TVR:  I’m often surprised today at how many people regularly attend races at tracks like Williams Grove and don’t realize the important roles they played in early racing history.
Chris:  Well, when you think about it, most race tracks… all over the country… were built for fairs and for horse racing.  Very few tracks were built expressly for auto racing.  In this general area, the Woodbridge Speedway in NJ during the 30’s… umm… the Dover Speedway in NJ was for cars.  Here in Pennsylvania, Langhorne was famous… built for automobile racing.  Williams Grove was built for automobile races and still prevails today. There were so many fairgrounds around that there wasn’t a need to build race tracks.   

In the western part of the state you had Heidelberg Speedway, outside of Pittsburg, which was constructed expressly for auto racing.  Let’s see… where else… Going down to the Washington DC area there’s… now I’m not talking about midget race tracks… these ¼ mile Friday, Saturday night things, but ½ mile and larger… well, I can’t think of too many right now.  Oh… Shangri-La Speedway outside of Binghamton, NY, was built right after the war for auto racing.  Not too many, but racing sustained those race tracks and made the owners money.  The car owners and drivers made their money as well.

TVR:  In the earlier years, say up to maybe 1970…
Chris:  To me, those are the later years! <laughs> But, go ahead…
TVR:  Yeah, I guess so!  Anyway, during those years you didn’t have as many of the “cookie cutter” cars like they have today. 
Chris:  Yeah, that’s true. See, what happened is television did two things to the sport of auto racing. It did three things, really.

Most important and significant, it brought it to the attention of many people who otherwise would never have seen it, and of course, it helped to engender its popularity.

But, the other things that it did… the first thing that it did was… people watched races on television that never saw races before.  Some of them were bright and intelligent and they looked at those cars and thought those cars are old fashioned and archaic.  With a little attention and a little technology, they could be made much faster. 

So, the advent of racing on television opened the door to technology.  That did two things… it made the cars more expensive and it made them faster.  As it turns out now… too fast.

The safety element started to be mentioned as being a problem with these super fast cars.  So now we have in auto racing an incredible turnabout of emphasis, whereas in the years gone by, speed was everything… faster.  New track records… faster.  Now, the insurance companies say, “Look, you know, these cars are too fast!  Parts are flying into the grandstands, crashing, killing people.  We can’t insure your track anymore because the cars are too fast.  You have to make them go slower.”

Well, what happens is the sanctioning bodies and rule makers, not only in central Pennsylvania, but all over the United States and the world… Formula 1… they’re writing rules to slow down the cars.

So, speed was one of two things on which auto racing’s popularity was built.  Faster… new records… all that stuff. 

The other thing on which auto racing was built on was danger.  These are daredevil drivers that come into town to face death at every turn.  Well, as American business became interested in the sport, the first thing they said was, “Look… We can’t have this daredevil stuff… facing death stuff in you publicity.  Forget it!”

So the big plus for an auto race was the end of publicizing its danger.  You couldn’t do that and keep the business people who were getting involved in the sport happy.  That was a very significant step. The auto racing people wanted to see daredevils and you weren’t allowed to call them daredevils anymore, because of the commercial connections that the car owners and sanctioning bodies had. 

So here we had those two things that hurt auto racing.  The speed no longer escalates and the danger is not mentioned.  So what else is left to sell?  Well, as I see it, there’s the entertainment value of the show itself… and the personalities at the wheel, which is what’s being sold today very successfully by NASCAR.   Now that’s what happened to racing. It’s too fast and too safe. <chuckles)

TVR: There’s a lot of discussion about NASCAR and restrictor plate racing.  What’s your take on that?
Chris:  Well, I think NASCAR’s going too far on the design of the cars.  You can’t tell a Ford from a Chevy or a Dodge now.  No matter how good you are at that, on the track… essentially, they are not Ford, Chevy or Dodge, they’re NASCAR cars.  The cars themselves have absolutely no resemblance to their showroom brethren.  There’s nothing on a Ford, nothing on a Chevy, nothing on a Dodge that comes from those companies.  The chassis is tube frame; the body is plastic, carbon fiber or something hand crafted.  The engines are made up of specially cast performance blocks, maybe to the manufacturer’s dimensions, but they’re not made by the manufacturer.  They’re made by special firms.  Stock Car is a misnomer, unfortunately.  Stock appearing would be better.

TVR:  In general, are today’s drivers a much different breed than yesterday’s drivers?
Chris:  Oh, very much so!  What’s happened… as the sport, particularly in NASCAR, has captured the fancy of the American public, there’s all kind of no-no’s now, because of the American business’s pronounced presence in the sport.  They don’t want their driver to take a misstep, or say anything… so a driver cannot really be himself any longer when he’s talking to the public.  

It’s sort of sad… we use to have guys who were famous for not dealing with the press and so forth.  Now everybody genuflects before the press.  It’s sad, I think.  You don’t have many independent personalities in this sport anymore. 

TVR:  How important is it to today’s racer to recognize the heritage they’ve inherited?
Chris:  Well, I don’t think that is looked upon by today’s principles in auto racing as very important.  Everything is today… not yesterday.   

TVR: How did you come to be involved with the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing?
Chris:  Well, when it was first talked about a number of years ago.  As I mentioned earlier, you have a great pronounced interest in Central Pennsylvania.  These people who created this wonderful place had an abiding passion for automobile racing.  It is incredible the job they’ve done!  Unfortunately, almost all of them are gone now.  I just hope that their successors are as avid a supporter as they were, because without that type of enthusiasm, this place couldn’t continue.

Editor's Note: Chris must have decided that EMMR and it's future are in good hands.  He has generously donated his massive personal racing collection, which contains items accumulated over a lifetime of involvement in and around the sport.

This collection is extensive and still being cataloged and sorted.  However, you can find much of his collection already on display in the EMMR Research Library.

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