RAND THOMPSON
Most FODS know Rand Thompson as DSL's Bookmeister, the guy who is able to find those gems among the many motorsports publications, read them, and then write the kind of reviews that send us scrambling to add the volume to our own libraries.
But this season Rand is also writing for the MARC Times Racing News & Michigan Racing Scene, and even though the focus of his articles is usually geographically removed from the Dayton Speedway area of interest, he sometimes touches on subjects that ought to be of interest to FODS. When that happens we'll reprint his articles here with the kind cooperation of Rand and the fine folks at MARC Times and Michigan Racing Scene.
Thanks guys!
Mickey
June 27, 2009
When I was researching the story of early Dayton Speedway race winner Lloyd Moore (read about him here) I discovered that he had raced jalopies early in his career at a track named "Satan's Bowl-O-Death." What a fabulous name for a speedway! One can almost imagine a 1950's hot rod movie poster with cars crashig wildly into each other and through the fencing while babes in sweaters and poodle skirts melt into the arms of bad boy racers.
"They both knew it wouldn't last!" the headline would scream. "Nothing ever did at Satan's Bowl-O-Death!"
Ah, that was a simpler time. In the article below, Rand takes a look at speedways with unusual names, including Lloyd Moore's Bowl-O-Death.
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Ever wondered how a place first gets named? I know I have, and racetracks are no exception. Many tracks are named for their location, such as Flat Rock, Kalamazoo, Owosso, and Mt. Pleasant. Others have names that still represent some local connection such as Auto City near Flint, Spartan Speedway near Lansing, and Berlin at the county fairgrounds. Still others seem to have no connection to anything I can discern, like Oakshade or Thunderbird. If you look back at the names of some of the thousands of the current and defunct tracks of the past you can find some names that were quite creative and entertaining.
Some tracks had rather innocuous sounding names like Bob's Picnic Grounds in Pontiac, Mom's Family Raceway in Reed City, and Partington's Pastures in Sterling Hts. Joy Fair actually started in his very first race at Partington's Pastures in 1949. All three of them sound like pleasant places to pack a nice lunch for the family with fried chicken, potato salad, and apple pie to spend a quiet afternoon. Certainly no indication you would hear roaring engines, the grind of metal and have your nice lunch covered with flying dust.
At the other end of the spectrum, you had names like Suicide Circle in Georgia, Ted's Torture Track in New York, Hofer's Death Valley Speedway in Illinois, Hell's Half Acre in Texas, and my personal favorite: Satan's Bowl-O- Death in New York. Are you starting to see a common theme here? Joy Fair told me his parents thought racing was a sin; apparently they weren't the only ones. The suicide angle seemed to be very popular with three separate tracks in Texas, all named the Suicide Bowl at different times.
The bowl nomenclature was not limited to college football being used for many racetracks as well. You have the famed Chili Bowl in Tulsa, the Akron Rubber Bowl in Ohio, an Iron Bowl in Alabama, a Peach Bowl, Tobacco Bowl & Sugar Bowl in Georgia, Bean Bowl in California, Ice Bowl in Alaska (makes sense!), an aptly named Dust Bowl in Montana, and a Devil's Bowl in Texas and a couple other states.
Then you have names that seem to have no connection at all, like Boss Hogg International Speedway in Florida (I wonder what TV show was popular then?) and Whiskey Ridge in Muskegon, Michigan. I'm not sure how many drivers would want to race at Flippin Speedway in Arkansas until they saw it really was located in the town of Flippin. Anderson Speedway in Indiana was originally named Sun Valley Speedway, which is odd since Anderson is neither particularly known for sun or is in a valley.
So the next time you go to the races just ask yourself "I wonder why they named it that?"
Thanks to Allen Brown for writing the book The History of America's Speedways and providing the great info.
Joy Fair was a sometime Dayton Speedway competitor and if you search diligently among the Surges-Richardson photos posted here you will even find Fair's #719 among the '50's era MARC series stock cars. (The photo is also posted below.)
Because Fair was a Dayton entrant and because we have at least one photo of his car I thought that you would enjoy reading this interview that Rand had with Joy Fair. Among other things, you'll find the answer to the question of how he came up with a number like #719.
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Joy Fair is a legend of Michigan short track racing having raced a remarkable 50 years from 1949 until he finally hung up the goggles in 1999. In spite of his considerable success, he is one of the most humble people I have ever known; when someone enters his business and asks if he used to race, his response is either "I tried" or "Do I look more like a racer or a lover". I grew up in his home town of Pontiac, Mich. and have had the great pleasure of being friends with him for the last several years. There is nothing I enjoy more than stopping over for lunch at Big Nick's Coney in Pontiac and listening to some of his stories about racing and life. I have never known anyone who has the charm and knack for telling stories as Joy, and in between his friendly jabs at the waitresses, he had some to share that I thought everyone would enjoy.
I have to ask, Where did your name come from?
Joy; Well, I was named after an uncle who was an airplane pilot; I never liked it, but I was pretty big, so I didn't have any trouble with it. These promoters would want you to race at their tracks and acted like they were all your best friends, but soon as they called me Joey, I knew they didn't know me, cause the name is Joy, you know.
Were there any other careers that you were interested in?
I always wanted to be a teacher. I went to college at Western Michigan Univ. for a while, but ended up coming back home and opening the garage.
Knowing you, I have no doubt you would have been a great teacher. You retired from driving in 1999; tell everyone what have you been up to these days?
Still running the garage in Pontiac that I opened in the early 50's.We've been working with the Postal Service repairing mail trucks and they are keeping us really busy with several getting service all the time.
I guess that everyone in the area should get their mail pretty fast now that you are tuning them up. How did you manage to race for all those years while running the business?
I don't know, we just worked all day and raced all night. When we had the supermodified, we could race it eight times a week; every day and even twice on Sunday. Sometimes you would get home so late, you would just go right back in the shop and start working again.
Speaking of the supermodified, you always used #719 for years before switching to your famous school bus yellow #1. What is the story behind that?
We built a car for Motor City Speedway in the 50's, and picked #714 cause they had a detective show on TV we liked with Badge #714. We go to the track figuring no one else would have it, but someone else must have liked the show too. We changed the 4 into a 9 and it became 719. We used the #1 because Flat Rock in 1965 decided the champion would use #1, 2nd would use #2 etc; it only lasted a year since everyone complained about it, but we just kept the number after that. We started using the yellow because someone near the shop painted school buses and had some paint left over, so it was cheap.
What did your family think of you racing?
My parents were very religious and they always thought of it as sinning with the devil. My dad went to see me race once, and wouldn't you know, I ended up flipping right in front of him on the front stretch. After he went up to the fence and asked me if I was OK, which I was, he never went again. My son Mark raced for several years, and one of my daughters, Debby, might have been pretty good, but women just didn't do that kind of thing back then. My wife, Annette, didn't go to the races because she always thought it was a silly waste of time; the more I think about it, she might have been right!
What other drivers did you have the most respect for? How about the ones you had trouble with?
I always liked Bob Senneker, and Ron & Bob Keselowski since they were all such hard workers building and racing their own cars like they did. Bob's son Brad is doing real good in NASCAR, I've known him since he was a little kid. Joe Ruttman drove for me in 1973 and has been a good friend ever since. I also really liked racing with Jody Ridley too. One race at Sandusky, Ridley and I ran inches apart for a hundred laps, and never touched each other. I ended up getting by him on the last lap, but it could have gone either way, and I had as much fun racing him that day as anyone.
As far as people that I had trouble with, Dick Mitchell is one that comes to mind. He would think nothing of trying to wreck you. There was one race I was trying to pass him on the outside, and just caught a glimpse of his front wheels turning into me. I hit the brakes really hard, and he shot across my front, just missing me and hitting the wall head on. He wanted to fight me after the race, but after I said "Dick, you know what really happened back there", he just stomped off. Gordon Johncock is a good friend of mine, but one time after a supermodifed crash he wanted to take a swing at me, and he is just a little guy, so I was holding him up off the ground while he was trying to hit me.
You are undoubtedly the only driver who raced on the sand at Daytona Beach with NASCAR in 1956, and also indoors in the Pontiac Silverdome. What can you tell us about those races?
We raced both a new 1956 Dodge and also a modified at Daytona. The Dodge broke an engine, so we didn't finish that one. We broke the transmission in the modified in qualifying, but Bill France wanted us in the race, so we fixed the car and started dead last. There were 75 cars in the race, and we finally ended up finishing third with Tim Flock winning. The Silverdome was the first dirt race I had driven in a long time, and we were in a special champion's race with Senneker, David Pearson, Kyle Petty, Neil Bonnett, and a bunch of others. It was a tight track and very hard to pass, so where you started meant everything. We drew for position and when it was Senneker's turn to draw, he reached in and handed it to me without looking at it and said "Joy, this one is yours". After everyone had drawn, I turned it over and it ended up being the pole! I led the entire thing; Pearson was really hitting me on my rear bumper the whole time, but never did spin me out.
Do you still get out to the races anymore?
Cheryl (Team Manager) and I try to go a few times every year to Flat Rock and Toledo. We usually attend the year end Glass City 200, and also the Racer's Reunions they have a couple times a year for the retired racers. I really enjoyed both tracks when I was racing. I liked Toledo for the speed and Flat Rock for the finesse of working through the traffic on a tight quarter mile.
Joy, I hate to end with this, but after 50 years, you must have some embarrassing moments; what one comes to mind?
We had a 1961 Pontiac we raced at the Michigan State Fairgrounds dirt mile in 1962. We got the car from Ray Nichels and it had this special lightweight factory aluminum hood, fenders, bumper and exhaust on it for racing. On my qualifying lap, I was on the backstretch and looked down and saw I forgot to tighten my belts. I thought I had plenty of time before turn 3, and after I got them all cinched up, I looked up, and there was no way I was going to make the corner. Outside of the turn, there were a lot of stumps and rocks, and it just tore all those aluminum parts right off the car. After getting back to the pits, all these Pontiac Motors engineers were all slapping me on the back saying "I never saw anyone go that fast; you would have set a new track record for sure!", but I never told anyone what really happened for twenty years.
Joy Fair's #719 (the white car at the front of the line) sits on the Dayton Speedway front stretch during a MARC racing afternoon.
---Photo courtesy of the Surges/Richardson collection
Here's more on Joy Fair, this time a clever piece written from the perspective of Joy Fair's last race car (shown in the photo below).
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Hi there! I'm a Super Late Model race car; more specifically Joy Fair's last race car. I guess you never thought you would hear a story from a race car , but since Lightning McQueen got so much fame, I figured it was now my turn. My driver, Joy, is known for his great stories, so I figure that must be where I learned how to spin a few yarns myself.
First of all, there are a few pet peeves I need to get off my block. I'm telling you, us race cars never get any respect; good luck having a race without us, ya know what I mean! When things go well, my driver usually gets all the credit; "Great drive, Joy" etc. Let something go wrong, however, and I'm the first one to get the blame, with complaints of "car broke," "handling was off," or "way too loose." Like I had anything with deciding what front spring, or rear end gears were installed in me. Don't even get me started about those crashes into the wall. Now that I got that stuff out of the way, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
My driver and builder, Joy Fair, raced for 50 years before he retired in 1999 and along with my owner Bob Gillelan, they raced a lot of different cars over all those years, but I was their last car. My driver is all time feature win leader at Flat Rock with 159 and Toledo with 97, so I was never worried about him standing on the gas and giving me his best.
I was built in Joy's business, Fair's Garage, in Pontiac, Michigan in 1998 around a Howe chassis and a powerful Katech Chevrolet V6 with a Moldex crank under my hood. Joy, owner "Gilley", and team manager Cheryl Schalm all took great care when building me, and made sure I had all the best equipment. My only regret was never getting the chance to know former manager Russell Wainscott, who was such an important member of the team for so many years. I thought I looked pretty good in Joy's famous No. 1 and school bus yellow paint, but he was never known for having beautiful cars, just really fast ones. Joy even had that cartoon character from the comic strip "Crankshaft" painted on my side. "Gilley" always hated that "Crankshaft" guy, but everyone else seemed to like it a lot. I knew I was probably never going to win any ‘Best Appearing Car" awards, but another driver, Rick Sheppard, hurt my feelings when he said "You better have a tetanus shot whenever you go near one of Fair's cars."
I only raced for two years at Flat Rock Speedway, in 1998 & 1999, before my driver retired, but had a lot of fun. Man, I loved that track. The only thing that made me mad was my last race in 1999 when I got black flagged for a broken brake rotor and was sent to the pits, I tried to tell them it wasn't broke, but the officials wouldn't listen to me. Fair stuck up for me when he drove me up to the flag stand after the race to tell them they were wrong and told me not to move until they apologized to us. Those officials were so mad at us, they even called the sheriff out, but I would not budge. Track owner Ron Drager was a real stand up guy and apologized for doing us wrong, but Joy was so mad he decided that would be our last race together and it was time to finally retire.
Ron Drager and ARCA organized a real nice retirement ceremony for us at Toledo Speedway in September, 1999 for our last final lap together with a lot of Joy's friends and fellow competitors in attendance like Jim Bickerstaff, Danny Byrd, and his former driver and good friend, Joe Ruttman. ARCA retired my No. 1 and my door and hood were put on display in the Toledo Speedway Lounge where they still hang today. I only raced once after that when Joy decided to race me with driver Brian Norton in the hope someone might buy me. These days, now that Joy is retired from racing, I just sit around in Pontiac hoping some young driver buys me and gets me back out on the track again. I beg you; if any of you young drivers are interested please call Fair's Garage, so my story can continue.
