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From Pete Hylton
Author “Ghost Tracks”
and “The Gentlemen’s Club”
SCCA Archivist

Marsha asked me a while back for a “simple” explanation of the lineage that led to the two different sanctioning bodies that have been players in the Indy Car / Champ Car fiasco of the past few years.  The recent, and long hoped for, merger back into one series was the impetus for the conversation. The whole long and sorry tale has some interesting dovetails with the story I am writing right now for our upcoming book on the beginnings and transition of American Sports Car Racing, entitled “The Gentlemen’s Club.”

 

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Pete Hylton

In an attempt to escape the cold and snow of an Indiana winter, I took a trip to Alabama and Florida in December. There were a number of SCCA Ghost Tracks in that part of the south that I had never visited. I made contact with Corry Field in Pensacola, Florida. And I visited airports at Selma and Tuskeege, and a former track at the Montgomery Industiral Park, all in southern Alabama. I also called in at an old airport circuit at the top end of the state, which is the one I’d like to talk about today. At the very north edge of Alabama sits Huntsville, home to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and former home to some important SCCA racing. Before World War II, Huntsville’s big claim to fame was being known as…… the Watercress Capital of the World. How does that excite you? However, during World War II a major military-industrial complex was built in Huntsville. The Redstone Arsenal and associated munitions manufacturing plants were located there. The arsenal was nearly closed after the war, in 1949. However, instead, through some political manipulations, it became the site of the Army’s missile research program which led to the US Space Program. That has ultimately led to the city’s current status as “The Rocket City.”

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The skid marks and cone at the Huntsville airport is proove that the site is an active “ghost” with local autocross events still going on there.

Huntsville’s first airport was built in 1941 and grew as the city expanded under the influence of the Redstone project. It became a major center of operations for Eastern Airlines. This airport offered no room for expansion, as it was located in the heart of downtown. In 1967 a new airport was built south of the city and the downtown field was retired and became home to the police headquarters and training program. During this period it also became home to Tennessee Valley Region’s racing program. A 2.2 mile

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The American Howmet TX turbine was pieced together by a group of SCCA drivers led Ray Heppenstall in 1967. A year later, in June, 1968, Heppenstall won the Huntsville National Race, the first race ever won by a turbine powered car. For a detailed history of the car, and its winning 1968 season, go to Pete Stowe’s motorsports page.

In this video from the TX ’s first race in 1968, at Daytona, Ray Heppenstall talks about his car.

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When the Sports Car Club of America was founded in the 1940’s, it was quite a different club than it is today. Early members came from the social elite. They were all men and they viewed themselves as both gentlemen and sportsmen. Their desire to own expensive, or at least eclectic, cars came as much from their wish to stand apart from the crowd as it did from any desire to go fast. Even as the speed and competition aspects of the club develop in the 1950’s, the early racers continued to compete strictly as amateurs, and the leadership of the club took a staunch position against such things as prize money, sponsorship, or even open membership. This philosophy persisted into the 1960’s, when the Chairman of the SCCA Board of Governors proclaimed that the SCCA was, quite simply,……”a gentleman’s club.” This led to a fundamental struggle between the progressive and traditional elements of the membership over just what SCCA would eventually become.

 

Pete Hylton writes of the transition an elite group of amateurs to the recognized sanctioning body in his next book, “A Gentleman’s Club: The Growth and Transition of American Sports Car Racing“, to be released in the fall of ‘08. 

Email us to receive excerpts, special new release pricing, and release announcements.  

 

Racingeditor@gmail.com

Last month, the racing news was all about the of IRL/Champ Car merger.  In an effort to understand the geneology of all of this, I pulled up Wikipedia on my computer and started writing down acronyms and dates.   After double checking with Pete, I figured it out…in a manner of speaking.   What it boils down to is that the sanctioning bodies of sports car, championship, sprint and midget car racing have spent the last fifty years or so arguing with each other over one thing or another.  

Not to offend my fellow Southerners, but it is a lot like the independent, non sectarian, formerly Baptist churches that dot the corners around my adopted city in Western Kentucky.

Or Liz Taylor’s marriages.

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From Pete Hylton
Author “Ghost Tracks”
SCCA Archivist

I was invited to be the guest speaker for the December 8 banquet that was to kick off the 50th Anniversary season of the Des Moines Region of SCCA. Since I have lots of SCCA friends in that part of the mid-west, and since I love to talk about old tracks and old sports cars any chance I get, I readily accepted. Just a week prior to the trip, I came across a course map for a ghost track that I wasn’t even aware of.

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In his book, Ghost Tracks, Pete Hylton takes a then-and-now look at the history of some of sports car racing’s greatest tracks.  Hylton uses more than 300 images and maps to illustrate the history of 50 tracks.  

Legacy Ink Publishing released Ghost Tracks last fall to great reviews from readers.  Here are a few of the comments we received.  

“Pete, you have really outdone yourself.  What memories you have written about. It really brings me back to the days when I started racing in the late sixties and at the tracks around the Midwest. What great pictures and copy about the past. Great Book. It will be a long treasure on our library shelves. Thanks, A 41 Year SCCA Member” Read the rest of this entry »

February 11 was a big day for the car and the driver. Marshall Teague, who would go on to race in the pre-CART  Triple A Circuit, made a name for himself in early NASCAR history. On Feb. 11,  Teague introduced the Hudson Hornet to the circuit by winning Daytona Beach Grand National. (Mario Andretti began his racing career in 1959 driving a modified 1943 Hudson Sportsman Stockcar.)  Although the name of the driver and the car would be said in the same breath for the next few years, Teague left NASCAR for the USAC circuit  few years later.  For the full story

I visited the The Permian Basin Petroleum Museum  this month. Well, it was a virtual visit, actually. Turns out that the museum is home to a little piece of racing history, a collection of Jim Hall’s Chaparrals. Read the rest of this entry »

Marsha Newsom

racingeditor@legacyinkpublishing.com

Last year about this time,we started this little publishing company, Legacy Ink Publishing.  Our official company line is that we have forty years of experience in publishing…which is true.  It is also true that I have thirty of those years.   

We were lucky our first year out to run into Pete Hylton.  He had this little book he’d wanted to publish, called “Ghost Tracks”….and the rest, as they say, is history. 

 

But we have a secret….well, not so much of a secret to anyone who tries to talk shop with us.  We don’t really know what Pete or any of the others are talking about.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Motorsports Racing Legacies

Motorsports racing legacies....The history of the sport that drives your passion. The drivers, the cars they drove, and the tracks they raced.

The Gentlemen's Club

Click on these "gentlemen" to read an excerpt from Pete Hylton's newest book, The Gentlemen's Club, available Fall, '08

Quotables

“I love this kind of racing, (but) these guys sure change their personalities in race mode. They’re like Doberman pinschers with a hand grenade in their mouths.” road racer Boris Said speaking of NEXTEL Cup drivers.
“When I raced a car last it was at a time when sex was safe and racing was dangerous. Now, it’s the other way round.” Hans Stuck

Have you sighted a Ghost Track on your own?