My short history with Mount Lawn.
I didn’t begin writing my famous Trackchaser Reports until about track #430.  With the Mount Lawn Speedway being track #274 (more than 1,500 tracks ago as this is written!) my memory is somewhat limited. However, what I do remember is I sort of “stole” this one.  What does that mean?

I went to Mount Lawn back on June 9, 1996.  By the way sometimes you will see the speedway referred to as “Mt. Lawn”.  It was a Sunday night the night after Jim Sabo and I had gone to the “Dream” at the Eldora Speedway.  At Eldora we saw Donnie Moran in his #99 win $100,000!  I’ve been to Eldora nearly 40 times.  That’s not bad considering I lived in California while going to Eldora most of those times.  I’m a huge fan of their pizza burgers.  Carol and Eldora promoter Earl Baltes were fast friends.

The Mount Lawn Speedway was an unusually shaped track.  It was D-shaped and extremely narrow.  Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see much racing there.  A huge thunderstorm with some of the biggest and darkest clouds I have ever seen would intervene.  Just five minutes before the races were to begin I was sitting in the track’s parking lot.  I was trying to decide if I wanted to buy a ticket and go in with the storm so close.  It was easy to see the storm was heading in my direction…quickly.  In a way the decision was easy to make.

I was more than 2,000 miles from home.  The main reason I had left my home in Southern California was to see the big race at Eldora.  That had been accomplished.  It would be a shame to NOT go into the Mount Lawn Speedway at this point.  I was 30 yards from the track’s entrance.  I bought my ticket.  They started on time.  I’ve got to give them credit.  A lot of tracks would have looked at the weather and said, “Let’s just wait a minute and see how this turns out”.

I only saw a heat race or two.  Then, as just about everyone in the area expected, the skies opened up and dumped on us.  From a trackchasing perspective that really wasn’t a problem.  Trackchasing rules have a simple phrase that describes what hurdle has to be met in order to count a track under such circumstances.  All you have to do is see “competitive racing”.  Actually when the first race of the night takes the green flag then “competitive racing” has taken place.

I saw this interesting bit of history about the Mount Lawn Speedway on Wikipedia.  I thought you would enjoy it.

“Mt. Lawn Speedway was founded in 1935 by Dr. George W. Sweigart, a dentist and a former mayor for the town of Hartford City, Indiana. At the time of the track’s opening it was a one-fifth mile pear-shaped dirt oval. Also constructed during the early years of the track were a dance hall, a swimming pool, as well as summer cabins for vacationers. The dance hall played host to two the most influential big band musicians of the era, The Dorsey Brothers and Sammy Kaye. However, in 1939 a fire caused by an overheated exhaust fan in the orchestra pit led to the dance hall’s first demise. When the hall was rebuilt, a second fire caused by a coal-powered fireplace led to the dancehall’s second, and ultimately final demise.

In 1940 Sweigart closed the track down and it appeared that racing in Henry County was over. However, later that year a local promoter named Dutch Hurst visited the area looking for a lighting system for a track that he was constructing known as the Muncie Vellodrome located in Muncie, Indiana. When he noticed the layout of the land he mentioned to Sweigart ” Why don’t you start a track here”? When Sweigart replied that the land had indeed been a race track before, Hurst convinced Sweigart to reopen the track. In 1941 he hired a local farmer to retill the land as Sweigart and local residents rebuilt the track. However, later that summer the dirt surface of the track had worn down and it was decided that a new surface would be needed. So Sweigart hired a crew from the area and the first concrete surface was laid on the track. This paving would be followed by three repavings in asphalt in 1947, 1967, and finally in 1971.”

Because the track has a long history and an unusual shape I’d really like to go back there sometime.  I don’t know if I ever will.  I feel as if I “owe” the Mount Lawn Speedway something.  They got my money and I didn’t get to see much racing.  I could not return to use any type of raincheck.  Maybe I don’t owe them anything but I would still like to go back.  So there you have it.  Did I “steal” one here?  Should I go back?

You might have remembrances about the Mount Lawn Speedway.  If so, please feel free to share in the comments section below.  If you have any photos from back in the day, send them to me at Ranlay@yahoo.com or on Facebook at Randy’s Facebook.  I’ll try to include them here.