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| Racing Wheels was a Twin Cities based magazine that covered racing in the upper Midwest. I have a couple issues in my possession and the quality of photos and articles is up to the standards of today's publications. Near the back of the magazine was a full page ad touting a new speedway under contruction in Blaine, Minnesota, under the direction of promoter Don Voge. The new state-of-the-art facility would cost a whopping $100,000, 1950 dollars to build and feature Hot Rods, Stock Cars, Big Cars, Motorcycles, Stunts, Thrills and Spills galore. A little over a year after that ad appeared in Racing Wheels a young couple living in a basement house on land bordering the Lepinksi farm would have have a son who's life would be profoundly affected by the sport of dirt track racing.
Eventually the Hot Rod class died out and the modified pre war coupes like the Chicone's Duce #2 driven by Jerry Richert Sr. became the most popular type of weekly racing in our area. I was born in 1951 and by the time the late 50's rolled around my dad decided that I was old enough to be introduced to dirt track racing. If my dad attended races during the time leading up to my first race I cannot remember. I think the thing that got him back into it was when my uncle Lloyd started helping out with the race cars. By the time I was five we had moved from Oakdale to Hamline Avenue in St. Paul so my dad could be closer to the NP's Como Shops where he worked. The Minnesota State Fairgrounds was three blocks west of where we lived.
The first time I attended a race my dad took me out to Twin City to watch the Duce (not a typo, this was their unique spelling of Duece as proclaimed on the the back of the car). After attending Twin City most summer nights for a couple years I noticed that sometimes Jerry Richert and Scratch Daniels weren't there. I asked my dad where they were and he told me they were "off runing Big Cars somewhere with the IMCA". Their Sunday nights at Twin City would become less frequent in proportion to their increasing Sprint Car schedules. I eventually figured out that the Big Cars dad talked about were the ones that raced at the State Fair dirt track, a venue only three blocks from our house. Dad never cared much for Sprint Cars and after pressing him on it I found out it was because he had witnessed some fatalities in the Big Cars. He talked about seeing drivers getting impaled on the pointed wood stakes that used to serve as an inside guardrail at some of the old Fairgrounds horse tracks. I never convinced him to attend Sprint Car races but he liked the Supermodifieds because they used roll cages so that would be the direction my racing would take for a few more years. My only opportunity to see Sprints was to hang around the grandstand during the Fair and try catch a peek at the turnstiles or through any hole in the fence I could find. I would hang around the track and wait at the back gate for the open trailers to line up at the pay window where I could check them out.
Our racing attendance would suffer a huge setback in August of 1962 when my mother passed away from a brain tumor and stopped totally when my dad suffered a fatal heart attack in April of 1965. One of my fondest memories with my dad was him taking me to the 1963 Twin City Speedway banquet at the Prom Ballroom where the keynote speaker was Eddie Sachs. I still remember some of the lines Sachs used in his speech and instantly became a fan on this night. As you probably all know Sachs would perish in an Indy 500 inferno on May 30, 1964. I ended up living with my grandparents and was still able to get out to the races sometimes.
Dirt Track racing was very popular around the Twin Cities during the post WWII period. The Hot Rod class faded out and was replaced by the modified coupes which were in turn modified even further as the above photo shows. This #2 shown above is the same car that had the model A body on it in the previous photo so you can see how cars were "cut down" a little more each season. The first race of the year was always interesting because you never knew what kind of exotic home creations would be built over the winter. Cars continued to evolve until a few years later when they were basically full up Sprint Cars with a little sheet metal over the roll cage or some type of light weight body. Full up Sprint Cars did not have roll cages or wings but as the Supers evolved the lines separating them blurred even further. Eventually the two would meld into one class and become the predecessor to the winged Sprint Cars we see today. My cousin and uncle would leave the Chicone's car and Tom would start campaigning his own #87 car (the original one shown on the following two photos was a cut down former ice racer) with Jerry Lepinski as driver.
The Wilkes got out of racing after the 1976 season due to the increasing cost of fielding a competitive car. In the meantime this writer had gotten out of the Navy and was now a young married man working nights with a family to support. Even though my wife Debbie isn't a racing fan her family had a connection to the sport as well. Her father was a Roseville auto repair shop owner and friend of Jerry Richert Sr's car owner Frank Wagner who's business was next door. My wife's uncle was a Stock Car driver named Buzz McCann who drove the white #77 in the Minnesota State Fair photo. McCann was a very successful driver and former winner of the Labor Day Stock Car race on the dirt.
So that's my story about how I was introduced to dirt track racing. My life long record as a racing fan could be divided into several phases. The discovery phase where I was introduced to the sport as a little kid and was able to attend races weekly and hang around the garage. The teenage phase where I went through some personal tragedies that took me away from racing. I eventually was able to buy my first car and get out to the races much as possible before joining the Navy. Next was my working nights while raising a young family phase that lasted until around 1980. The kids eventually grew up and moved out so I crawled down from the stands and got into racing media work phase which I have enjoyed for the past fourteen years. And now I'm entering the over 60 back and legs ache, going to bed earlier, grandkids are demanding my attention, money's tight approaching retirement phase. Through all of the ups, downs and changes I'm still a fan. I can tell you from first hand experience that each season and each phase of our life as applies to racing is a little different. We might have highs and lows in our ability to attend as many shows or travel as much as we'd like but we continue to do it to the extent possible year after year, decade after decade. Racing and life in general have changed a lot since 1960 but one thing is a constant, they still go fast and they still turn left. I hope you learned something about our local racing history and that it helped you reflect on your personal experiences with racing. Putting the Florida notes off until the next blog post. I had planned on writing a little about racing in Florida in this post but I think we'll hold off until after Florida Speedweeks and the Daytona 500 when there will be plenty to write about. Is it April yet? * All photos used in this article are taken from the Stan Meissner collection or contributed by Jeff Caldwell and Brian Skedgel both of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The photos of the #69 Bill McDonald Offy and Chicone's Duce with the Model A body are from the Richert family collection. Racing Wheels scans and MSA program cover are from the Stan Meissner collection. |
Sunday, February 10, 2013
How did you get into racing? Here's my story...
My introduction to dirt track racing started taking shape prior to WWII when my dad Lester Meissner and uncle Lloyd Wilke, old east St. Paul pals and future brothers-in-law, would attend races at area tracks. After spending time in service of our country, Les in the Army in France and Lloyd on a Navy ship in the Pacific both would return to Minnesota to indulge their passion for racing, Les as a fan and Lloyd as a mechanic. Back in May of 1950 Les and Lloyd likely saw copies of the Minneapolis based publication "Racing Wheels" published by Fergus T. O'Connor. The May 1950 issue featured a photo of driver Russ Lee on it's cover. The magazine's cover proclaimed that it's coverage included Hot Rods (home build dirt cars of the 40's and 50's), Midget Racers, Stock Cars, Big Cars (Sprints) and Motorcycles. For decades Midgets and Big Cars on dirt were the craze and NASCAR was still a regional sport in the southeast running many of their early events on the dirt. In fact the magazine refers to the Stock Cars in 1950 as a new class that was starting to grow in popularity at area dirt tracks.
