dozens if not hundreds of new friends since then, one of them another writing mentor, Mike O’Leary. The red clay oval carries on, now with who else but Mike O’Leary as general manager. Dave Foist remains a friend and serious race fan, overcoming illness to spend most of his Friday nights at Bloomington, eating some ice cream and enjoying himself.
Over the years, I have a few memories of the early 1960s. Bob Kinser, Cecil Beavers and a guy I knew personally, Mac Vails all are etched in my memory bank. There was a night when a stock car went over the turn one banks and the driver sailed out of the car, landing near where the fence that separates the track from the parking lot. He survived. I remember one night when my dad tried a different route home. Whatever happened, we were lost somewhere in eastern Monroe County, long before the area was taken over by urban sprawl. This would have been in 1963.
After a few years away, I returned to see the red clay again on a regular basis in the mid-90s. These were the years of Derek Scheffel and his four Bloomington Speedway championships. There were the frequent battles between two of the best, Kevin Briscoe and Kevin Thomas (the original). It wasn’t too many years ago when Dickie Gaines was involved in an accident that left him and his car stuck against the front straight fence like a fly stuck in a spider’s web. There were battles between the Briscoe and a young Bryan Clauson that stand out, including the night BC flipped across the finish line.
More recently, many of my memories have involved my youngest grandson at the track. With little or no persuasion, he has served as pace truck driver Doug Vandeventer. He’s not above helping scrape mud off the sprints after hot laps. He loves the playground at the top of the hill. And he enjoys the show car behind the announcers’ booth.
It’s a waste of time to speculate much on how many more years I’ll be haunting what comes closest to serving as my home track. What matters is that the gracefully aging red clay oval will still be there when I’m gone, entertaining a whole new generation of race fans. Let us hope that is the case.
Danny Burton
Submitted By: Mike O'Leary
