Chapter 25

I want you to know that my fanny was dragging when I had to get up and go teach school the next morning. Sunday had been a long day, if a successful one, and I thought that the track was off to a good start. It turned out that several teachers had showed up besides Craig, and they'd been fairly impressed by what they'd seen.

They weren't the only ones impressed. I had several kids in my auto shop classes who said they were looking for cars to take out there if they could manage to get a little help in getting started, and of course I said I'd do what I could to help. I knew of two or three old Junior Stock cars that might be available, and it wasn't a big deal to convert a more modern car to an Economy Stock. Back in the Junior Stock days of the early sixties I'd helped several kids get started that way, so again I offered some shop space and advice, as well as a few driving lessons.

The following Saturday morning was the opener for the kart racing. Now, I got into this because my kids liked running the things, but this was not just a kid thing. There were a lot of adults involved in the racing, mostly people who for one reason or another liked the racing but didn't feel like they could commit to a full-sized race car. In years past, we'd typically had forty or fifty drivers of all ages show up for one of our Saturday parking lot bashes. I figured there would be those who didn't want to drive on dirt, so that would cut back the attendance somewhat.

I really wasn't terribly concerned about it. This was different; I wasn't promoting the races or organizing them myself – the karting association was doing it. The only money the track made off of it was concessions, and a payment based on head count. Vern and Ray were part of that head count. I hadn't gotten involved in the organizing of the club, so all I really had to do was to make sure everything on the track side was running smoothly, and ride herd on the boys.

I think I was about as surprised as anyone else to see seventy-seven karts out there on Saturday, which was about twice what anyone in the organization had expected. I'm still not sure why we got such a good turnout, but I wasn't complaining. Dealing with that many kart racers was a hassle, but I'd been there the previous weekend and now had some idea on how to handle it.

While we'd graded out a short course for the karts, it wasn't as well packed as the main racing surface. The boys and I had made some test runs out there with their karts earlier in the week, and after several laps I was pretty well convinced that it would be just as well to use the main track. That was a big surface for the karts to run on, so there wasn't going to be much issue of someone getting in the most favored line and parking in it.

We had some terrific racing there that day. I got to talk to a lot of people with my track owner hat on, and it turned out that while most people would rather race on pavement, having a place to race at all was just fine, and a place with corners that wide made it a lot of fun. I promised everyone that there would be some kind of paved track along eventually, but right now just getting the place on its own two feet was my main priority.

As I expected, the car count fell off the next day to about half what we'd had for the opening weekend. That was just fine; even with some changes that came out of our little critique session over beer after the race, that was plenty – and about twice what I would have considered a good turnout before the opening weekend. Let's just say that I didn't think I had much room to complain.

The reduced car count, a couple more hands in keeping things organized, and a little practice made things go a lot more smoothly. When you got right down to it, this was more what I'd envisioned – a small enough group that I could get to know everybody, everything casual enough that there was no reason for people to get too upset, time enough to work with people who needed help, friendly racing among friends.

For instance, in one of the heats that weekend there was a guy who had a tire pop off its bead from leaning on it too hard in a corner. Nobody was hurt, but we had to throw the yellow so he could get off the track. He limped into the pits with it. Of course, several people had seen what had happened, and when he pulled up in his pit stall people came running – not a pit crew or anything, just other racers and friends. They had that car jacked up so quick that he didn't even have time to get out of the kart, a spare tire and rim from someone else's car got put on in only seconds using only a speed wrench, and in less than a slow pace lap he was on his way again, scarcely able to believe it. Since we never counted laps under yellow, he was able to pick up his place in the field. He didn't go on to win – there weren't enough laps left – but he finished the race. That counted for a lot, in my book – seeing people pitch in when one of their competitors had trouble. There were a lot of places in those days where you wouldn't have seen that, but here it came off without comment. I think everyone realized that it could be them in trouble next time.

What really blew me away was the next weekend. That Sunday happened to be Indianapolis 500 day. While Bradford wasn't Indiana, the state line is not far away, and I figured we'd be lucky to get ten cars out – but no, we had nearly sixty! To get that kind of crowd up against the 500 was just about unheard of, and it made me glad I hadn't given in to the temptation to just cancel things for that weekend. Frank had a little radio up in the announcer's booth, and between races he set the microphone for the PA system down in front of the radio, and only broke in during commercials and when we had a race on our own track. It turned out to be a pretty good afternoon. In the A-Main, Delmer Purdy managed to get his revenge for the opening week, getting his Modified around Howie Eastlund's Late Model in the final turn to win. When you got right down to it, that was more interesting than what was going on down at the Brickyard.

The car count for the Economy Stock class was up from the previous weekend, too. Three of my auto shop kids were making their first start, two of them in cars than had been Junior Stocks in the old days. The third, much to everyone's surprise, was an old, clapped out flathead Rambler American that the kid picked up for the grand sum of fifteen dollars. The car wasn't much and he didn't have much to put into it, but he managed to beat out the two other first timers in the class for some severe bragging rights. The kid's name was Baxter Fenway, and if you go back into the record books you'll find that he made several Winston Cup starts in later years, and even won a couple races. He wasn't the only kid who had first come up at Bradford Speedway to go on to greater things, but he was the first.

After that weekend things settled down a little – at least we all were getting to know what to expect and we were getting used to it. My summer was just about as busy as ever, what with all the driver education kids, and then with spending time with beginning racers out at the shop or down at the track. We did take one rainout, the third weekend in June, but it was nice to have the break. It seemed like Bradford Speedway was on its way back to being a success.

Then, the week after the Fourth of July the last thing I ever would have expected, happened.

We were just getting ready to sit down to dinner on one of the rare summer evenings that I didn't have to ride with Driver Education kids, and as far as I knew there weren't going to be any kids coming by to work on cars. As hectic as everything had been all spring and summer that was a rare treat. Arlene and I didn't have anything in particular planned, except to do as little as possible and enjoy it. I was in the living room, leafing through the National Speed Sport News when there was a knock on the front door.

"Now, who could that be?" I wondered aloud. The way the house was set up, and being in the country, the back door was the one we mainly used. Only a stranger, and one from the city at that, would be knocking on the front door. I went to the door, to see two guys in suits standing there. "Hi," I said. "Can I help you?"

"You're Melvin Austin, right?" one of the men said. I said I was, and he said, "You're a little hard to catch up with. I'm Mike Goodell of General Hardware Retailers Development Division, and this is my associate, Randall Cockburn. May we come in?"

"Sure," I said, wondering what this was all about. "We're just getting set to have dinner."

"Well, this probably won't take long," he said as he came in, followed by Cockburn. "I understand you own the Bradford Speedway."

"Yes," I told him. "My wife Arlene and I do."

"If she's not too busy, maybe she'd like to sit in on this," Goodell suggested.

I called Arlene, who turned down the heat on whatever she was cooking and came to join us. There were introductions around, and finally I said, "Now, what's this all about?"

"Like I said," Goodell explained. "We're from General Hardware Retailers Development Division, and we'd like to buy your speedway."

"It'll tell you the truth," I told them. "Right off the top of my head, I'm not all that anxious to sell. Over the last few months we've put a lot of money and sweat into that place, and had the good will and the help of a lot of people who haven't asked for much in return but a place to go racing. I'd feel awful crappy to sell the place out from under them."

"We could see that someone has put in an awful of work down there," Goodell said. "You've done a really fine job of it. It looks much better than it did when we were here a year ago. We understand that you've put a lot into it. But, let me tell you where we're coming from. We've been looking at Bradford as the ideal location for a regional distribution center. This is really going to just be a big warehouse, where full truck loads and even train cars of merchandise can be broken down and distributed by truck to our various stores. We've been looking at several locations, and have taken out purchase options on land in two locations, here and one other place. We'd originally decided to go to the other place, but we ran into some difficulties we hadn't anticipated. So, now we're looking at building the distribution center here instead. We're probably talking three hundred to five hundred jobs in two years, with the likelihood of expansion."