Best Racetrack Memory as a child?

[zyoung25]

My dad sneaking me into several pit areas. He helped Strickers when Weasel Rhoads drove for them. They would hide me in the closet of the hauler to get me into the pit area until hot laps started. Then I would come out and helped keep the car clean. They would also send me over to other drivers cars to scope out the tires before the feature. Nobody thought about a 5 or 6 year old walking around their car looking at the tires.

Meeting Donnie Moran for the first time was a big one for me too.

[latemodelman]

One other one was going to the Fall Classic in 1996 at Shadybowl since my mom and dad lived 4 miles from the track. Got to meet Dale Earnhardt Jr. Got his signature and also got to see some good racing. I miss those days. Even though it was asphalt. We went every week and dad got us Pit Passes. I remember him paying $105 for 3 pit passes when Arca or a big 10,000 to win race happened. God we had fun. Now I dont blink an eye when it costs $100 for 3 of us to go to the races.

[Finnfan25]

Sitting in the stands at Lake Cumberland Motor Speedway in Burnside in 1989 at a weekly Saturday night show. There were only 8-10 late models, but a few of them were pretty decent to best of my memory. After sitting through qualifying, countless heat races in several divisions, it finally became time for the late model feature. All of a sudden several people stood up and started looking towards the incoming road that leads in from the highway to the track (past the charcoal plant for people that have been there). In rolls a tractor trailer, unmarked but the cleanest, shiniest rig I had ever seen. Of course back then NOBODY had anything like that to haul their cars. It pulled across the track to the infield pits and parked parallel to the grandstands on the front straight. The entire crowd was standing, and a buzz started growing. It might as well have been Elvis Presley arisen from the dead with the excitement in the air. The door to the trailer opened and out rolls number 18. Back then with no internet and limited news about SLM's, I had barely heard the name Scott Bloomquist. Turns out a big race somewhere in Tennessee had been rained out so he hauled @$$ to Burnside. The gave him 3-4 hot laps to the dismay of the other SLM drivers. I had never seen anything so mesmerizing as that black 18 smoothly running around that track. He started at the tail of the feature and I think was leading by lap 5 or 6 and never touched a car. He lapped the field at least once and for the final few laps it looked like he was just testing different lines and entry/exit points. I told my then date (now my wife) that "Scott Bloomquist" was a name to remember, that he had the potential to be big, lol.

[d-glenn]

I have two that stand out the most for me, both at the BIR at the Birmingham Fair Grounds in the early fifties.

1. Nero Stepto (yes, that's right, google him) he ran 23 laps of a 25 main with the left front tire and hub missing and won the race.

2. The Grand Nationals ran there and the thing I remember most was Fireball Roberts being there driving an Oldsmobile.

See y'all at East Bay...

[84wedge]

Nero Stepto? That name belongs in the favourite names thread.

[dirtluver]

Watching (not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word) Nelson and Jim O'connor race @ Kankakee Speedway. Another time would have to be going to Eldora for first time ( I think about 1982) First car i saw was Bob Hill coming out of turn 4 and was amazed every since. That was the fastest car i had ever saw at up till that time.

[ride height]

Watching Jeff Purvis make a mockery out of a big race at Granite in around 1987. He lapped the field, and this wasn’t a bunch of scrubs either. I never saw him before and didn’t know who he was....well he’s been my hero ever since. I’ve never seen anything like it since....it was a total beat down.

[zyoung25]

1. Nero Stepto (yes, that's right, google him) he ran 23 laps of a 25 main with the left front tire and hub missing and won the race.

Did he have lugs hanging on to the door? Probably my favorite part of stroker ace. Seeing that would be hard to forget 🤣

[4Barrel]

The Mountain Dirt Classic at Mountain Motor Speedway in Isom Kentucky in the late 1980s.

[FastEd95]

My favorite day/night attending races happened on August 19, 1978 when I was eleven years old. Got to see my two favorite late model drivers each win features that day at different tracks. Don Hoffman won the Steele County Fair 50-lapper at Owatonna, Minnesota, in the afternoon and then that same night, Mert Williams took the win at the Southern Minnesota Dirt Track Championship at Lansing, Minnesota.

[TUTY]

Bob Shryock showing up with his bus with car on the back 1/2. He would show up periodically in SW Minnesota and beat up on the local guys. I believe at my home track the last time he was there the locals took him for a ride into the wall and he never came back.

[TackyTracker]

lot's of early memories

1. The bees hovering around the garbage cans at the bottom of the santa fe grandstands and not caring
2. not knowing how lucky I was to have an awesome racetrack in my town
3. getting to see mostly the same people every Friday night we were there watching and so were they