Track ownership responded to that with an expansion to the facility's catch fencing, raised from 15 to 21 feet, and with overhangs doubled from 3 to 6 feet. racing goes. [8] Larry Mann, Frank Arford, Bobby Marvin, John McVitty, Joe Russo, Mike Nazaruk, and Jimmy Bryan were all killed racing at this track. But there was a lot of trouble. Langhorne Speedway, which opened in 1926 and was closed in 1971 to make way for a shopping center, also played host to Indy-car races. Ive never lost sleep over debuting anywhere in the world, even with Formula 1 and whatever, Andretti said. Bryan, intent on making "That was the only race in my career that I was really worried about," he says. At below. We'll never see its kind again. However, as suburban growth engulfed the speedway with Levittown being built up around the area, the offers from developers became too tempting to refuse. Calling the Brickyard "the Graveyard" would be in poor taste, considering what has been reiterated so many times throughout this count: Unless it's Langhorne, the track is almost never at fault for the lives lost on its premises. Many drivers flat refused to go to Langhorne. again he was hitting the fuel tank with his hand, signaling his crew that he in the Nyquist # 29, also from March 20, 1955. Langhorne - March 20 and May 1, 1955 and June 24, 1956 While I was at the Selinsgrove Speedway, last Saturday, March 20th, I happened to mention to another race fan that on that date in 1955, I was in attendance at the Langhorne track to watch the sprint car races. Also killed at the track were five motorcycle riders, three spectators and one flagman. Palm Beach Speedway in West Palm Beach, Florida, was a half-mile, dirt track that saw its first NASCAR event when it opened the 1952 NASCAR season on January 20, 1952. Note the burning fuel on steel guard rail in background. Bob Sweikert, Bobby Grim, Larry Crockett, Fred Jiggs Peters, Hank Rogers, Ernie McCoy, Mike Nazaruk, Al Herman, Russ Klar, According to a count by Autoweek, Langhorne Speedway took the lives of 27 people in its short 45 years of operation. He remembers the restless night before. The A crowd of about 15,000 was on hand for this second sprint car show. Daytona International Speedway: 8 1965 2001 Langhorne Speedway: 3 1952 1956 Charlotte Motor Speedway: 1964 1965 Memphis-Arkansas Speedway: 2 1956 1956 Darlington Raceway: 1957 1965 Riverside International Raceway: 1964 1967 Talladega Superspeedway: 1973 1975 Atlanta Motor Speedway: 1984 1989 North Wilkesboro Speedway: 1 1954 Michigan . a time of 32.941. left after the 1955 racing season. Virtually from the beginning, Langhorne was a fixture on the major-league open-wheel circuit, first under AAA sanction and later as a premier USAC event. turn area. Spectator deaths have ceased at Charlotte since, but on-track incidents continued. ", Although 25,900 fans had shown up for the Champ Car race in 1970, the 'Horne was increasingly unpopular with drivers. The track now is a faded memory. There were two accidents, but . I wasnt smart enough to be scared, he said. Nobody raised their hand. A year later, Andretti got his own baptism by fire at the 'Horne. It received this moniker due to the fact that a driver might be inclined to "puke" as a result of the extreme jostling his car would experience when hitting the deep ruts which formed in this section of the track as a race progressed. While at Langhorne. OConnor, Ken Gottschalk and Elmer George. See Race of Champions for a history of this race since 1972. Teamates, Johnny Thomson and Al Keller had the fastest times during time Langhorne Speedway, which opened in 1926 and closed in 1971, was tabbed with numerous nicknames during its almost half-century of stock-car, open-wheel and motorcycle racing. Amick was In 1939 the Langhorne Speedway was part of an organisation called "Hankinson Speedways" - Hankinson ran events under AAA sanction at a long list of tracks both in the North-Eastern USA as well as in the Carolinas. And naked fear. . Credit: Tom Sofield/LevittownNow.com. "When the race was over," he recalls, "you just threw your uniform away.". The burning remains of the Niquist Offy in which Mike Nazaruk received fatal injuries. <br> <br>This photo was taken at Langhorne, Pennsylvania of the 100 Mile U.S.A.C National Championship on June 20th, 1965. A Langhorne Speedway was located near to Langhorne in Levitttown, adjacent to the Lincoln Highway. The The mid-'50s through the early '60s are often considered the golden years of American open-wheel racing, when homegrown Indianapolis roadsters and championship dirt cars reached their apotheosis. On About Langhorne Speedway Opened in 1926, this circular one-mile dirt track was known as the "Big Left Turn." It hosted one of NASCAR's inaugural races in 1949. Larry Crockett (born 23 Oct 1926 Cambridge City, Indiana; died 20 Mar 1955 Bristol, Pennsylvania). He was followed by Magill, Hoyt, Carter, Rogers, The length of the oval itself is contested, with different organizations claiming 1.0-mile, 1.015-mile, and 1.032-mile lengths. It was on that date that Larret Then again, they no longer build racetracks like Langhorne Speedway, where the scary-fast downhill stretch of rudely rutted purgatory between Turns 1 and 2 was immortalized with that infamous moniker. vicious series of end over end flips, with Crockett being thrown out of the car They just don't name corners like they used to. ", Another Langhorne devotee was three-time Indy winner Johnny Rutherford, who qualified on the pole in 1964 -- just ahead of Foyt -- in the last Champ Car race before the track was paved. March 20, 1955, was no exception. rough track played havoc with both drivers and machines. It might as well have been called the Killing Field. With that, his run at Indianapolis Motor Speedway was constructed in 1909, and originally paved with 32 million pounds of bricks, hence the name "Brickyard." It was common to have over a hundred cars attempt to qualify for the National Open. effect, caused his car to run rich, thus burning up extra fuel. On this day, we sat in the first pioneered by Dorothy Levitt only a few years before. It also marked the final IndyCar race to be held at the circuit. As there is a tie on this list, tracks with equal casualty counts will be ordered by their years of operation (shorter histories push them up the list). thumb had to be amputated in the hospital. Kenyon later returned to racing and placed third at the Indy 500 and won numerous national midget racing championships. Then a series of accidents in the 1990s snatched six more lives, including three in a single Indycar accident in 1999, when a loose wheel flew into the crowd. They still had horrendous wrecks on the pavement and people got hurt, but no one else was killed after the surface was paved. Paving removed some of the tracks fearsome nature, but those who ran its dirt surface had long memories. The track is located in Midland, North Carolina, southeast of Concord. Magill and Thomson, and was challenging Musselman for Tragedy Hits Racing Family for Third Time : Oldest Son Is Latest Victim as He Dies From Car Crash at Kalamazoo Speedway By TRACY DODDS May 2, 1989 12 AM PT Times Staff Writer Jerry Landon died. tremendous racing took place around the circular, oiled down, big dirt mile The night before Langhorne, I was actually really concerned. AJ Foyt, who won four consecutive Championship Car races at Langhorne to go along with his four Indy 500s, was one of the few drivers who relished the opportunity to pound through Puke Hollow. at Langhorne, PA. The "new" Langhorne Speedway debuted on June 20, 1965, with Jim McElreath winning a 100-lap USAC National Championship race that was marred by several accidents, including two fiery crashes. (June 19, 1960) - Rugged, cigar-smoking Jimmy Bryan, veteran auto racer who won 19 championships including the Indianapolis 500 in 1958, was killed Sunday in the 100-mile National Championship Big Car race at Langhorne Speedway. Langhorne Speedway was an automobile racetrack in Middletown Township, Bucks County, near the borough of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, a northern suburb of Philadelphia. Save. I felt like I was going into battle. "The track was always kind to me," he says. The following year, another driver was killed. If you suddenly ran up on cars, it was hard to dodge them. The Marvin's car hit the outside fence, flipped high in the air and landed on Bud Tinglestad's car. happened to mention to another race fan that on that date in 1955, I was in lap. could say was the fourth turn area. Apr 12, 2016 - The aftermath of Bobby Marvin's fatal crash at Langhorne, PA in 1963. According to Riggs, nearly two dozen drivers were killed at the 'Horne, along with another dozen or so motorcycle riders, flaggers, and spectators. Following Amick across the finish line were Hartley, Keller, Elisian and Magill the only ones to go the full 100 Amazon.com: OnlyClassics 65 USAC Jim HURTUBISE Kenyon AUTO Racing Crash Langhorne Speedway Photo INDY 500: Photographs http://www.motorsport.com/stats/champ/ldrivers.asp, While 4 cut-down 1932 Ford coupe. The Mile is safer than ever before, but the racing is gone, and the track may soon be too. When Mario Andretti made his debut at Langhorne in 1964 in a big, old Offy-powered Champ Car with no power steering, he recalls, "We put electric ape on my steering wheel so I could grip it better. I in row 3, Gene Hartley and Andy Linden in row 4, Johnny Thomson and Al Keller But I liked Langhorne because you could run fast there. Jimmy You had to be really, really on your toes to be competitive. The half-mile Meyer Speedway in Houston, which hosted a 1971 Cup Series race in which Bobby Allison and Richard Petty started on the front row in front of 9,000 spectators, went down in the late . Another two people were killed during a 2012 motorcycle cruise at the track, when two riders broke event rules, speeding at up to 70 MPH in opposite directions on the circuit's banked corners. The And a photo, taken by Walt Imlay, of Mike Nazaruk Next came Nazaruk 33.202, Joe Sostilio 33.233, Mike Magill 33.329 and Tommy Hinnershitz 33.671. Little [11], From 1951 to 1971, Langhorne Speedway hosted the Langhorne National Open, which became the nation's most prestigious race for Sportsman and Modified cars. "It wasn't just the track," Dallenbach says. Before these lifesavers were common in racing, deaths of both amateurs and pros were far more common, regardless of how well-prepped the tracks were for crashes. ". Upon coming to rest Eubanks' disabled car blocked the track leading to multiple drivers spinning into the pits and injuring 3 mechanics. Nascar playlists:Flips: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFF76A762B38C7ED0Races: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3062F1B06490D50F500s: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL841E0FC1B50AF368 Please Subscribe! From 1951 to 1957, the race was sanctioned by NASCAR. To make that claim, you have to go way back to the very beginnings of NASCAR to a track in Pennsylvania. I was there, but really cant remember what the was a member of the graduating class of 1956 from the Pearl River, New York High School. Tinglestad being lead away from the wreck by a track official. never been to Langhorne previous to this day, and was making his initial run in row 7, Ed Elisian and Jim McWithey White said Langhornes well-known history of death and dismemberment didnt faze him. Heres the September 11, 1949 (200 Miles at Langhorne Speedway) to the September 15, 1957 (300 Miles at Langhorne Speedway) Search DriverAverages. accident at LeMans has to be the worst ever, with Another So how do we rank the most dangerous tracks in America? This was the first, but not the last, of a remarkable variety of machines that competed at the track. area. Following those two were: Thomson, extent that the AAA decided that it would no longer be a sanctioning body, and Of course, slicing through those ruts required a lot of sawing at the wheel, which took a toll on the drivers. But if I'd gone 10 feet past that pole, I would have gone straight over the guardrail.". often wondered what would have happened had Mike. pace. After the race, Clarence said they took bulldozers and steam shovels and dug down 25 or 30 feet and didnt find any concrete. "On the list of toughest tracks to run, you'd have to put it at Number 1. lap, Bryan Both cars caught fire. a photo, again, one taken by Walt Imlay, of the start of the 1956 100-mile race That view was basically A conservation effort has sprung up in support of the Mile, but petition signatures can do little about the unsteady fiscal situation in which the track finds itself, due to investments in facility upgrades (safety included) during the 1990s and 2000s. It was a wild frontier, with blood on the ground. That was the most dangerous track on Earth. Watson-built Leader Card Special. The USAC races featured (and were won by) notable racers such as A. J. Foyt, Mario Andretti, Al Unser, Bobby Unser, Gordon Johncock, Lloyd Ruby, and Eddie Sachs. Langhorne Speedway hosted its final race in October 1971, six months after drivers voted to boycott the track because it was so treacherous. 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