Greetings from West Allis, Wisconsin
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Wisconsin State Fair Park – Lifetime track #10
The Milwaukee Mile Road Course – lifetime track #1,040
Butch Hartman
My first introduction to “big-time” stock car racing came at the Wisconsin State Fair Park. In the late 60s and early 70s my stepfather Bill Virt and his buddies Kenny Poole, Bob Cramlet and I would make the 214-mile one-way drive up to the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds from our home in East Peoria, Illinois.
The open-wheeled Indy car racing was the most popular at the Fairgrounds. However, we were “stock car guys”. We only went to the big USAC stock car races in “Milwaukee”. Back in those days, before NASCAR stock car racing was on TV, USAC stock car racing was huge. They drew massive crowds in the large covered grandstand at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds. Names like A.J. Foyt, Roger McCluskey, Jack Bowsher, Don White, Butch Hartman and, our favorite, Dick Trickle provided the entertainment. At the time this racing was as exciting as any race I have ever seen in NASCAR….and I’m a huge NASCAR fan.
Following the races, after a daytime of national stock car racing we always stopped at the same place on the way home for a bite to eat. Where was that? The Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, Wisconsin. To this day, although Mars now has a beautiful new “castle” Carol and I stop at the Mars Cheese Castle every time we pass. Those trips to Milwaukee were the best.
I first started keeping specific track of the dates when I visited each track in 1980. I probably went to Milwaukee before 1980 some ten times more or less. Since 1980 I’ve been to the track six times but not since 1988 for stock car racing on the oval. Several later events were to see the mighty American Speedway Association races (ASA). That group featured several stars that would go on to make a name for themselves and even win NASCAR championships. The drivers included Rusty Wallace, Alan Kulwicki, Mark Martin, Dick Trickle, Bob Senneker and Mike Eddy.
According to the History of American Speedways authored by Allan Brown racing first began at the fairgrounds back in 1903. It began as a one-mile dirt oval and stayed that way until the end of the 1953 racing season. From 1954 until now the track has used as asphalt racing surface. However some photos, it should be pointed out, seem to show cars newer than 1953 models racing on the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds dirt track.
History was made on this day.
On May 21, 2006 Carol and I made a historic trip to what was then named the “Milwaukee Mile”. We were there to see a race on the facility’s road course. The event was sanctioned by the Midwest Counsil of Sports Cars. My comment for the day was “small car counts and unimaginative course layout”.
This was not just a normal day of trackchasing. Earlier in the day Carol and I had stopped to see the SCCA sports car racing at the Blackhawk Farms Raceway in Rocton, Illinois. In the evening I would make a track “re-visit” to the always entertaining Angel Park Speedway in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.
However, the visit to West Allis and their late afternoon road course racing would be historic. I was seeing my 1,040th lifetime track. What was so special about that? On that day, May 21, 2006, I took over the lead in the worldwide trackchaser standings. From that day until now I have been known at the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”. I passed Rick Schneider of New York.
Some time before Rick had gotten into a snit with trackchasing commissioner Will White. Rick was so incensed that he stopped submitting his track lists to the commissioner’s office. To this day he will not add any track to his lifetime list. However, for years Commissioner White would add tracks to Mr. Schneider’s list whenever it was known that Rick had attended a track. For the life of me I don’t know why Mr. Schneider doesn’t ask the new commissioner Guy Smith to simply remove his track list entirely from all trackchasing records.
Mr. Smith has triumphantly boasted that if a trackchaser doesn’t want to be a part of his group they don’t have to be. However, Mr. Smith should have put an asterisk by those comments. Just like his predecessor, Mr. White, trackchasers can never truly divorce themselves from the hobby. The best Mr. Schneider could do would be to get his tracks moved to the “deleted voluntarily” list. Then if anyone wanted to see where Mr. Schneider had trackchased they could then click on his “deleted” list. That doesn’t sound very “deleted” to me. Yes, it is a crazy group of people in the trackchasing hobby, many of whom I wish I had never met. To this day it is estimated that my track totals exceed Mr. Schneider’s by more than three hundred tracks.
You might have remembrances about this track. 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. I’ll try to include them here.