Forum: Racing From The Past (go)
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Question to the ole timers older than 60 I'm guessing. Was Enid Speedway in Enid Oklahoma a 1/2 mile track prior to 1972?? Was it totally redesigned at some point in the late 60's very early 70's (71)? Was there always a horse track around the speedway?

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

I first attended a race at the Garfield County Fairgrounds in Enid in the late 1960s. The racetrack then was no more than a 3/8 mile. It was flatter and rounder (more circular) then than it was in the 1970s. I do not remember the horse track either being there or not being there in the 1960s. I just don't recall.

I attended the Winter Nationals in 1971. I remember the year for certain as that was the year that of the Lies accident east of Enid. I had gone down U.S. highway 81 that morning or I might have come up on that which, of course, I am glad that I did not. The racetrack at that time was a nicely banked 3/8 with a single strand high of Armco barrier around the outside from the beginning of the front straightaway to the end of the back straight away. It was referred to as a hub rail as it was all too easy to get a car up onto, or even over it. A famous photo of Ken Sweet jumping out of a burning supermodified was taken by Jerry Leep on the front straightaway just out of the fourth turn when that hub rail was in place. That photo took up the entire front cover of NSSN the following week. There was no rail around turns 3 and 4 and one could drive off of those turns if they needed to but, due to the banking, it was a pretty rough hump to get over just to go off into the "giggle weeds". The horse track was in place around the outside of the racetrack in 1971 but since it was much longer than the car track, one was still on the infield of the horse track if they did drive off of turns 3 and 4 of the car track.

I competed in the Winter Nationals in both 1975 and 1976. The racetracks (both horse and car) were essentially the same those years as they had been back in 1971. By 1975, the hub rail had been removed from the front straightaway and started at the beginning of turn 1. A short concrete wall had replaced the hub rail down the back straightaway by then. The Winter Nationals were run in the daytime in 1975 and 1976 yet there was very little dust! It was the best racing surface that I ever drove on. It was dry slick yet there was good traction. I remember Mel Montgomery running up in the "goof balls" then and he was even getting good traction up there. It felt to me as though I was running on an interstate highway. You knew that you were going much faster than it felt like you were but it didn't feel very fast at all. I've discussed that surface with several other drivers over the years and most agree that they never drove on a better one.

The book, "America's Speedways Past and Present" by Allan E. Brown (2003) states that the Enid Motor Speedway at the Garfield County Fairgrounds in Enid has been a 3/8 mile dirt track from August 23, 1948 until the present although it has been known by several different names during that time. If anyone doesn't have that book in your personal library, I certainly recommend that you make it a priority to get a copy.

Unfortunately, I have not returned to the Enid racetrack since 1976 so I can tell you little about today's racetrack except that I have been told that the great racing surface of the 1970s is just a memory.

Bob Lawrence

"Stay between the fences and don't scratch the paint 
above the windows"

Ok, they took the roundness out of the track to accomodate the horse track in front of the grandstands. I'm 100% sure the pics I'm looking at from Enid in 66 on FB, the cars are within 10 or so feet of that wall and pipe fence in front of the grandstand. When in the 70's it was a good 100 feet to the edge of the track and there was a drop off from the track to the horse track.

Warren Vincent
Cans 4 Kansas Heroes

I was at the fair race and the NCRA nationals in 1975 at Enid and saw one of the coolest thing ever. I don't remember which race it was but the start was messed up and Walt in his 98 had nowhere to go so he just went straight down the horse track turned around and came back to the track and lined up for the restart. If that happened at Tulsa it would have been a bad wreck into the wall. I thought that was pretty nice to have an escape road.

Ray

Warren is correct. There was a drop off between the car track and the horse track. That was because the front straightaway on the car track had banking too. The horse track was probably level with the very inside of the front straightaway on the car track. A driver had to negociate that drop off to use the horse track for an excape road but I saw it done a few times.

At the fairgrounds in Oklahoma City, they often utalized the pit return road as an escape road as it went around the outside of the racetrack beginning at the end of the front straightaway. I remember a false start in the feature once when half the field took the pit road, half the field stayed on the racetrack and Dale Parsons tried to split the difference. He hit the end of the hub rail between the racetrack and the pit road and took a very nasty tumble.

"Stay between the fences and don't scratch the paint 
above the windows"