MTFCA Forum

Indiana is stopping auto racing on the one mile dirt tract that the Hoosier 100 runs on. Auto racing goes back to 1906 on this track. They are going to make it a horse racing track, going back to the 1890's. It looks Rob won't get to run that Ford Special racer or his Model K on that historic dirt track. It is so sad to loose this track !
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2019/04/0 ... -mile-oval

Okay............I can almost guarantee you that the snobbish "horsey crowd" prevailed on this in order to draw a "high brow" clientele. I can find no other logic that would crush the 100 year old history of motor sports. It sounds like a lot of decisions made by an uncaring board who are ignoring the will of the majority of the people.

How else can you justify such a decision? Were there any accidents? Is there a criminal element involved? No? They got some real 'splainin' to do Lucy.....

The grass was dying and they are too cheap to purchase fertilizer.
Next they will complain that the grass is too high and turn it into a sheep farm.

There is a petition drive to keep auto racing at the track. You can find it by following Kevin's link. I doubt that signatures from outside Indiana will have any value to the governor.

Hamline Track, at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds was a similar, mile long dirt flat oval for horse racing. (It's where Dan Patch set his record in 1905.)

My father's 1900 Waverley Electric was among the first automobiles on Hamline Track in September, 1900 at the Minnesota State Fair (although it was a parade, not a race). The presence of automobiles on the track in 1900 supposedly created such a ruckus amongst the harness racers that, subsequently, automobile racing during the state fair was not allowed until 1907 (although automobiles did race at the track earlier than 1907, but not during the state fair).

Due to the historic connection, we displayed my father's Waverley at the 2016 Minnesota State Fair which included an original photo and documentation of the September 1900 event.

In the early years of the track, all the greats raced there such as Barney Oldfield and Ralph DePalma, etc.

The one mile dirt oval was eventually replaced with a 1/2 mile banked dirt oval for car racing. The 1/2 mile oval was paved in 1964 and the last stock car race was in 2002. The track has since been removed but the grandstand remains.

Kevin, I hope the petition is successful. I believe there are one or two one mile dirt tracks still in Illinois, and one or two elsewhere? It amazes me to think of the 24 hour races and 5, 10, 25 and 50 miles races that were ran on flat, dirt tracks. I really would like to see what it would be like to try to get up to speed on quarter mile straights and corners on the flat dirt. Drivers in the day were heroic daredevils...