JOE GOODMAN

     "Old Joe" Goodman was a fixture at Dayton Speedway for decades, as much a part of the speed plant as the track surface, grandstand, or fencing.  He lived in a old blue trailer in the parking lot at the speedway, and he was there in good times when the track attracted thousands of fans, and in bad times when the track lay silent season after season.

     The article below by Bucky Albers tells Old Joe's story best.

***************

“Old Joe Yearns for Race Noise”

By Bucky Albers

(Originally published in the Dayton Journal Herald, June 26, 1975)

            When their hair turns snow white like Joe Goodman’s, most folks prefer to live somewhere where it’s quiet.  Somewhere away from the rapid, noisy environment of younger generations.

            Joe Goodman has known that peaceful existence for the past five years; he doesn’t care for it.

            Goodman’s home is the decaying blue house trailer that sits on the Dayton Speedway grounds.  He’s live there for 25 years, oblivious of the many legal hassles over ownership of the property.  Joe is part of the real estate.

            His front yard is the parking lot.  Once well groomed, like a football field, it’s now belt high in weeds.

            Since the Speedway closed down in 1970, Goodman’s only companions have been a few chickens and his parakeet, Bobby Joe.

            I stopped in to see Joe the other day.  He looked like a retired farmer in his bib overalls, occasionally stuffing some Union Workman in his mouth and transferring the juice into a tin can.

            Joe told me he’s had lots of company lately.

            “You wouldn’t believe how the people drives in here,” he said.  “They ask, ‘When’s it gonna open?’ and I say, ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’”

            The increased activity around Old Joe’s trailer is the result of what’s going on down the hill at the race track.  Air hammers are jabbing at the pavement as a Dayton group prepares to re-open the famed old West Dayton track next month.

He’s Seen the Best Drivers

            Goodman would like nothing better than to have his trailer surrounded again by automobiles as it was in bygone days with the AAA and USAC sprint cars attracted upwards of 12,000 people to their races.

            “I couldn’t wait ‘til Spring to hear them cars a runnin’ around the track,” Joe reminisced.  “I see the best of the boys…Shackleford, Pappy Booker.  I seen Wilbur Shaw drive.  And Rex Mays.  I’ve seen ‘em all drive.”

            Old Joe isn’t putting out any hot air when he says he knows the Dayton Speedway like nobody else knows it.

            “I’m the only one that’s livin’ that started to work with Frank Funk,” he said.  “Me and Funk were raised right there together in Indiana.  I came here with him when he bought this track (in 1939).  I helped build it.

            Goodman was Funk’s maintenance man, so he’s aware of the problems young Don Flory is encountering as he attempts to undermine Mother Nature’s plot to destroy the dilapidated oval during the recent hiatus.

            He’s aware how tough it is to repair the cracks in the steeply-banked racing surface and to give the sagging asphalt a face-lifting.  He knows what a job it is to hammer those guard rail posts into position.

            “When they used to break the guard rail,” he recalls, “I’d have to fix it.”

            Consequently, Old Joe admires the fortitude of Flory, the 28-year-old New Carlisle racing buff who quit his job and sold his home so he could devote full time to this Speedway restoration project.

His Trailer was a Stopping Point

            “That boy Don Flory, he’s a worker.  He works out in the rain, the heat and the cold.  I believe he’ll make a go of it.

            Time passes, but Goodman yearns for those halcyon days when George Geis and Blair Ratliff (both deceased) operated the Speedway.  “The tack went haywire after we lost Blair and George,” he said.

            Eddie Sachs and Jimmy Daywalt and them would come up to my trailer and wash up after the races,” he recalled.  “Troy Ruttman came up here laughing one day.  He said, ‘I just beat George Geis out of $85 playing penny ante.’”

            If Old Joe’s trailer was oft-times a rest stop for some of the nation’s top race driers, it was even more so for promoter Ratliff.

            “Nobody in the world was a better promoter than Blair if he wouldn’t tip the bottle all the time,” Joe said.  “He’d come in here drunk and lay down.  I wouldn’t know hat to do with him.  I’d call his dad – he’s dead now – and his dad would say ‘Blair, come home.’  He’d say, ‘Don’t worry about me.  I’m taking care of Joe.’”

            Mobility is a problem for Joe, now.  He weighs over 200 pounds and he’ll soon be 80 years old.  “I’m here all the time unless I’m outside feeding the chickens,” he said.

            Unfortunately, Joe has been told that the chickens will have to go if the race cars return.  But he doesn’t mind.  He’s willing to sacrifice their cackling for the roar of racing engines.  His life hasn’t been the same since the noise left.