Although Salem says technicians inspect cars, Mayden, a former driver there, says cars drove often with deficient parts -- especially in the lower classes. Fencing, maybe, or car safety. We want all of our events to be big shows. A naturally gifted mechanic, he frequently won street races throughout the East Bay. in the driveway beside the vacant house. Why, after not eating solids for two weeks because she choked on a grape at school, did Lindsey suddenly want chicken? Bob Sweikerts death in an auto race last June was reflected "My stamina's not what it should be. Required fence heights for oval track bleachers vary from 9 to 15 feet, according to insurance company representatives. They are. Toll Free: (800) 876-7811, Salem Speedway has new ownership for 2023, Two conservation uses for live-cut Christmas trees, Family Of Coaching: Hausers Moorhead is third generational coach in his family, Hall-of-Famer, NFL executive talks to North students, Prep sports notebook: Stahl named to IBCA Supreme 15. The good drivers werent immune. Always open. Drivers competing at Indy during those years were credited with World Championship points and participation. They were joined by Myron Weinberger, 221 East 70th and the winner of the 1955 Indianapolis Motor Speedway classic and had built They settled in Indiana, to be close to the Speedway where Sweikert hoped to race and win. Why did Lindsey want to sit in the infield that night instead of Turn 1 or 2, where she and mother always sat? You have permission to edit this article. Gil was a popular Cincinnati, Ohio driver who ran regularly in the area before joining the United States Auto Club sprint car circuit. Racing close with Elisian, both cars pushed high. From age 16 Sweikert worked after school as a mechanic at the local Ford dealership in Hayward. He walked over to his father`s car, looked in and then walked away. Six days before, on Sept. 4, 1993, the family spent Saturday night as usual -- at the 81 Speedway, a three-eighths-mile clay oval at the north end of town where Paul Dutton raced sprint cars. Added to the dangerous equation were tracks of all variety that drivers had to tackle in order to reach their primary destination Indianapolis. Vogler was declared the winner when officials decided not to complete the the 30-lap event. Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. Current NASCAR Stars Chase Elliott, Christopher Bell, Erik Jones and Mitchells own Chase Briscoe have also competed on the High Banks while advancing their careers. Not all would race The Hills. Six-time Indy 500 entrant Jimmy Reece refused, calling it the idiot circuit., For most drivers, the Midwest sprint car series was a necessary proving ground. Josh, 9, and Amanda, 7, sat in the grandstand with their mother, their grandparents and 5-year-old brother, Justin. In Charlotte, speedway officials made no changes in the 10 months after the Michigan wreck, then raised their fences from 15 to 21 feet after their own open-wheel racing accident. This car ran right smack into the cement wall between the track and the pits, and back in the50s, youd have known that young man was dead, she recalled. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. I saw him coming out of the fourth turn, he and Ed up so high, Dorie Sweikert said. pool and its lure for children. RACE CAR driver Bob Sweikert celebrates his win in the 1955Indianapolis 500 with his wife, Dorrie. The "It could have been a nightmare," the track's owner said then. Too late for his daughter, and for his marriage, which lasted almost five years before bowing to the weight of Lindsey's memory. About. A good Sunday was when every driver cheated death and went home alive.. Sweikert finished sixth at Indianapolis the following May, but then died weeks later, at age 30, in 1956 after crashing a Sprint car at Salem Speedway. Get Morning Report and other email newsletters. Vogler's helmet flew off his head and he suffered severe head injuries that proved to be fatal. Veda wrote many racing articles. Drivers wore helmets basically made of reinforced cardboard and T-shirts soaked in Borax. There was kind of a machismo attached to it. Sweikert was born in Los Angeles, California. On July 5th, 1970, he was driving for Mauri Amerling, at the Salem, Indiana speedway when. It was a time before safety thats just the way it was, said Steven Levinson, a semi-retired attorney and amateur auto racing historian, who grew up in Indianapolis in the 1940s and 50s. Sam was sitting on the driveway, at the bottom of the water. Street Funeral Home. That was Bobs favorite of the half-mile tracks, Dorie Sweikert said. A grim reminder of the darkness of the board-track era of the 1920s. Bohanon, a Southern Indiana native, has raced on the famous High Banks of Salem Speedway and looks forward to shaping the tracks future. rescue squad rushed to the pool. He is thankful only that Lindsey had her back to the track when the tire bounced toward her. 2980 N. National Road, Suite A, Columbus, IN 47201, Main Switchboard: (812) 372-7811 Tomlinson and his wife, who is expecting her third child in You didnt talk about it, Jim Rathmann, winner of the 1960 Indy 500, said of the specter of death that loomed over auto racing in those days. Sweikert's mother, Grace, often visited Bob's firstborn until Grace died. He would have raced, anyway.. Newspapers.com makes these newspapers available for the purpose of historical research, and is not responsible for the content of any newspapers archived at our site. Italics Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. Log In. To get to Indy, Sweikert had to challenge what were known collectively as The Hills tracks that comprised the Midwest sprint car circuit. Finishing first among the survivors was a young driver from Pittsboro, Indiana, named Jeff Gordon. SALEM Former USAC Midget racer Nick Bohanon has taken over ownership of the iconic Salem Speedway Fueled by the Hoosier Lottery, located in Salem, Indiana. Just 12 days after Sweikerts bitter-sweet win at Indianapolis, the sport suffered its worst tragedy when a car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France went off the track and into the crowd, killing 80 spectators. Usually, his mother and his sons appear at the annual fund-raiser. I wanted what he wanted, she said. "It was," he said, "nobody's fault.". She spent after-school hours at her father's Sellersburg, Ind., body shop and weekends with her mother at nearby Salem Speedway, watching her dad and uncle race. His mother had married his stepfather, an electrician for the state of California, when Bob was an infant. He learned to race on go-karts at age 9, graduated to stock cars as an adult. James Tomlinson, 5 years old, and Anthony Tomlinson, 3, lost Others ignore signs urging people away from the 4-foot chain-link fence separating the pits from the track. There in high school Bob met his future wife, Dorie.[2]. Report: Houston is the No. 1,476 check-ins. While completing the third lap, Sweikert was running near the outside wall in 4th place, side by side with his past teenage East Bay streets rival, Ed Elisian, in 5th. We will keep the other local divisions that have been running at the track and plan to continue to bring in some additional outside touring series to keep fans interested in coming to all our events. IRS delays tax deadline for Bay Area, but California hasnt followed: What should you do? Sweikert's car, on the outside, brushed a piece of metal . "We don't want the legal system to say, `You approved this car inspection thing.' In 2008, the viewing party was moved to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, where 1996 scholarship recipient Ryan Newman won the aforementioned race. Even his victory in 1955 was muted by sadness when Bill Vukovich, a friend and the two-time defending Indy champ, crashed on the 56th lap and was killed. Salem has, however, put up a new fence separating the infield from the pits. Vogler, leading the race at the time, was running alone when he crashed coming off the high-banked fourth turn. After a complicated, sometimes off-and-on courtship, they were married in 1953. Handsome, charismatic, courageous, smart, successful, and on top of the world, Sweikerts life ended in tragedy when his yellow No. Im really excited about acquiring Salem Speedway and looking forward to what the future entails for this historic track, Bohanon said. . Mike Harrington: His team looks good, even without Alex Tuch. Five-time USAC midget champion Rich Vogler was killed Saturday night after his car crashed during a feature sprint-car race at Salem Speedway of which he was later declared the winner. In 1947, Sweikert met his first wife, Marion Edwards, at a party at UCLA. There was always the darkness the thing about Vukie.. The Winston Cup season leader easily beat Schrader's 157.219 mph in qualifying Friday. The crash happened about 40 minutes earlier. When the cheerleading coach broke the news to Katrina Kohel that she was the only one left on the cheer squad, Kohel was determined to compete anyway. It had been there in my head and in my heart for a long time, she said. Try 7 Days Free to get access to 836 million+ pages, 1949_07_25 -2 Drivers Killed at Salem Speedway- Louisville Courier-Journal pg 1 (1 of 2), Search the Largest Online Newspaper Archive. A racecar moves around the track at Salem Speedway. He was leading the race at the time, when his car crashed with just over a lap to go. [2] A thunderstorm had ripped the roof off the grandstands and fences were damaged. The car hit the guardrail and destroyed a section of protective fencing near the grandstand. Carol Ann Williams. There are improvements that I want to make to the pavement, the pit area, lighting, infield concessions, infield restrooms and the scoreboard. win at Indy, Vuky, who was leading when he crashed, would have been tough to On the first lap of the first race held at Salem, on June 22, 1947, Clay Corbitt locked wheels with Jack Schultz, went over the banking and was killed. After Sports Illustrated put Sweikert on the cover of its May 28, 1956, issue, he wound up sixth in the race. "It kind of catapulted into the sky," Cindy Dutton remembers. Built in 1946/47, the. Sacks had the pole at Daytona but was knocked out of the race in a first-lap crash that damaged 25 cars. Nobody planned this tragedy, he told them. Most race fans don't. ), Complete USAC Mini-Indy (Formula Super Vee) Results, Last edited on 28 September 2022, at 18:41, Biography at the Rich Vogler Memorial Scholarship Fund, Driver profile Chili Bowl Midget Nationals, NASCAR Statistics at racing-reference.info, NASCAR Winston Cup results from July Pocono race, Rich Vogler Memorial Scholarship Fund webpage, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rich_Vogler&oldid=1112909876, This page was last edited on 28 September 2022, at 18:41. Sweikert, who graduated from Hayward High in 1944, won the Indy 500 at age 29, the first and only Bay Area racer to capture the event. His father Donald Vogler died in a midget car accident at the Indianapolis Speedrome on May 1, 1981. "I ask myself every night if something could have been different," Mayden says. During 1947 Sweikert began mailing monthly accounts of his life to Veda Orr, through April 1956. Vogler, who was leading the event at the time and was about to take the white flag signaling one lap to go, hit head on with the turn 4 wall, violently throwing tires, Vogler's helmet, and other pieces of Vogler's car all over the track. 1 sprint car, just one year after he won the worlds most famous race, tumbled over the turn one wall at Salem Speedway. For Dorie Sweikert, the loss never really went away. Still others, inured by lap after lap of fan-friendly racing -- and unaware that almost one fan a month on average is killed or seriously injured on U.S. tracks -- think of spectator incidents as mere freak occurrences. "There's no way to stay ahead of these drivers.". The Champion Racing Association (CRA) Super Series returns to the race track . Follow Ken de . Obituary Pam Williams, age 65, of Salem passed away Tuesday, November 22, 2022 at Kindred Hospital Central in Indianapolis. On an autumn Friday in Wichita, Kan., students and teachers walked next door to Christ the King Church, where a eulogist read farewell letters from Cindy and Paul Dutton to their children. "A good Sunday was when every driver cheated death and went home alive." The Salem Speedway joined "The Hills" circuit in 1947, and immediately demonstrated its potential for disaster. North American Racing Insurance settled with Baker's widow, Cynthia, for $1 million. Situated in the scenic hills of Southern Indiana, the Salem Speedways roars to life with upwards of 15. Sheriff Robert A. ONeal ordered the pool be drained. backstretch wall to his death. Create new account. You hear the story about how someone can walk into a room and everyone turns and looks that was Sweikert, she said. Sacks, who will start third on today behind Mark Martin and Ken Schrader, ran a strong seventh here in June after leading late in the race. Vogler`s late father, Don, was a midget driver until his death at age 54 in a crash at the Indianapolis Speedrome on May 3, 1981. Nobody covers Columbus, Indiana and the surrounding areas like The Republic. ". After Sweikert was buried in California his widow returned [5], As of 2019, the track has held more ARCA races than any other track (106th visit); it held races at the track since 1955. "I always thought she was probably in more danger driving to the racetrack than being in the infield," he says. Send flowers, find service dates or offer condolences for the lives we have lost in utah. Vogler's helmet flew off his head and he suffered severe head injuries that proved to be fatal. 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