In the Summer of 1961, my Uncle Bob - or Mac, as his friends called him - but I had seven uncles and each one was called Mac by his friends, so we will call this Mac, Bob, to keep the story straight - was a rover by nature, but every once and awhile, he'd try to settle down and when he did, he'd pose as an auto mechanic. It was during one of these posing's that our story begins. He was working in a back shed auto garage in Beverly, MA. It was a small wooden structure. I'm not sure if it really held two cars at once or not, but it seemed like the world was full of such structures, and folks twisting a wrench trying to make a living then.
The garage ended up with three or four old cars out back, blunderbusses from the 40's to be exact. Rust and dents and perhaps a rod knock or two, but each had a few miles left on the engine. So my Uncle Bob and his boss, George, came up with the idea that they should paint the company name on these cars and race them at the West Peabody Speedway's Spectator Races. So, my Uncle invited me along, and every West Peabody Race Night that summer, myself, and two or three of my friends, would pile into one of these blunderbusses; my Uncle would toss on the repair plate; and we'd all head off to the track.
These cars were really mobile jewels, a '42 Chevy two door sedan, that probably weighed in at as much as an oil tanker and half the windows wouldn't go up and the other half of the windows wouldn't go down ... except for the wing windows, they were missing totally. Then, there was a '42 Ford four door sedan with the back door arm rests and door handles tied across the back seat to each other to keep the back doors from flying open when you took a turn. If you wanted to ride in the back seat of this car, you had to either climb in over the front seat and then under or over the rope ... Name your own poison or just dead up, climb in the back window on the right hand side of the car, the side with the missing back window. But, to a thirteen or fourteen-year-old teen heading for the race track, this was luxury traveling.
The car we raced the most that summer was a '42 Plymouth Coupe; "white" I believe, though it's hard to remember exactly, between the dents, the rust, and the touched-up with a paint brush -
about a gazillion times - paint job ... it's not all that easy to define clearly just what color it originally rolled off the assembly line as. Now you may be wondering why all these cars ended up being '42s? I believe it was because in 1960 or 1961, cars were either made before the War or after the War. 1920's and 1930's cars were starting to be old and therefore worth saving and the '46-'48s were made after the War and therefore salable, but the '42's were Pre-War and after the '30's ... (manufactured in days that rather be forgotten and therefore destined for the crushers blow).
The Spectator Races at the West Peabody Speedway were only 5 or 10 lap races, but, they always seemed like such exciting adventures. Mostly because - one, my uncle was rac
ing in them and two, we rode there in a car that was being raced, not to mention the fact that the Spectator Races were a lot like watching rush hour traffic gone Mad Max.
Though the cars we brought were old and the races were wild, we never had any doubt that we would ride home in the car we rode there in. We had total confidence in these cars. We drove them there; we raced them there; and we would drive them back from there. There was never any such thing as a back up plan. Now, a clearer mind would know that in one of these mobile stacks of steel, the twenty mile ride each way was an iffy proposition in its own right. Then to race them around a circle track wide open, usually in second gear, for ten laps with about twenty or thirty other lunatics doing the same thing, each trying to plough into the side of your car for amusement, boosted the odds of riding back in what you brought to almost mind staggering odds, but we still never had any doubt that we were riding back in what we brought.
The old Plymouth's flathead-six was faithful, even if it did have a slight rap, but it was the dents that got it in the end. I remember that last night we raced it: riding home, the hood was sprung - tied down with my Uncle's belt, one of the headlights was gone, the other was looking at the stars, the engine was rapping a little louder then usual and we all knew this was the last race for this '42. We also knew come Monday morning, the Old Plymouth would be hauled away to Old White Plymouth Coupe Heaven, and we would have to choose another blunderbuss to finish the summer race season with.
So, whenever I think of the Pines Speedway 1962-1966, my memory's eye carries me back to the West Peabody Speedway, the Summer of 1961, with my nose pushed up against the chain link fence, watching my Uncle and the Old Plymouth roar around the track and I know in my heart - that race will never end.
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