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The thick-walled beer keg was empty but heavy. It would withstand
violent bumps on the rough Thornton race track. The young man
carefully welded the last fittings into place and finished fastening the
beer keg to the car. It would make a fine gasoline tank!
Next he turned his
attention to the jalopy's windshield. No glass there. He would
see the dirt track through mud-spattered window screening.
The era was the late
1940's. World War II was over and automobiles were being
manufactured again. There were plenty of nearly worn-out vehicles
from the 1930's and early 1940's. Young men spent weekdays toiling
in the coal mines and Sundays racing their jalopies at the Thornton race
track.
When Richard Wells
recently asked if anyone recalled car races at a track near Thornton Road,
Tom Clark of Redstone township was the first to call.
"The old track on
Thornton Road?" Tom said. "That was my grandpap's!"
"Who was your
grandpap, Tom?" I asked.
"His name was Ora
Anderson. I can just barely remember the track as a kid.
It was over the hill behind my grandparents' farm. Grandpap
had a little booth up on Thornton Road where he sold tickets. A
fellow named Mayers was involved too."
"Where exactly was
this track?"
"Beyond Fort Burd
United Presbyterian Church on Thornton road (Route 166) is a long
straightaway. At the end of that stretch is the old stone West Point
school house. Across the road from that school was my grandmother's
farm, and the race track was in the field behind there. There is a
house next door to them, and beside it was a lane that led straight back
to the race track."
The next call came from
Joan Mayers Lawrence of Thornton Road.
"My dad was Lester
‘Cutty' Mayers," Joan told me. "He was a coal miner, but
on Sundays he raced jalopies. He had a race track here on my property.
"When was
that?"
"In the early
fifties. Actually," Joan continued, "there were two race
tracks. The first track was on Ora and Effie Anderson's property.
My dad went to Ora Anderson and said, ‘Mr. Anderson, we would like to
start a race track. Can we do it up here on your property?
They agreed to do it.
"My older sister,
Pat Mayers Mammarella, told me that they cleared it off and started racing
up there, but soon my dad decided to move the races. He bought the
land next to Anderson's property from Mr. Crawford, who lived on the
National Pike. The track that Dad started on it is still here
today."
"The race track is
still there?" I echoed in surprise. "Are you calling me
from there?"
"Yes," Joan
said. "My husband and I own the property now. Our house
is below the race track, and my sister Bonnie Kudyba lives above it.
The track wasn't very big, and you can still walk most of the way around
it. Most of our property is trees, but nothing ever grew on the
track because of it being sandstone. You are welcome to come over
and see it."
"I'll stop by
sometime this week."
"We have dogs.
You'd better let me know when you're coming."
I visited on a beautiful
sunny morning. Taking a left-hand turn off Thornton Road, my old
Ford truck crept along a narrow asphalt lane that snaked through the
forest for nearly a quarter mile. After passing several "Beware
of the Dog" signs, I emerged into a sunny clearing where I found the
Lawrence house. Joan was waiting for me. The dogs were safely
put away.
She showed me a few old
photographs, then we hiked up a slope into the trees. The grassy
path on which we walked was nearly twenty-five feet wide.
"We are walking on
the race track," Joan said as we both puffed up the hill.
We stopped near the top
of the hill, turned and looked back down the track. It descended the
hill and made a sharp left into the trees. The former infield of the
track, once bare, is a now a forest, so the part of the oval track
that is on the opposite hillside cannot be seen through the trees.
"My dad raced here.
He drove the ‘Ghost,'" Joan laughed. "My sister Bonnie
sent down an undated clipping that mentions my uncle, Lloyd ‘Gus' Hasson.
"The clipping reads,
‘Lloyd Hasson, National Pike East, on Sunday afternoon copped the
feature race in the jalopy events at Thornton. Driving the
‘Hellcat,' Hasson was way ahead in the 15-lap event. Robert Ganoe,
National Pike East, was second in ‘Lady Luck.' Other winners
Sunday were Harry Foster from Smithton, Bill Kelly from Brownsville, James
Talbert from Thornton, and James Becklinger from Smithton.'"
As Joan read the article,
I remembered that Richard Wells had mentioned Bill Kelly as the driver
whose car he saw run off the track, go over the hill and into the trees.
"I can show you
where Mr. Kelly went over the hill!" Joan said, pointing to the bend
at the bottom of the slope we had just climbed. "This hill was
dangerous. And when you dropped over, you did go into the woods!
I still find different car parts when I am cutting grass. My dad
started an auto salvage yard next to the track."
Joe Lawrence, who had
joined us on our walk, laughed. "I can remember Lester saying,
‘If they wrecked too bad, they just took the motor out of it and left
the rest of it here at the junk yard!'"
Mention of Bill Kelly
reminded me of an e-mail I received from Joyce Kelly. "My
husband Bill's father, the late Bill Kelly Sr., won almost every race he
entered, according to his brother Ed Kelly," Joyce wrote.
"Ed worked in the pit and my husband, Bill Jr., although only about
three years old at the time, would hand Ed the tools."
What did Ed remember
about the Thornton track?
"Ed said that the
course at Thornton was mostly an obstacle course. He said,
‘You had to be crazy to race there!' The first car Bill raced at
Thornton was a 1937 Plymouth called the ‘Red Devil.' Later he
raced a 1934 Ford, Number 98. Uncle Ed said it was too expensive a
hobby, and they quit after only a few years."
"Did the drivers
wear helmets?" I asked Joe and Joan Lawrence as we continued walking
around the grassy track.
"The typical helmets
were kind of a dome," recalled Joe, "with leather on the
sides."
"Did they race just
for the fun of it?"
"There were
prizes," said Joan. "There was an admission fee charged
for coming to the races. That was where the prize money came
from."
A display ad in the June
1, 1950 issue of the Brownsville Telegraph read, "Thrills and
Spills! Jalopy Races at Thornton Field Every Sunday Rain or Shine!
Time trials at 1:30, races at 2:00. Admission is $1.00, children
under sixteen 25 cents."
"Considering your
dad worked as a coal miner during the week," I said to Joan,
"running this race track operation would have kept him pretty
busy."
"It did. We
ran a concession stand up here on the level area above this high bend.
Many people parked on the flat area between the concession stand and the
edge of the track. This was a good place to watch the cars come by.
My aunt, who took care of the concession stand, sold delicious hot dogs,
potato chips and pop. I still find pop bottles occasionally. I
found one the other day that said ‘Gregg Distributor.' Usually I
drop them off at the Flatiron Building when I find them."
The track was essentially
built on two hillsides. The racing oval went from one hill
down into a dip, up the opposite hill and around a curve, then down toward
the dip again with the drivers braking to make the curve at the bottom.
It was an endurance event of constant turning, accelerating, braking and
turning again on the dirt track. Race crews in the infield were kept
busy with repairs and preparing for the next race.
Jack Purcell of
Brownsville was the radiator man in that infield. "I did
it for free," Jack told me, "in exchange for advertising over
the public address system." Jack remembers Lloyd ‘Gus' Hasson
of Lynn Road, whom he called ‘Doggie.'
"Gus was a big
winner at that track," said Jack. "I also remember
Pete Kekely, who had a garage on Hibbs Street, and Lou Rose, who drove the
‘Green Hornet.' There was Jack Hodginson, who raced in the very
first NASCAR events when NASCAR first started. Harold Collier was
another fellow who helped design cars and ran in the original NASCAR
races. Doug Jones and Joe Nutt built cars but didn't drive them."
Lester Mayers's Thornton
race track operated for only a few years, then ‘Cutty' shut it down.
"When this track closed down," Joan said, "the drivers went
over to a track at Jefferson near Rices Landing."
The Thornton race track
no longer bakes in the sun. It is grass-covered now and meanders
through sun-dappled woods. Sometimes when Joan Lawrence stoops to
investigate her long-suffering lawn mower's latest find, she discovers a
Sun Drop bottle or another old car part. That's when she can still
hear the revving engine of the Ghost.
| This
truck, property of Hi-Hat Bottling Company of Brownsville, doubled
as a sound truck to advertise the upcoming jalopy races at
Thornton Field. The youngster in the photo is Bonnie Mayers Kudyba.
Her father, Lester Mayers, owned the property and operated the
race track after it was moved there from the nearby Anderson
property. This photo, taken in August 1949, is courtesy of Joan
Mayers Lawrence of Thornton Rd. |
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Editor's
Note: This article originally appeared in the Glenn Tunney's website in
which he has many articles on the history of Brownsville, PA. TVR would like to express our thanks and gratitude
to Glenn for allowing us to share his articles on the Thornton race track
with our viewers. For more information, check out his website at http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~glenntunneycolumn/
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