Book captures New England’s racing history
It may not be the definitive photo of the history of motor racing in New England, but it’s mighty close to it.
On Sept. 25, Pete Hamilton, Ron Bouchard, Ricky Craven, and Joey Logano lined up, shovels in hand, as ground was broken for the North East Motor Sports Museum in Loudon, N.H.
Long-time racing fans will know the four as the only New Englanders to win at NASCAR’s highest level—spanning the Winston Cup, Nextel Cup, and Sprint Cup eras.
Hamilton gave New Englanders a reason to follow NASCAR’s national races by winning the 1970 Daytona 500. Bouchard captured Talladega in 1981. Craven won at Darlington and Martinsville, and Logano counts this year’s Daytona 500 among his many wins.
With Dick Berggren conducting the interview, the museum supporters had quite an entertaining session.
Berggren, NASCAR commentator, author, publisher, entrepreneur, professor, and PhD in psychology, is one of the many driving forces behind the museum. In this case, he also was the man who brought the four race drivers together for their first meeting as a group.
It also was a milestone for the Racing History Preservation Group (a 26-member board of directors) that formed in 2011 with the goal of preserving the cars, books, videos, photos, and other artifacts of more than a century of New England motor sports.
As part of the museum initiative, the group has published “A History of Auto Racing in New England’’ (available at Coastal181.com) with the same aim: preserving and sharing the region’s racing heritage.
While I remember going to races at Norwood Arena (it closed in 1972), my dad would reminisce about visiting tracks in Medford, Readville (Hyde Park), Weymouth, Topsfield, and Dracut.
Lew Boyd, owner of Coastal 181 and the book’s publisher, reminds us that “there once were 53 motor racing tracks in Massachusetts. Now there is one: Seekonk.’’
What happened to the rest?
As racing fans will tell you, they tore down paradise, one track at a time, and put up malls, parking lots, industrial parks, and housing.
I’d heard of “board’’ tracks in the old days, but this history tells of a 1.25-mile mega board track that opened on Oct. 31, 1925, on the site of the present Rockingham Park.
It took 3 million board feet of lumber to build the steeply banked facility.
Unfortunately, those wooden underpinnings rested on the ground and quickly rotted away, resulting in the track being torn down in 1929 after drawing huge crowds for its July 4 and Columbus Day racing weekends.
What makes a racing fan?
In Boyd’s case, it started early.
“In 1953, when I was knee-high to a hubcap, I got TB,’’ he says. “I was in a sanatorium, hurting, and had to learn to walk again. A nice neighbor came over and took me out for a ride one Saturday night. Everything was fine until we went past Fonda (NY) Speedway. When I saw the cars, heard the noise, and smelled the rubber and exhaust, I just knew that when I grew up, I was going to be a race driver.’’
Now, after 40 years of racing and writing, Boyd, like Berggren, is in “giving back’’ mode.
His publishing started with his first book: “They Called Me The Shoe,’’ his biography with the late Kenny Shoemaker.
“Ken was the guy who taught me dirt-track driving,’’ says Boyd. “One day he called, told me he was dying, and said he wanted to do a book. We got it done and launched it at a track with a huge crowd of his fans. When he died, I gave the eulogy, and noticed his wife had slipped a copy of the book into the casket.’’
“Why?’’ I asked her.
“He wanted St. Peter to know he was fast,’’ she said.
That’s the kind of story that describes long-time members of the racing fraternity. They’re bright, independent, and are, as Boyd would say, “at least part of a bubble off center.’’
Hall of Famers
Boyd mentioned that he’d been in South Windsor, CT, on Nov. 8 where Lee (NH) Raceway owner/promoter Red MacDonald was inducted into the New England Auto Racing Hall of Fame. What Boyd didn’t mention is that he, too, was inducted that day in recognition of his racing and publishing contributions to the sport. Other inductees included noted drivers Sam Posey, Greg Sacks, Joey Laquerre, Stan Greger, and the late Jim McCallum and Paul Dunigan. Also inducted were engine-builder Joe Fontana, and the late journalist Jim Moffat.
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