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over4T
07-25-2021, 10:24 AM
It was nice to see Devin get the $10K win last night at the family owned track. Glad for the whole Moran family and been a longtime fan of theirs. He's had a few races lately where he was in front and had a flat or other problem cost him the win with a few laps to go.

Was disappointed in the Muskingum track as it looked pretty rough and gritty. Never been to the dirt version but ran a couple of races back in the '60s on Zanesville's old paved , I think, 1/3 mile and wondered if this is the site of the dirt track.

There must be a few native old codgers that remember the asphalt track. It was the Saturday night part of the old Ohio Racing Association's weekend series of pavement Late Models with Xenia, OH, near Dayton, on Friday and the terrific Columbus, OH joint on Sunday. Great racing when you had Chevelles, Camaros, Fairlanes, Galaxies, a few Mopars etc. and the cars weren't all generic ABC type bodies. That's back in the era when asphalt stuff wasn't like today's mostly yawners.

hoosier race fan
07-25-2021, 01:35 PM
It was nice to see Devin get the $10K win last night at the family owned track. Glad for the whole Moran family and been a longtime fan of theirs. He's had a few races lately where he was in front and had a flat or other problem cost him the win with a few laps to go.

Was disappointed in the Muskingum track as it looked pretty rough and gritty. Never been to the dirt version but ran a couple of races back in the '60s on Zanesville's old paved , I think, 1/3 mile and wondered if this is the site of the dirt track.

There must be a few native old codgers that remember the asphalt track. It was the Saturday night part of the old Ohio Racing Association's weekend series of pavement Late Models with Xenia, OH, near Dayton, on Friday and the terrific Columbus, OH joint on Sunday. Great racing when you had Chevelles, Camaros, Fairlanes, Galaxies, a few Mopars etc. and the cars weren't all generic ABC type bodies. That's back in the era when asphalt stuff wasn't like today's mostly yawners.
I think this page has some of the history you are looking for.

http://www.speedwayandroadracehistory.com/zanesville-muskingum-county-speedway.html

Last night was my first visit to Muskingum. Good crowd, plenty of cars in each class. Not the best or the worst facility I have visited. Track prep was a little disappointing but also not the worst I have ever seen. The Jim Dunn car was cool. Late model feature finished around 10:45, which was good with rain on the way.

over4T
07-25-2021, 07:33 PM
Yep, that confirms what I've long thought, that it was the old paved track. When I ran it the facilities looked, shall we say, well weathered but the asphalt was in great shape. The site you referred to said it was paved in 1965 and I'm talking about '67 & '68ish so that 'splains that, as Desi used to say. Also remember the promoter as a 50ish guy named Louie.

Think that was Devin's grandfather down in victory lane with him and that made it special as well. The restored Dunn car was also a good touch and it was hard to think about the awful way he went even after all these years.

All in all it was a pleasant night in front of the tube considering we lost our scheduled race at Petaluma Speedway last night due to a broken water main from the fairgrounds well to the track. Hard to prep that black gumbo without water. Been rained out, snowed out, smoked out, power outaged out, hauler failured out, extremely high temperatured out, earthquaked out, etc., etc. We lost Friday's race at Chico's Silver Dollar Speedway due to the hundreds of firefighters using the fairgrounds as a staging and rest area for the area wildfires. Chico's just a hop/skip/jump from Paradise, the town that was pretty much destroyed in 2018's record fire killing 85 people so fire threats are taken very seriously around here.

Thanks for the reference Nathan and hope your long ride home to Tippicanoe County was a dry one.

Raceready
07-25-2021, 08:46 PM
Yep, that confirms what I've long thought, that it was the old paved track. When I ran it the facilities looked, shall we say, well weathered but the asphalt was in great shape. The site you referred to said it was paved in 1965 and I'm talking about '67 & '68ish so that 'splains that, as Desi used to say. Also remember the promoter as a 50ish guy named Louie. Think that was Devin's grandfather down in victory lane with him and that made it special as well. The restored Dunn car was also a good touch and it was hard to think about the awful way he went even after all these years. All in all it was a pleasant night in front of the tube considering we lost our scheduled race at Petaluma Speedway last night due to a broken water main from the fairgrounds well to the track. Hard to prep that black gumbo without water. Been rained out, snowed out, smoked out, power outaged out, hauler failured out, extremely high temperatured out, earthquaked out, etc., etc. We lost Friday's race at Chico's Silver Dollar Speedway due to the hundreds of firefighters using the fairgrounds as a staging and rest area for the area wildfires. Chico's just a hop/skip/jump from Paradise, the town that was pretty much destroyed in 2018's record fire killing 85 people so fire threats are taken very seriously around here. Thanks for the reference Nathan and hope your long ride home to Tippicanoe County was a dry one.Tippicanoe and Tyler too ! !