Motorsports Memories and Mementos

Have I really been doing this so long that they want me to write about American motorsports on a website dedicated to the history of the sport?

Okay, so I probably was the only kid on my block whose childhood athletic heroes included Ernie Banks and Fireball Roberts. And one of my first jobs as a cub reporter in the 1960s was covering the UARA – United Auto Racing Association – midget races that were held on the flat, paved, half-mile oval that surrounded the football field at Joliet (Illinois) Memorial Stadium. This is where local heroes such as Henry Pens, Roger West and Poncho Padilla took on various Bettenhausens and Mel Kenyon when the Indy veterans had an open date on their USAC schedules. I still have my first Indy 500 press badge, from 1969 when Andy Granatelli kissed Mario Andretti in the winner’s circle. And I covered Le Mans when there still was a Mulsanne Straight.

Hmmm, maybe I have been at this for quite a while, and what I haven’t seen I’ve probably read about.

But enough about me. What I’m supposed to be writing about is American auto racing, primarily about its history but, from time to time, its present and even its future. That will start very soon. I think the first thing I’ll do is to take a look at Mercury and its racing history, and we’d better do it pretty soon because there’s been a lot of talk recently that Mercury soon will be going the way of Packard and Plymouth and Pontiac.

I'll explore this and more in the upcoming "A Mercurial History in Motorsports."

Photo Credit: Dave Friedman

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