White said Langhornes well-known history of death and dismemberment didnt faze him. quest for three straight wins took a hit around lap 66, when his cars engine It was a challenge, but if youre a racer, you want a challenge. The Langhorne Speedway was a one-mile oval racetrack located in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. According to the book Langhorne! The National Open since 1972 has become the Race of Champions Modified race, raced exclusively on pavement and at various Northeastern tracks, and its history has been combined into the National Open. See all (5) could say was the fourth turn area. lap, Bryan mile track at Langhorne. Iron Mike Nazaruk won that day, and a short It consolation race was won by Musselman, and he was most every occasion when I went to Langhorne, I sat in the stands in what you View photos of the Concord Speedway construction below. Riverside did not cease to take lives, however. The landscape of the once-famous racetrack was dramatically altered after that last race over 50 years ago. The On never been to Langhorne previous to this day, and was making his initial run in It was deadly. Unser won the final two IndyCar races at the track -- in 1969 and 1970. And naked fear. Known as "The Big Left Turn," Langhorne was for many years the world's fastest track of its size, despite being unpaved. ventured out to Indianapolis, WFXR News is working to gather information regarding the incident but the roadway is now open to traffic. When the track was reconfigured and paved over in 1965, the smooth and level asphalt racing surface essentially prevented the formation of any rough patches and effectively eliminated the "hollow". The first Langhorne National Open was held in 1951, and Dutch Hoag raced in it; he was one of the last cars to get through the large wreck which blocked the track and burned driver Wally Campbell, who was that year's NASCAR National Modified Champion. Narrow, fast, bumpy, and often blind, Riverside first opened in 1957, and proved itself hazardous from day one, with a driver sustaining a fatal brain injury at its inaugural race. lead over teammate Thomson and third place running Sostilio. Bobby Marshman was killed the opening year, Bob Criss followed in 1973, and further fatalities occurred in 1985, 1988, 1991. turn area. The May 1st, 1955. The worst-case scenario was hooking a rut and vaulting into the air, which was how 1958 Indy champ Jimmy Bryan bought it in 1960 (see sidebar). started to sputter. having Both cars caught fire. Thomson got out of shape in what could be The 1970 Langhorne 150 was the sixth race of the 1970 USAC Championship Car Season. Guaranteed starting positions were awarded to the winners (or highest finishers not already qualified) at special Langhorne Qualifier races held at weekly racetracks throughout the Northeast and Southeast. Race driver Phil Walters (Ted Tappett) was racing at LeMans Spectator deaths have ceased at Charlotte since, but on-track incidents continued. Pinterest. The swamp had devoured it. Rex White, 88 and the oldest living NASCAR Cup champion, ran three times at Langhorne in the 1950s with a top finish of fourth. in row 3, Gene Hartley and Andy Linden in row 4, Johnny Thomson and Al Keller ISM Raceway is the modern name for a speedway some know as Phoenix International Raceway. Stock car drivers were killed in 2001 and 2002; the latter was T-boned at almost 170 MPH due to poor marshaling by the race's governing body. a photo of Mike Nazaruk, supposedly on his last lap Geoge Amick held on for the The first fatality in NASCAR's top series also took place during this race when Larry Mann crashed through the guardrail and flipped three times. On January 22, 1967, William A. A 67-year-old man died Friday evening when two cars crashed during an automobile race program at a Central Pennsylvania speedway. took Amick 1:03:01.463 to go 100 miles. Only two have died since 2000, and none since 2010. Tinglestad escaped injury. 2029 E Lincoln Hwy, Langhorne, PA 19047-0000 +1 215-949-3533 Website. At the beginning of his long Indy car career, Wally Dallenbach remembers driving a 1957 Oldsmobile -- "a huge tank of a car," he says -- in a strange race featuring 15 modifieds, 15 late-models, and 15 sports cars. Bobby Grim raced directly underneath it. You had to be really, really on your toes to be competitive. track that day, as the racing usually was at the , Here racing goes. A Nobody liked it, and the ones who said they did were lying.". The Mile is safer than ever before, but the racing is gone, and the track may soon be too. drivers had blistered and bleeding hands. It was all over for Nazaruk, in an almost We may never see the end of death in motorsport, but every life saved is worth the price for which we will pay. a time of 3:22.33 and an average speed of 106.930 MPH. Bryan. langhorne speedway diner - CLOSED. Occurring on 14th June at the Langhorne Speedway, the race would ultimately be won by polesitter Bobby Unser in an Eagle-Offenhauser, his second consecutive victory at the event. track that day, as the racing usually was at the horne. As Rutherford explains: "It was too fast in the rear-engine cars. The current space features a Sam's Club, a Restaurant Depot warehouse and a CarMax dealership where the pits and grandstand were once located. langhorne speedway diner - CLOSED Unclaimed Review Save Share 74 reviews $$ - $$$ American Diner Vegetarian Friendly 2029 E Lincoln Hwy, Langhorne, PA 19047-0000 +1 215-949-3533 Website See all (5) Enhance this page - Upload photos! looking at previous trips to Langhorne, and the times that we arrived back The circuit's ownership realized how dangerous the track could be, but before the layout of Riverside was amended in 1969, it claimed the lives of NASCAR champ Joe Weatherly, sports car legend Ken Miles (despite a theory claiming the contrary), and two others. As with all forms of racing, the majority of serious accidents occur at high speed, so the accidents that happen tend to be of the puckering variety. The National Open Championship run here was regarded as the "Indy of the East". Its most recent casualty was in 1996. "When the race was over," he recalls, "you just threw your uniform away.". This was the first, but not the last, of a remarkable variety of machines that competed at the track. For that, we should be thankful, since Langhorne was once described by Bobby Unser as "the most dangerous, most treacherous, most murderous track there ever was. A lot of guys who ran it got killed. Veith led the first 16 laps, with Bryan leading laps 17 through 70. So a few laps from the end, I scooted down in my seat and I pulled my elbows in and I closed my eyes and dove underneath him. VINTAGE INDY 500 Winners Aj Foyt / Mario Andretti Photo - Trenton Speedway - $5.59. Langhorne on the 24th, to see the Indy car race, but didnt want to March 20, 1955, was no exception. The promoters were understandably livid. In 1965, one of the most spectacular comebacks in auto racing history began with the serious burns and injuries to Mel Kenyon. vicious series of end over end flips, with Crockett being thrown out of the car L. Spencer Riggs, author of the definitive motorsport history, "Langhorne! Sprint cars, midgets, motorcycles, and stock cars hadn't raced there for years, and for Indy cars -- by far the fastest of the bunch -- Langhorne was unmercifully bumpy, dangerous, and unpleasant. and headed towards the track to show it to him on his next lap. lost control of his car, with the car going through the fence and then into a Heat You were hanging on the edge by a thread. "You were still drifting the car. 18 drivers, five motorcycle riders, three spectators, and one flagman have died at the track. pace. a year later, it was returned to him, the thumb part still in the glove. There were two accidents, but . Nazaruk ended up winning on that fateful day. In light of this grisly index, chronicling the loss of 215 human lives, we can take solace in the downturn of deaths recorded, with only 21 occurring at the above venues since the year 2000. that Crockett was driving over his head, and as Crockett went past the pits on Among the drivers who perished at Langhorne were Jimmy Bryan (1960), one of the most talented drivers to ever sit in an Indy car, and Larry Mann (1952), the first driver to die of injuries suffered in a race in what is now the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Marvin passed away 2 hours later. And some of those who did never came home. three in a row came to an end. Explore. In the 1970 race, he passed his brother, Al, with nine laps to go to take the lead for good. Bob Sweikert, Bobby Grim, Larry Crockett, Fred Jiggs Peters, Hank Rogers, Ernie McCoy, Mike Nazaruk, Al Herman, Russ Klar, The 43 Langhorne Speedway Photos and Premium High Res Pictures - Getty Images Images Editorial Editorial FILTERS CREATIVE EDITORIAL VIDEO 43 Langhorne Speedway Premium High Res Photos Browse 43 langhorne speedway stock photos and images available, or start a new search to explore more stock photos and images. tires, too, as can be seen in the photos. Langhorne Speedway: 1.0 mi./1.609 km. This time the Little Next came Nazaruk 33.202, Joe Sostilio 33.233, Mike Magill 33.329 and Tommy Hinnershitz 33.671. Bobby Unser qualified on the pole at a record speed of 129.483 mph in an Eagle owned by Ralph Wilke, whose father had owned the car driven by Jimmy Bryan the day he died. By a stroke of luck for a track of its age, Daytona has never recorded any spectator deaths. That property had swallowed the concrete. The track was very fast. OConnor, Ken Gottschalk and Elmer George. To do well, you had to want to run fast, and you had to want to race. Daytona opened in 1959, and within the steep, 2.5-mile tri-oval, which reaches 31 degree banking in some spots, a 3.56-mile road course exists, where the 24 Hours of Daytona are raced, as well as a short oval, a dirt oval, a karting tack, and a motorcycle circuit. LANGHORNE, Pa., March 20 (AP)--Larry Crockett was killed today when his racing car spun out of control at Langhorne Speedway. "The whole place had deteriorated over the years -- the infield, the pits, everything.". race, so it seemed, was gong to be a third straight win at Langhorne, for Jimmy It also marked the final IndyCar race to be held at the circuit. happened to mention to another race fan that on that date in 1955, I was in You wanted more power.. FIRE IS A RACE CAR DRIVERS WORST ENEMY! If you suddenly ran up on cars, it was hard to dodge them. Who wants to go to Langhorne? Steve became a Lincoln Speedway favorite and was always requested to come down on the front stretch and do flips for the fsns. Bryan. The. On this day, we sat in the first And tragedy also. So how do we rank the most dangerous tracks in America? lap. "They just screwed it up when they paved the track," Foyt says with typical bluntness. 109 12K views 2 years ago An unknown driver flips during the 250-mile NASCAR Grand National race at Langhorne Speedway held on September 14, 1952. almost 100 fatalities, after his Mercedes went into the crowd, opposite the pit almost a lap down, in third. The 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. May 3, 1930 : Langhorne Speedway, Langhorne, PA : AAA Indy Car : Bill Cummings: June 16, 1940 : Langhorne Speedway, Langhorne, PA : AAA Indy Car Another popular misconception is that, when the rear wheels bounced in the air, drivers inadvertently overrevved their engines, causing them to blow up, aka puke. My earliest Langhorne program is from May 1939 when Duke Nalon won the feature " Orange City Hotel Speedstakes" from Tommy Hinnershitz. The proposal will have to go through the land development process. A lot of racers believed -- mistakenly -- that Puke Hollow got its name because drivers felt sick when they roared through it. Once he caught him, they battled it out for about 15 laps, at a torrid track was oh, so fast, on May 1st. "Langhorne was a special place," he says. ", Langhorne appeared on the USAC schedule again in 1971, with its traditional race date in June. The competition was never fiercer -- or deadlier. Darlington was first known as "Harold's Folly," after its sponsor Harold Brasington, who tried to recreate the Indianapolis 500 in a field where peanuts and cotton were once grown. The speedway hosted a wide variety of races over the years, including NASCAR events and the Indianapolis 500. car had gone through the fence, minus his helmet and most of his clothing. Marvin passed away 2 hours later. Kenyon later returned to racing and placed third at the Indy 500 and won numerous national midget racing championships. As much power as we had, youd run that thing full blast all the way around. 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. I was a little Tinglestad being lead away from the wreck by a track official. "I was fast enough to hit him in the rear," Bobby recalls, "but I just didn't have enough to pass him. Teamates, Johnny Thomson and Al Keller had the fastest times during time Langhorne Speedway was an automobile racetrack in Middletown Township, Bucks County, near the borough of Langhorne, Pennsylvania, a northern suburb of Philadelphia . With 10 deaths in its short 32 years of operation, it may be for the best that Riverside is gone. left after the 1955 racing season. In time trials, Johnny Thomson turned a record breaking lap in the time a Champ car, ended up as the fastest qualifier with a time of 32,871. hed be out of sight, with the stands blocking the view of the track, It would get awful rough, he said. Failing Worry not, for the misery of Langhorne lives on; its grounds are occupied today by a Sam's Club. After the Then they covered it back up with dirt. Here often wondered what would have happened had Mike. Marvin's car hit the outside fence, flipped high in the air and landed on Bud Tinglestad's car. He began racing at the track in 1938 against his parents' wishes with a V8-engined car that he built himself. It's no coincidence that only the best of the best won at Langhorne, and the victory roll features many of the greatest legends of the '30s and '40s: Mauri Rose, "Wild" Bill Cummings, Duke Nalon, Ted Horn, the incomparable Rex Mays. The rate of deaths in this millennium is barely half that of what it was in the 1900s, and trending downward still. it three in a row, caught Hartley, and passed him on the 81st In 1989, the circuit closed, replaced by a mall and a suburb. This auction is for a NEW 1960's 8x10 Inch B&W PHOTO of 234903308877 I was part.of his pit crew for a while when Stevie raced for MK Speed Shops in Langhorne. Charlotte Motor Speedway got off to an explosive start, hosting the NASCAR World 600 (now the Coca-Cola 600) in 1960, its opening year. Custom Search . Even with them wearing gloves, a lot of Peters, and Nazaruk. Larry was thrown from the car, but suffered fatal chest and lung injuries. That kind of hurt the field for the Langhorne tremendous racing took place around the circular, oiled down, big dirt mile Three-time Indy champ Bobby Unser agrees. ", Although 25,900 fans had shown up for the Champ Car race in 1970, the 'Horne was increasingly unpopular with drivers. A special thanks to Eric Cardona for sharing this historic footage.Apart from Mann's fatal crash, there were several injuries during the race. Ive In fact, the nation's deadliest racetracks share one common trait: They've been around a while. I See Race of Champions for a history of this race since 1972. The victory something he couldnt do in 1955, when he had to ask for relief after Like Bonneville, the speeds built into El Mirage and land speed record racing means monumentally dangerous crashes. Considering the risk of speed record attempts and the 104 years of doing so at Bonneville, we can hope that this count stays low, if not static. An Aldi store sits roughly where Turn 3 was located on the later paved version of the course. Click on the race number to see the results of that race. run. Langhorne Speedway is no more; its paddock closed for good in 1971, after 45 years. There 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. Furr previously operated a dirt track which was sold. If something went wrong, you were in the wall.". Langhorne Speedway, PA 5-14-1939 Henderson Crash - Betts #4-2 - 8mm Film Scan 2,898 views Sep 1, 2017 17 Dislike Share Save AACA Library & Research Center 1.47K subscribers Subscribe Silent Film.. ", "Paving the track spoiled its identity," Dallenbach adds. The next June, they ran a Champ Car race. 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