Forum: Oklahomatidbits.com General Forum (go)
Moderators:  /  David Smith Jr

I know this is old news to some of you,but what is on the land where Tulsa Speedway was at Hwy 75 & 66th St north of Tulsa,near Owasso ?? I have been away several months . It brings up another question,what is setting on the land that places like Goldsby and other tracks from the past were ?? Thanks

Tulsa Speedway is still there all the facility, stands, buildings, lights and the clay track with guardrails and fending. Lease is $40,000 per year with a 5 year agreement.

The track at Dewy is still there, you can see the guardrail during the winter months when the grass is gone.

Track up at Vera is stll there, but there is a house on the outside of the turn two.

Dr. Deans track up at Foyil Oklahoma is still there, lights and fencing. The old clubhouse is now a bar and a small bait shop grocery store. It was called Thunderbird Park when Dr. Dean operated it.

Salina High Banks is complete and up for sale, as is Xtreme World MX in Tulsa. I heard the prices were 1.5 Million for Salina and $350,000 for Xtreme World.

If the city of Muskogee approved the sale, the old 1/2 mile Thunderbird Speedway is scheduled for repair and may be in operation by next season, or as early as August. Google that info for the latest.

Texas World Speedway is also for sale asking 16 Million for it.

I've looked for Goldsby but couldn't find it. Was there a small airstrip right across the road from it?

I remember Goldsby and I think it was on the south side of the Interstate.

We got Taft stadium that is still standing. I remember playing John Marshel there in football and looking for the outline of the track if you looked hard enough you coud see it. Everyone thought I was nuts when I told them that they use to race cars in that stadium.

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands 
in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he 
stands at times of challenge and controversy." 
Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Erich Petersen 

Noise and parking problems ended the Midgets at Taft.

SMILIE v. TAFT STADIUM BD. OF CONTROL
1949 OK 42
205 P.2d 301
201 Okla. 303
Case Number: 33348
Decided: 03/08/1949
Supreme Court of Oklahoma

0 1. NUISANCE - Midget automobile race track in residential district not nuisance per se.
A midget automobile race track located in a residential area is not a nuisance per se.
2. SAME - When noise accompanying lawful business or pursuit constitutes a nuisance.
Where noise accompanies an otherwise lawful business or pursuit, whether such noise is a "nuisance" depends on the nature of locality, on degree of intensity and disagreeableness of the sounds, on their times and frequency, and on their effect, not on peculiar and unusual individuals but on ordinary, normal reasonable persons of the locality.

"8 Plaintiff offered evidence establishing that patrons of the races parked their cars on the streets in front of the homes of persons residing in the neighborhood of the stadium; that such parking partially blocked traffic on such streets and that cars traveling in opposite directions could not pass each other while the cars were so parked. Several witnesses also testified that on various occasions patrons of the races parked their cars in such manner as to block their driveways. Evidence was also offered by the plaintiff tending to establish that the maintenance of the race track damaged the property of those living near the stadium in that it materially decreased the value thereof."

Wonder if they would of complained about crowd noise, PA Noise or parking issues had it been a major Friday night Football Game? LOL

Try driving through the neighborhoods surrounding the Tulsa University Skelly Stadium during a football game!

Good thing the neighbors surrounding the Indianapolis Speedway did not have the same powers years ago.

Races at Tulsa Speedway #2 at the Expo Square Tulsa Fairgounds fell to the complaints filed by Gloria Huckabee.

That would have been great to watch some of those races at Taft. It used to be a stop right before the guys that were racing an Indy would go to.

What brought this up to me was driving to work one day & I noticed the disappearance of Motorcycle Raceway @SE59th & Douglas. What became of all the talk of a race track out there around Draper Lake ??

Few years back story has it that David Eubanks sold his lease on the property that was Motorcycle Raceway to Chan Baker of Baker Boys Yamaha.  I believe the property was taken back over by the US Air Force as part of Tinker Air Force Base.  Reads as if they were the landlords all the time.   

http://www.chuckballphotos.com/art2.asp

What finally killed racing at Taft was the cars getting too fast. That lawsuit was brought by a land developer and some business associates who were trying to sell housing tracts just north of Taft. Ka-ching$$$$ The midgets were bounced out for one year by the school board, which owns Taft, but the school board was not getting any of the proceeds from the racing. They were all going back to upkeep and maintenance of the Stadium, so what did the school board care?

The lawsuit ultimately failed in court. The judge ruled the noise would not cause undue problems for any reasonable person, and his decision was upheld by the state supreme court. However, huge mufflers were mandated for the midgets after that. Speaking of old race tracks, the old east side fairgrounds saw a lot of action while Taft was closed...it's now under the new Douglas High, I guess. Anyway, stock cars ran at Taft for years until they simply started getting too fast for the narrow Taft track and Bud Carson moved them from part time at the Fairgrounds to full time. I'm sure the parking situation was part of it, too, once they built the new high school across the street.

Hmm hadn't heard of the Foyil track. What years was it in operation ?? Anyone remember the Sallisaw,Ok track??Think it ran mid 60s till mid 70s

"Back to the Drive"

Would love to see that Dewey track again.

"I'd pay $15 to watch a sprint car sit still."

As an Okie race fan I find these stories fascinating. What would be cool is if some of ya'll could get together and write all this stuff down and maybe David make a Oklahoma track history page or something? Pictures of the old tracks could be scanned and included. I guess I'm dreaming cause I know everyones busy as heck, but man, it sure would be cool.

. 

You might try getting a hold of Janelle Flatt. Her dad and Gary's dad use to race out there at Taft. I've seen quite a few good pics that she had.

If anyone is interested in some great midget photos from Taft and Tulsa, punch in

http://winfield.50megs.com/seago/floyd_seago.htm and be prepared to spend some time. Historian Bob Lawrence has put together pages of photos taken by Floyd Seago in the 40's and '50's, when he was the flagman, photographer, car owner and what have you at Tulsa. Great stuff from Taft, the old Fairgrounds, Tulsa, then Indianapolis.

By the way, anyone remember the track at Guthrie?

Good old memories.

I only went to Dewey once but it was one of the greatest races I've ever seen. Shane in his second sprint car drive in the 1N against The Ohio Traveler, Rick Ferkel (for you youngsters, Ferkle was"King of the Outlaws when they really WERE outlaws). Shane was all over Ferkel for 35 laps. He even put a slide job on him and got ahead until the next turn. Great race.

Vera. I heard Dutch talking about racong at Vera and I thought I would try it out the next week. Shoulda called first. Drove 130 miles to find they had changed classes and were running minisprints.

Almost the same thing at Ringling, the 3 cornered track. I won the feature one week and we went back a couple of weeks later to find they had given up and weren't racing any more.

Woodford. A nice track after the sun goes down and it isn't blindong you all the way down the back straight. I drove Stanley's 1s there one night. We had a good time and finished second and went home. Found out later the winner was disqualified and we won.

There were two Goldsby tracks. The old one was accross the road from the "new" one. Before I started racing I went to Goldsby one night with Scott Carson. He won the heat. They put him in the B for some reason and he won that. Then he won the A. They paid him $51 and all the hotdogs we could eat.

Then of course, ther were the two Ada tracks, Echo Valley and the big one.

Two tracks I never went to were the two tracks at Woodward. They were big in the oil boom days.

Spivey, now that is cool. You know from being a veteran on this message board that I love to read that stuff. Please keep it up, miss seeing you post on here.

Galen, that link is EXACTLY what I had been looking for. I wanted somehow to have a picture of what the old fairgrounds at Douglas High School looked like as much as possible and even though it showed turns three and four, I get the idea. When did the covering come off the grandstands as it wasn't on there for the Douglas High School football games?

As far as Taft is concerned, I have that tape from 1959 so there is no guessing what that track looked like. And to make AMP happy, yes they did let the jalopies just sit there on the track when they crashed.

When I came home from Dodge City a couple years ago, I stopped there where they ran at the park. Wasn't much for guardrails when I was there but you could still see the dirt for the track. The infield is now converted to for a rodeo. What amazes me is that there is at least eight modified drivers from Woodward and their closest track to race at is Enid.

David Smith Jr.
www.oklahomatidbits.com

I would also like to see pix of the old Fairgrounds track. I've heard t was pretty deadly.

I remember sitting at the Roundup Cafe listening to Dutch, D E Suggs, Bob Brotherton, George McAlister, etc. talking about the olden days. There were tracks on NW Highway and Council (it was described to me as going uphill and downhill but I can't picture it), Elmwood Park (an amusement park on south Shields), and one at NE 23rd and Eastern (MLK) called Devil's Bowl.

I also remember talking to Roy Coleman at his shop on NE 23rd. Roy was the Wendell Scott of Oklahoma. He ran Chevy 6 cylinders and hand ground his own cams on a grinding wheel. I've been told his engines had a distinctive exhaust note and I believe it.

Someone should write this stuff up before we lose more oldtimers. Uh, Galen?

I was in the first Pro-Stock feature at Woodford. I finished 2nd because third place crashed and I couldn't get around first. 3 cars and 1 was a 6-cyl. modified. Guess what I was in?

Echo Ranch Raceway

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