Eldon Raceway

Greetings from Eldon, Iowa

From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”

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Verlin Eaker – #21

 Eldon Raceway – dirt oval – Lifetime track #26

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Elton Raceway – Track #26 – More than 40 years ago!

I began my business career back in July, 1972.  My sales territory included the western half of Illinois and the eastern half of Iowa.  I called on just about every drug store and wholesaler in this vast area.  Having a job in sales was fantastic.  It didn’t even seem like working.  All I had to do was talk to people.  Of course the job included a little “persuasion” so I could meet my sales goals.

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One of the very best parts of my job is that I didn’t have to go to an office.  My office was in my home and it was in the trunk of my car.  I could make appointments when and where I wanted.  At the time the state of Iowa had the very best late model dirt track racing in the country.  Many of the Iowa tracks raced during the week.  Specials were held during the week as well.

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Eldon, Iowa is located in southeastern Iowa.  In 2010 the population of Eldon was just 927 people.  I have no idea how big it was in 1973.  I doubt there has been much change in the more than 40 years since I visited the Eldon Raceway in ’73.  It is interesting to note that Roseanne Barr and her husband Tom Arnold, both from nearby Ottumwa, Iowa operated a restaurant in Eldon called Roseanne and Tom’s Big Food Diner from 1993 to 1995!

I had customers that I needed to see in and around the general Eldon area.  My normal rotation was to visit customers about every six weeks.  Can you imagine when I came to call on my customers near Eldon?  Yep. If you guessed I came to Eldon on the same day a mid-week stock car special was running at the Eldon Raceway you would be correct.

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If you’ve read very many of my Trackchaser Reports you know that sponsorship is key to my trackchasing.  It wouldn’t make a lot of financial sense to spend my OWN money on airplanes, rental cars, hotels and the like just to see a three-hour stock car show would it?  I’ve seen racing in 70 countries.  On most of those trips I had some form of sponsorship support.

When I came to Eldon my car, hotel and food for the day was paid for.  I was on a business trip.  All I had to cough up was the price of a race ticket.  That made coming to the Eldon Raceway in 1973 a no-brainer.

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What were my memories of the racing in Eldon?  Actually I have almost no direct memory of the event.   The Eldon Raceway was my 26th lifetime track to see.  At that point I had only seen racing in ONE country.  On the night I pulled into the Eldon Raceway I had seen racing in only EIGHT states.  In point of fact it I have now seen more than 2,000 tracks SINCE I went to Eldon.  With that in mind you can’t expect me to remember much.

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I do remember two things.  First, the country was in the midst of the Watergate hearings that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation on June 17, 1972.  The one and only racing memory I have from that night was that Verlin Eaker was racing.  Verlin was a well-known midwestern stock car driver.  Although he did much of his early racing in Minnesota he visited Eldon frequently as well.

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Verlin Eaker was good enough to win a World 100 stock car event.  That meant he was pretty good.  He also did some racing with USAC stock cars.  I’ve had the privilege of seeing Verlin in the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame seminars from the Knoxville Raceway.  If you haven’t bought their DVDs of these seminars you should.  They’re great.  

The Iowa/Illinois racing I saw in the 70s was the “golden era” of racing for me.  Was it that good?  I say it was.  It’s always easy to look back on the “good ol’ days” and say they were the best.  I am one of those people who think that today’s days are the best…..but for racing it was probably the 70s that topped the charts.

Do you have any experience with auto racing at the Eldon Raceway? 

By the way you might have remembrances about this track.  If so, please feel free to share them in the comments section below.  If you have any photos from back in the day, send them to me at Ranlay@yahoo.com.  I’ll try to include them here.