A New Track, Some Old Memories . . . But Where is the Lake?
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03/30/2016 Frank Buhrman |
On Saturday, April 9, race fans in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., will have the rare opportunity of checking out a brand new race track, Dominion Raceway in Thornburg.
Plans For Old Dominion
Steve Britt is Dominion’s main guy, and I hope he does as well as the Gore family, which ran Old Dominion for most of its existence. As luck would have it, I recently purchased an April 1955 issue of Speed Age magazine, and its contents include a feature about Old Dominion, which was still pretty new at the time. The article was titled, “Track with a Future.” It featured three pictures of owner/promoter Al Gore, including one where he’s fixing one of the track’s caution lights himself. In another photo, Gore is pointing to an area beyond the fourth turn where – so said the article – a lake for motorboat racing was to be created.
The article is vague about the status of a road course Gore was building, but if it ever existed, I don’t remember anything there when Dave Fulton and I attended “Bill Bogley Lincoln-Mercury Gold Trophy Race” championships back in the late 1960s, and when I last visited the track around 15 years ago, there definitely was no sign of anything other than the oval and drag strip.
The article is vague about the status of a road course Gore was building, but if it ever existed, I don’t remember anything there when Dave Fulton and I attended “Bill Bogley Lincoln-Mercury Gold Trophy Race” championships back in the late 1960s, and when I last visited the track around 15 years ago, there definitely was no sign of anything other than the oval and drag strip.
This track is intended to replace the former Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, which closed in 2012 after nearly 60 years in operation. The last owner of the old track has built the new one, which sits pretty much alongside I-95 just south of Fredericksburg. I hope it’s a smashing success, especially since new paved tracks don’t pop up every day. Shenandoah Speedway, also in Virginia, has been plugging along for several years now, but Mansfield Motorsports in Ohio and Lake Erie Speedway in northwestern Pennsylvania, both apparently showplace facilities, have struggled – the former may be reopening after a few years of inactivity; the latter is not running any races this year.
Old Dominion, 2003
One thing Dominion won’t have that Old Dominion did is a Sprint Cup race. Between 1958 and 1966, Old Dominion ran the Grand Nationals seven times, including a 500-lapper in September 1964 (that race paid a whopping $6,300 TOTAL purse).
The race results I found most interesting (courtesy of Racing-Reference.info) were those from the first race in 1958. That 150-lapper started 25 cars, just about half of which were from Maryland, D.C., or Virginia. Included in that group were Reds Kagle, who later lost a leg at Charlotte but remained a very competitive local racer; Emmanuel Zervakis, the Golden Greek from Richmond, who was driving for Junie Donlavey, and longtime GN regular Elmo Langley, who hailed from Landover, Md., and who would win the last “Cup” race run at Old Dominion eight years later. Also in the field was Marylander Jim Parsley, who would operate Beltsville Speedway in Maryland in the 1960s and ‘70s.
The winner also was a great story. New Jersey modified great Frankie Schneider took the checkered flag in 1958, besting Jack Smith, Rex White, Lee Petty and Johnny Allen (Langley and Kagle finished sixth and seventh). Schneider only ran 27 GN races in his career, and the last of them were in 1958, but as an outsider that year, he did pretty well: in seven starts, he had five top-five finishes, including the Manassas victory. (Wouldn’t you like to see a local hot shoe have a chance to do that in Cup racing today?)
The race results I found most interesting (courtesy of Racing-Reference.info) were those from the first race in 1958. That 150-lapper started 25 cars, just about half of which were from Maryland, D.C., or Virginia. Included in that group were Reds Kagle, who later lost a leg at Charlotte but remained a very competitive local racer; Emmanuel Zervakis, the Golden Greek from Richmond, who was driving for Junie Donlavey, and longtime GN regular Elmo Langley, who hailed from Landover, Md., and who would win the last “Cup” race run at Old Dominion eight years later. Also in the field was Marylander Jim Parsley, who would operate Beltsville Speedway in Maryland in the 1960s and ‘70s.
The winner also was a great story. New Jersey modified great Frankie Schneider took the checkered flag in 1958, besting Jack Smith, Rex White, Lee Petty and Johnny Allen (Langley and Kagle finished sixth and seventh). Schneider only ran 27 GN races in his career, and the last of them were in 1958, but as an outsider that year, he did pretty well: in seven starts, he had five top-five finishes, including the Manassas victory. (Wouldn’t you like to see a local hot shoe have a chance to do that in Cup racing today?)
Frankie Schneider
Elmo Langley
Ol' DW, Long Before "Boogity Boogity Boogity..."
The 500-lapper was won by Ned Jarrett, by the way, and he dominated the race, leading all but 76 laps; they were led by runner-up David Pearson and third-place Richard Petty. Local racer Bert Robbins got fifth, even though he was 33 laps behind.
The Late Model Stock Cars, which were “born” at Old Dominion around 40 years ago, will be the headliners at the new Dominion. Fans heading for the April 9 opener should watch the Cup cars at Martinsville on April 3 and then imagine that race taking place in Thornburg. Maybe one day. . . .
The Late Model Stock Cars, which were “born” at Old Dominion around 40 years ago, will be the headliners at the new Dominion. Fans heading for the April 9 opener should watch the Cup cars at Martinsville on April 3 and then imagine that race taking place in Thornburg. Maybe one day. . . .