William Thompson wrote:
>If anyone pokes around, you will find "other Ghost race tracks" as well.
>
It is a little hard for me to think of them as "ghost tracks". You see,
for me, the golden age of sports car racing was back in the late 1950's
and early 1960's. One of the major reasons was the post-World War II
abandonment of old Army Air Corps and Navy air bases that could be
turned into airport courses. How I remember campaigning at courses on
old bases in Stuttgart, Arkansas; Halls, Tennessee; and Opelousas and
Mansfield, Louisiana.
Those were the halcyon days when even a poor sailor such as myself could
go sports car racing, and club racing was at its peak. Indeed,
literally anyone with a sports car could go racing. It was pretty easy
by taking off the windshield, taping over the headlights, soaking a
flight-suit in soda to make it fire-retardant, putting in a basic
home-built roll-bar, and borrowing a "Snell approved" helmet. Of
course, there was that $10.00 entry fee, too.
I can still remember the day in 1963 when I realized that sports car
racing was going to be changing for, in my mind, the worse. Several of
us had gone over to race at Stuttgart. The guys in the next two pits
were really outfitted, complete with uniforms, a real pit crew, and a
big trailer filled with parts and tires to service their new Stingray
Corvettes. After the races ended, Governor Orville Faubus was to
present the trophies. When a big DC-6 landed, we thought it was the
governor. Instead, it was a Gulf Oil planes coming to fly home the guys
in the next pit, Dr. Dick Thompson and Jim Hall who were sponsored by Gulf.
Yes, I think that we all realized that the fun days were coming to an
end, and that the times they were achangin'!
Buster Evans
Anaheim, California
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