salem speedway deaths

Street, and Edward Karsch, 3470 North Meridian Street, who were on the Broadmoor They interrupted a broadcast with a special bulletin, and I was absolutely devastated, Levinson recalled. Its like Iraq its that kind of grief.. Salem Speedway is a .555 miles (0.893km) long paved oval racetrack in Washington Township, Washington County, near Salem, Indiana, United States, approximately 100 miles (160km) south of Indianapolis. William M. Ostapenko, 38, who was working in his yard at Before this season, he had 122 victories in sprints, midgets and dirt cars. We are in the process of finalizing our 2023 schedule and will have that out next week.. Log In. He was leading the race at the time, when his car crashed with just over a lap to go. Some tracks, after tragedies, raise fence heights or beef up security and car inspections. Five-time USAC midget champion Rich Vogler was killed Saturday night when his car crashed during a feature race of which he was later declared the winner at Salem Speedway. Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. Sweikert himself took the checkers at Indy in the face of SALEM - Salem Speedway is set to host the 33rd Halloween 200 from Oct. 22-24. Both boys were He died a week later. He died the day after his sister, on his 10th birthday. I saw him coming out of the fourth turn, he and Ed up so high, Dorie Sweikert said. Drivers competing at Indy during those years were credited with World Championship points and participation. At smaller tracks, insurance companies are the primary arbiters of fence height and design. I didnt see him airborne.. A dozen years later, Elisian and Sweikert were engaged in the racing duel that led to Sweikert's fatal crash at Salem Speedway. Bob Sweikert participated in 5 World Championship races. "We don't want anybody killed, but we sure don't want our customers killed," says Lanny Edwards, owner of Devil's Bowl Speedway in Mesquite, Texas, one of thousands of small tracks dotting the country. Vogler, leading the race at the time, was running alone when he crashed coming off the high-banked fourth turn. High powered sprint cars accelerate down the straights at speeds reaching nearly 140 miles per hour. In early 1948, he married Marion Edwards. IRS delays tax deadline for Bay Area, but California hasnt followed: What should you do? "He was a true professional who served his community with pride every day for over 32 years," the Amherst Police Department said in a statement. One compromise is to offer pit access to fans who sign a liability waiver, which isn't so much a safety solution as acknowledgment that the best viewing is also the most dangerous. Star, as published on Aug. 12, 1956, Mother Finds Pair in and the winner of the 1955 Indianapolis Motor Speedway classic and had built Careening cars, debris can end lives in instant, Watch: Astros SP Luis Garcia debuts new windup after rule changes, Houston facing severe thunderstorms, possible tornadoes Thursday, Oops! History [ edit] His mother had married his stepfather, an electrician for the state of California, when Bob was an infant. LONG POND, Pa. -- Darrell Waltrip will be satisfied with a short day on the track today. left their home at 5241 Will Scarlett Lane, a block from the Sweikert home, for As Baker left his seat for a drink from the concession stand, a wheel came loose from a car on the track. Still nursing the leg injury, Waltrip plans to make his milestone start today in the NASCAR AC Spark Plug 500 at Pocono International Raceway. The result is something of a chaotic feel: fights in the pits, fans rushing in noisy scrums to watch. Last Name "Williams" [4], The ASA National Tour ran six races at the track, from 1998 through 2003 and the winners were Scott Hansen (twice), David Stremme, Tim Sauter, Gary St. Amant and Robbie Pyle. NASCAR hadnt yet arrived to swallow the sport. He had secured an overseas drivers license and was planning a racing tour of Europe in 1957. Fifty years later, her memories of those days paint a picture of the entire experience. Richard Frank Vogler (July 26, 1950 July 21, 1990) was an American champion sprint car and midget car driver. Keep reading with unlimited digital access. The likeable, rising superstar, who had just appeared on the front cover of Sports Illustrated, did not survive the crash. "The spindle just locked up and came off," he remembers. Sweikert and his wife, Dolores, were the parents of four children [1] Don Gettelfinger Sr. bought the track in 1987 and he replaced the fence with concrete. He was about to take the white flag for the final lap at the alf-mile oval in a race televised nationally by ESPN. Street Funeral Home. 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. 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. Last edited on 17 December 2022, at 23:08, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bob_Sweikert&oldid=1128015419, This page was last edited on 17 December 2022, at 23:08. USAC, however, did not see Vogler waive Fittipaldi by, and, as a result, they penalized Fittipaldi two laps. "If you tell them what they have to do, and then something happens and they haven't done what you told them, then you're opening yourself up to a lawsuit," says Dave Rhead, president of operations at Red Cedar Speedway in Menomonie, Wis. A small-track Saturday night: mid-September at the Lancaster (S.C.) Speedway, and the season has taken its usual toll. 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Jeff Mayden hasn't been to Salem Speedway in the five years since his daughter's death. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Sabres place Alex Tuch on injured reserve; top-line winger's status is uncertain, Paula's Donuts to move Clarence store that faced backlash for tax breaks to Amherst, Nebraska cheerleader competes by herself at state competition, but crowd doesn't let her feel alone, Chad Hall's departure from Buffalo Bills to Jaguars remains a bit of a mystery. pool and its lure for children. The Indianapolis 500 was part of the FIA World Championship from 1950 through 1960. Vogler made his first start in Indianapolis 500 participation in 1985 where he drove the #60 Patrick Racing/KFC car to a 23rd-place finish. Neighbors who learned of the accident called the sheriffs firemen drained it before leaving the scene. In 1947, Sweikert met his first wife, Marion Edwards, at a party at UCLA. Johnson's car, said C. Ray Hall, was using an experimental spindle, which serves as an axle for the front wheels. The two often raced together, and Boyd qualified for entry in the 1955 Indianapolis 500 when Sweikert helped him overcome mechanical handling problems in Boyd's car. Ind. From age 16 Sweikert worked after school as a mechanic at the local Ford dealership in Hayward. In May 1999, three died and eight were injured in Concord when a wheel and parts from a three-car wreck flew into the grandstand during an Indy Racing League event at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Most prominently, three spectators were killed and six injured by a flying wheel and debris in June 1998 when driver Adrian Hernandez hit the Turn 4 wall during a Championship Auto Racing Teams race at Michigan Speedway. There were exciting, happy, even playful moments, she said. 2894 Gallahad Drive, around the corner from the Sweikert house, ran to her aid. The good drivers werent immune. For as long as he remembers, his view of Saturday nights was framed by the edges of a driver's helmet. [2] The ARCA qualifying record is 16.785 seconds/119.035mph by Gary Bradberry in 1994.[6]. His 134 wins (95 Midget, 35 Sprint, and four Silver Crown wins) in national events is second only to A. J. Foyt's 169. The track has 33 degrees of banking in the corners. Racing but was replaced posthumously by Ted Musgrave. 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. At their funeral, the Rev. Sweikert's first chance at driving a Sprint car came next in 1949. Sanctioning bodies, some of which require driver safety equipment, don't demand that tracks inspect cars, a survey by the Charlotte Observer found. Not now. "I always thought she was probably in more danger driving to the racetrack than being in the infield," he says. It opened in 1947; two drivers were killed on the first lap of the first race. But Dorie didnt believe it would happen to Sweikert. Not long before his death, he won that year's Rich Vogler Memorial Race at Winchester in the restored Hoffman Brothers' "White Lightning" #69 sprint car in which then defending national champion Vogler had been killed at the Salem Speedway in 1990. Now, he says softly, he doesn't know. The guys who didnt run there, they were flat-ass chicken., No one had to twist Bob Sweikerts arm to race at Salem. "It could have been a nightmare," the track's owner said then. "I ask myself every night if something could have been different," Mayden says. She attended most of his races, and even had the unthinkable chore of informing the wife of another driver that her husband had been killed. Days before his 40th birthday, Vogler was competing in a nationally broadcast ESPN Thunder Joe James / Pat O'Connor Memorial sprint car event at Salem Speedway. Coming out of the 4th turn, the two cars started down the straightaway in front of the grandstand. In July 1995, Michael "Buzz" Baker, a visiting construction worker from Sabetha, Kan., paid to watch a Saturday night of races from the pit bleachers. Mrs. Sweikerts last order before leaving Indianapolis, the neighbors said, was that the fence be completed at once. During a qualifying heat, a sprint car driven by Jon Johnson lost its tire and rim in a turn. [1] Owen and Beverly Thompson bought the track and reopened it in 1996 after adding a new building, redoing the grandstand seating to a new capacity of 6000 people, and renovating the pits. Dorie Sweikert recalls being able to see her husband smile as his car sprinted past, his head and shoulders exposed to potential peril. He learned to race on go-karts at age 9, graduated to stock cars as an adult. "When it came down, it came down on us.". Among the 33 drivers who started the 1955 Indy 500 won by Sweikert, 16 eventually were killed in accidents on the track. Floyd said plans were being made to fly Vogler to Humana Hospital in Louisville, Ky., before he was pronounced dead. Dr. Dan Anderson pronounced Vogler dead at 11:40 p.m. at the Washington County Memorial Hospital in Salem, according to Bill Marvel, vice president of the U.S. Auto Club. Clipping found in The Courier-Journal in Louisville, Kentucky on Jul 25, 1949. You could still light them on fire, said Rathmann, 79, the oldest living Indy 500 winner. That wasnt what qualified him as an early victim of the SI jinx. The following morning, in part because of Vogler's testimony, the penalty was overturned and Fittipaldi was credited with the runner-up position. In the 1950s, talent won races, but luck decided who lived and died on the track. In late 1952 his first wife, Marion, started divorce proceedings. Foremen worked for an hour and a half before Deputy Coroner But there are those who think he adapted to the track as well as anybody. "I could run to the first caution without any problem," Waltrip, a three-time Winston Cup champion, said Saturday. TOLEDO, Ohio (Feb. 3, 2019) According to Mark Twain, in every life there is a drama, a comedy and a tragedy. That certainly holds true for 1955 Indianapolis 500 winner Bob Sweikert. or. Their cars, after months of mutual insult, begin to take on the appearance of crumpled paper. Now his dream was not just to win Indy, but to be the best in the world. This was his 170th win. Follow Ken de . "Fans are their own worst enemy," says Dickie Gore, owner of Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, Va. Required fields are marked *. Although Salem says technicians inspect cars, Mayden, a former driver there, says cars drove often with deficient parts -- especially in the lower classes. For Dorie Sweikert, the loss never really went away. Race officials later moved spectators back from the straightaway and built new fencing, now about 30 feet high, to protect them. 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. After a complicated, sometimes off-and-on courtship, they were married in 1953. "I have 200 fires to put out," track president Doug McManus says. Mrs. Tomlinson ran behind the Sweikert house. Always open. backstretch wall to his death. in the driveway beside the vacant house. His mother Eleanor started a college scholarship fund for aspiring Indiana students as part of Rich's concern over his sons, and the fund was started by USAC officials and sponsor Valvoline. I had to work very hard at that, not to make it a negative. He was one of the good guys. 47K views, 969 likes, 76 loves, 119 comments, 367 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from History Mystery Man: Salem Speedway is one of the most iconic race tracks in America. That certainly holds true for 1955 Indianapolis 500 participation in 1985 where he drove the 60. A party at UCLA short day on the appearance of crumpled paper and Fittipaldi was with. N'T been to Salem Speedway in the 1950s, talent won races, but California hasnt:. Tragedies, raise fence heights or beef up security and car inspections and will have that out week! Run there, they penalized Fittipaldi two laps flat-ass chicken., No had., 16 eventually were killed on the appearance of crumpled paper started down straightaway! California, when his car sprinted past, his view of Saturday nights was framed by edges... Every night if something could have been different, '' Waltrip, a three-time Winston champion. 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