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Moderators:  /  David Smith Jr

I've got to admit, this is one of the hardest tasks that I've had. It's perhaps a bit like what a coroner or a crime scene investigator must feel when they have to collect the facts about a friend senslessly cut down in his or her prime. But it's worse in that the murder and mutilation are still going on and I'm powerless to intervene.

I've learned that at least one of the Midwest employees has the horrible task of destroying a place where he'd once raced. I'll try to find out more about this story.

I can understand why most of us would rather remember OUR SPEEDWAY the way it was and not how it is today. Going out there several times a day has become like a leaden weight. It pulverizes my spirit much as the heinous, coward-yellow Komatsu monsters are smashing the reinforced concrete in the infield. For many of those who have invested so much of their lives in the OKC racing community through the weekly series at Fairgrounds Speedway, I cannot even begin to understand how unbearable these awful days must be.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 13: A.M.: Asbestos removal is still ongoing. This seems to be temporarily slowing down demolition of the Grandstand. As of first thing today, the basic structure of the Grandstand was still intact.

They're finishing up with the removal of the stage. From my poor vantage point outside of Turn One, I couldn't tell whether or not they'd taken out the tunnel yet.

The photography platorms in the infield, a few painted tires, and a lone stoplight without any lenses in the Turn Two area are about all that's still recognizable from the racing surface.

Much of the unnecessarily mangled and ravaged scrap has been hauled away.

Of course, you can still see where the 1/2 mile and 3/8ths mile tracks once were, but covered in grass and denuded of their markings and boundaries, they seemed eerily peaceful and detached from the violence and purposeless squander occurring just a few yards away.

I drove over to where the Old Jaycees drag strip once was. In some historic photos, the nearly new Grandstand is the northern backdrop for the strip. I ignored all the new pavement and the wrought iron fences, and if I squinted my eye just right, I could still imagine how it used to be back in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It won't be very long before all that's left of that motorsports "dust and glory" are some fading memories and a few photographs.

I wonder if the calloused, self-absorbed powers-that-be will even provide token recognition of the Speedway with a historical marker. Or will the site become like the Jaycees drag strip -- lost and quickly forgotten in a sea of nondescript blacktop. Will it become just another place to warehouse minivans and SUVs while their indifferent passengers gorge themselves on cotton candy and stultifying midway scams? Will it be just another "profit center" for the enrichment of those who shreaded our meeting place?

In anger and disgust, I slammed my car into gear and ripped a through a couple of brutal shifts in memoriam and tribute to those who'd once consecrated this ground in regular baptisms of raw, unfettered speed. Perhaps such defiance is the best memoral of all.

I found out today that the scoreboard and the lights and poles are located just north of the service station for the fairgrounds. Go across the railroad tracks by the arena and there is a fenced off area just past the rail road tracks on your left. That is where they are putting stuff for that dream of a new track.

David Smith Jr.
www.oklahomatidbits.com

David, I looked in there the other day and I did not see anything. Although, I did not look very hard.

"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 

Friday, August 13, 2010, Afternoon: I visited the dumping ground over near 15th and MacArthur -- one of the "common graves" where Midwest is piling (hiding) the debris from the demolition. The workers dumped semi-trailer after semi-trailer of concrete from the stage and underground garage area while I was there.

Prodigious mountains of concrete, asphalt and an occasional pile of metal dotted the barren, dusty landscape. The noise and bustle of I-40 provided the background accompaniment. The only signs of life were tufts of ragged weeds and the constant dumping of gondolas filled with debris, pushed along by a lone bulldozer.

I thought maybe that I could recognize sections of pipe and guardrail in one of the metal piles, but I wasn't sure. The identity of the debris is already being lost.

The sorting suggests that Midwest will get more revenue by recycling the debris. Who knows? Maybe the metal that ably served generations of racers and racing fans will return to us some day as soup cans, or Tim O'Toole's favorite Toyotas, or Chinese tools. And some say that's progress. I'm not seeing it.

I wondered if anyone would think to set aside any of the concrete and bricks for symbolic incorporation into the imaginary new grandstand? Or even for a monument to the people who made Fairgrounds Speedway great? Probably not.

As I drove out on to MacArthur, I saw what was left of the sign for the MacArthur Park go-kart track. I recalled the days when racing-crazy high schoolers would sometimes burn off adrenalin on Friday nights after the races with a little wheel-to-wheel go-kart action or a few arcade games at MacArthur Park. That probably seemed a little safer than rat-racing their GTOs, Mustangs, and Road Runners on the quiet boulevards of the Westside.

Those days seem as distant now as when USAC put on incredible shows in OKC, or when hardworking mechanics such as "Cooperville's" Paul Shade ran Oldsmobile Cutlass factory stocks with real Oldsmobile engines and OEM body panels.

Oh for the lost days when a young gearhead or two could drag a jalopy out of the junkyard, weld in a used rollcage, build "the motor" out in the driveway, make a few secret tweaks, and then compete for a little slice of glory in front of a big City Fairgrounds crowd. Yet it all ends in an ignominious, common grave of twisted, rusting metal, broken concrete, and shattered dreams next to the river on West 15th Street. What a shame.

Love the Paul Shade comment. My Dad used to work with him at Cooper. He still comes into the store every now and then for advice or to get a few things. Good guy. He helps out with the #14 pro stock now days.

God job dodging my question Boycott.

"They're steering them sum bi***es with their right 
foot!"

Due to nature of distrust with the city officials, many, including myself , are wary of putting our thoughts into the public eye. I don't even live in OkC, yet I do "get" the overt control through "fear" that this administration puts out.

I keep quiet about it most of the time anymore, and if I did get noisy about it, I'd be tempted to stay unnamed too.

If the powers that be are political thugs, then nothing is truly beyond them.

AUGUST 16 A.M: The "old girl" apparently survived the "mayhem" of Saturday night's "6th Annual Midnight Streak."

America's worst mayor, Mick Cornett, and "Jared" (weight-loss "star" of some tiresome Subway Restaurant commercials) were reportedly just a few yards from the demolition crime scene. Mick, Jared and friends were grooving to the sounds of a few freebee bands at the old bandshell across the street from the Grandstand.

Old timers will remember back when good bands used to rock paying crowds in the Grandstand. But the four horses' @$$#$ of the Fairgrounds Apocalypse (Clay Bennett, Mick Cornett, Ann Simank and Tim O'Toole) and other "do-gooders" couldn't allow the historic Grandstand to remain any possible threat of competition to the "Zoo Amp."

Later on Mick and the City Arts Center held a "5k fun run" in support of the Mayor's weight loss initiative. I guess that's what passes for "racing" in OKC these days.

(Ancient joke set-up: What would be the best way for Mick Cornett to lose 20 pounds of ugly fat? Anyone? Anyone?)

On Monday morning, Delta was still removing Asbestos from the office area. Midwest was in the Turn 3 area digging up the support for a light pole. Several trucks and machines sat idle. A couple of old, unused scoresheet forms from the 2009 season and part of a 1978 letter from the American Motorcycle Association were caught on the chain link perimeter fencing.

AUGUST 17 A.M.: Delta Environmental is gone, so the asbestos must be gone as well. Midwest is now removing the blue metal folding-style box seats, starting at the south end.

Actual demolition of the Grandstand structure appears imminent. Pray for rain.

Thanks for the updates Boycott. I havent been able to get by for a few days. Interesting about the free concert. What a bunch of tea sippers. I have never heard of a "fun" run. Sounds like a delightful stick in the eye or an excellent root canal.

Doesn't the human head weigh 20lbs?

"They're steering them sum bi***es with their right 
foot!"

Jeff

Doing some research in the beginning of the year the Grandstand played host to some big bands at one time. Yea it was plyed up big time for awhile about the streak run.

"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 

Doesn't the human head weigh 20lbs?

Depends on whats in its mouth!!! LOL

Flash
New website!!!!!!!!!

www.flashracecarbodies.com

We saw Brooks n Dunn at SFS back in the early '90's. Also, I have a flyer for the Easy Money Band (Toby Keith). They played in the Beer Gardens after the races back in the late '80's. How about the AMA Supercross or flat track races? Man, what a waste!

John Stewart

Retro Racing Custom Model Cars
405.922.6163
[email protected]
Oklahoma City, OK

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/235624429834292#!/pages/Retro-
Racing-Custom-Model-Cars/23562442983429

I might be showing my age now but speaking of bands that have played on the Fairgrounds Speedway stage do any of you guys or gals remember in 1965 when there was an event called "The Battle Of The Bands" featuring two local bands, Jim Edgar And the Roadrunners and The Centuries? The hosts were WKY's Danny Williams, Don Wallace and Johnny Dark. Like John said what a waste. Here is a quote I heard not too long ago that applies to both all the great drivers from The Tulsa Fairgrounds Speedway and Fairgrounds Speedway and both tracks. "Hero's get remembered, but Legends never die". Nobody can never take our memories away except The Great Creator.

Mike

We have a winner . . . .

Guess we should have contacted the people in New York that are building the mosque near Ground Zero. They seem to be a copy of our city leadership that does things no one else wants done.

AUGUST 18, A.M.: This is the day I've been dreading.

The whole lower section of the Grandstand, starting on the South end is disappearing. The blue seats are being destroyed. Twisted rebar and 1950s concrete are no match for the mechanical godzilla that's ripping the place apart at breakneck speed.

Where I used to stand in line for an overpriced drink and a footlong corndog is nothing but rubble and clattering machinery. The concrete stairs that I used to walk down with my grandson (so he could get close to the fence and feel little pellets of tacky mud launched from the racing surface and the massive power of air displaced by a phalanx of winged sprint cars at speed) have been reduced to rubble. The blue steel handrails are being bent like pipe cleaners by a massive CAT bucket excavator.

I suppose most have already moved on. Most have made their peace with this travesty.

But perhaps because I've chosen to witness it, I haven't.

How we rationalize what's happening depends a lot on how we view things in general. My tendency is to see things through a biblical lens (and I apologize in advance to those who do not).

For some reason this morning, while I was watching the disfiguring horror and abject waste, I thought back to decades ago when I used to pray daily a superficial prayer for my childhood hero, Richard Petty, to win Number 201.

That dusty memory was an odd thing to think about today.

Yet the connection seemed to be my forgotten conclusion that God isn't much of a racing fan. I made that rationalization when Petty retired in 1992. There never would be a 201st win. God hadn't answered my selfish, superficial, unimportant prayer.

And now its undeniable that He's not answered our Speedway prayers (at least in the way we'd all hoped).

Perhaps we're even tempted to agree with the cynical psalmist that "It makes me feel sick that the power of the Most High is no longer the same." Psalm 77:10

Those who are strong in biblical rationalizations will be quick to point out that our error is that we've treasured something "where theves can break in and steal" instead of things safely secured in the sweet by and by (Matthew 7:20) They'll quip that our hearts are where our treasure is (Matthew 7:21). Finally, they'll add in healthy doses of "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44), "respect the authorities" (Romans 13:1-3) and "forgive and forget." They'll piously speculate that God was fully justified in allowing Our Speedway to be ruined by our "enemies." Then they'll conclude that we shouldn't really be upset.

Other sanctimonious rationalizers will point out that loss of an "aging" race track really isn't all that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. "It's not starving children, after all." Automobile racing is merely an amusing pastime. It's not like the ORA was "curing cancer" out there. They might even see this as a "correction," motivated by question "why should racing get any favorable treatment from government? "If y'all want a track, use your own money to build one."

Some rationalists will even point to the failure of the racing community to unite and protect what "they" enjoyed as being the real fault in this sad fiasco. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

Somehow, those rationalizations, no matter how accurate, provide little comfort to the grieving.

Then I thought about how some of those Psalmists lamented the demolition of Temple in Jerusalem:

"Turn your steps toward these everlasting ruins, all this destruction the enemy has brought on the sanctuary. . . . They smashed all the carved paneling with their axes and hatchets. . . . They burned your sanctuary to the ground . . . . They said in their hearts, "We will crush them completely!" (Psalm 74)

While Our Speedway was hardly the same thing as "the house of God," the temporary triumph of "evil" over a beloved building is hardly unprecedented. Nor is the pain that such wrongful victory causes.

It seems to be a tendency among some to assign a "profound" meaning to any tragedy and suffering. Anyone with much experience in life realizes this is impossible. Some things happen that just don't make any sense. Perhaps this is one of those events.

If this dont bring a tear to your eye!! A bunch of them! Boycott, you are a writer, have to be!! As much as it hurts to read what you write, I sure am glad you are!! Tip[ my hat to ya!

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, AFTERNOON:

As fifteen or twenty people looked on, the systematic pummeling of Our Grandstand continued at an alarming pace. In just four hours, the entire lower section of the Grandstand was obliterated. What was left had been ripped open from stem to stern.

A massive, tracked CAT bucket loader pounded away at the upper deck. Close to one-sixth of it was already gone. Portions of the canopy dangled at a defeated angle. Huge I-beams jutted out from the rubble, barely recognizable as former supports for the canopy.

A smaller front-end loader, fitted with a long battering ram punched at the front metal cadding. The advertising panels on the front ripped and rippled to the ground.

(I expect by the time I return this evening, even the hated Toyota ad will be gone. In fact, I'll be surprised if the whole Grandstand hasn't been reduced to rubble by "quittin' time" )

The southern end of the upper deck was crashing down in huge chunks. Shattered boulders of concrete hung from tangled rebar in a scene that rekindled horrible recollections of the Murrah building after the bombing. To anyone who has ever spent any time in a war zone, this scene was nauseatingly familiar, except that the awful stench of death thankfully wasn't in the air.

At times, massive clouds of dust obscured the Speedway's obscene final "show." A Midwest vandal squirted a jet of water on the debris and sometimes the relentless bucket. Another worker wailed on the linchpin to the KOMATSU's bucket with a sledgehammer (Apparently, progress was just too slow with one demolition machine). The frenzy of his labor made me recall some of the thrashes in the pits by teams desperately trying to make one of the mains.

What used to be Our Grandstand crumbled as if it were made out of sand under the relentless pounding of the demolition machines. As one section collapsed, it weakened the adjacent remaining parts. The old girl wasn't putting up much of a fight.

The crowd of spectators included a number of OSF personnel in golf carts and work trucks. A few older pickups, some SUVs and the odd minivan or two held other witnesses. There was little interaction, as most viewers seemed to want to view this horrible final event in solitude.

A couple of crews from Performance Electric stood by even after their former home in the Southern end of the Grandstand was no more. A few brave souls watched awful spectacle from the perimeter destruction fence.

A lone television crew (KFOR) shot a little video of the destruction. It was just another "car wreck" for the evening news.

A few more witnesses were taking snapshots of the stomach-turning devastation.

None of the insensitive and incompetent abusers of the public trust appeared to be present to view the results of their mendacious handiwork. I guess they were too busy figuring out the next tax increase or the next insider-controlled corporate welfare giveaway. They've already moved on to their next victims.

Boycott, I may have been to harsh in some earlier post as I was myself trying to come to the realisation of seeing level ground where a Grand Facility with al-lot of History and tons of memories once stood. I am glad that you had the strength and the stomach to give us daily updates. I really tore me apart when I was on site getting what little souvenirs they let us have.

It was very hot that day but the water rolling off my face was not sweat, it was tears. My interview with Channel 4 News did not go well because of emotions, I was not nervous to be in front of the camera, I was just chocked up knowing what was happening. They must have edited out the part where I said our Mayor is a F#&%ing idiot.

Thank you for all of your post, in reality it does help in the healing process. If I don't already know you, I would like to meet you someday. I can appreciate your anninimity and will respect that if we meet.

Allen Crawford

THURSDAY, AUGUST 19 A.M.: The Midwest vandals didn't get as far yesterday as I'd feared. Only about 1/3 of the upper deck was gone by 1900 hrs. (7:00 p.m.) yesterday. Even the Toyota sign remained unscathed. The burgeoning debris piles may have impeded their regress.

The convoy of trucks continue to haul away debris to their unmarked grave. The demoliton machines worked from on-top of the piles, continuing to shred chunks of reinforced concrete from the upper deck, working relentlessly toward the middle. The pressbox still stood unsecured and unscathed, but its moments were clearly numbered.

A few bits from the rubble were still recognizable. A mangled piece of railing from our beloved monorail platform jutted up in defiance. A collection of ruined canopy support beams had been assembled on what was the front straightaway. But most of what was in the piles had been disfigured beyond recognition.

The crowd was larger this morning. And more congregated. For some, it's easier to share the heartbreak in small groups. Still there is a frigid emptiness in the pit of my stomach watching such systematic evil being played out in graphic noxiousness.

As I watched the big CAT and KOMATSU visit their insane, wasteful mayhem on OUR GRANDSTAND, I wondered what sort of thoughts go through the mind of someone operating one of those monster machines.

As the closest analogue, I briefly recalled my days working on constructing Coors Field in Denver. Back then, I was mostly concentrated on doing my job well (and not violating some stupid union rule). But I couldn't help but occasionally think about all the fathers, sons, mothers and daughters who would form so many wonderful family memories in the place I was helping construct. As I worked in the locker rooms or the dugouts, my mind would sometimes drift to the athletic greatness that would soon be trodding this same ground.

When we were finished with the stadium, I felt the inevitable pride of having a small, unknown part in constructing a community monument: A shrine for the ages, designed to showcase a storied form of human excellence. I felt that I had done something that would be a blessing for generations living and yet unborn.

English thinker John Ruskin (1819-1900) may have had similar thoughts when he penned "THE BUILDER'S CREED;"

"When we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not be for present delight, nor for present use alone; Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for; and let us think, as we lay stone on stone, that a time is to come when those stones will be held sacred because our hands have touched them, and that men will say as they look upon the labor and wrought substance of them, 'See this our fathers did for us.'"

As the demolition monsters turned Our Grandstand into pulverized bits of waste, I wondered about what the DEMOLISHER'S CREED would look like? What would we program into Mick Cornett's teleprompter to explain the degrading work of destroying generations of effort in a few moments?

Perhaps it would be something like this:

We destroy because we can! History and tradition be damned! When we demolish, let us savor that we ruin and pillage forever. Let it be for present delight and current gratification alone. Let us not pay any mind to our descendants. And let us think, as we crush and mangle stone from stone, that the time has past when these stones have any meaning or value beyond what we earn from them as scrap, and that people will say as they look upon our labor and the wrought substance of the wreckage, See how faithfully they've served their elite, hypocritical masters.

I wonder if some future day, the vandals will drive past a future parking lot at the fairgrounds and proudly tell their grandchildren that they "took down" that "obsolete" speedway? I suppose not. For those who destroy create no monuments. They construct no shrines. They enable no generations of memories. They can look forward to no historic feats of excellence. All they do is carry out what some myopic snakes have deem is trash. I pity the inherent emptiness of their chosen vocation.

Yet the shameful demolition continues unabated.

I guess the conspirators who brought her down must be really proud now. The fairgrounds is now safe for the disabled! No one has the "indignity" of having to watch a race or show without 55 Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant wheelchair "seats" interspersed (not congregated) throughout the Grandstand!

As I saw a spectator's car today with a "handicap" hangtag, I wonder if Clay Bennett, Mick Cornett, Ann Simank, Tim O'Toole, Gurnsey HOK Sport, Judge Dan Owens, James Lawson and Access Now, Inc., or the clueless Oklahoma City Council had explained how the demoliton was for the disabled driver's own good?