My Daytona's in Motor Trend Classic this month !!

[hemi68charger]

SUPER job Troy - I will be out looking for my copy of the mag TODAY!  Thanks to all of you guys that took the time to share your pride and joy with us!

Thanks to me? Heck.......... Man,,,,,,,,,,,,, I'm still reeling from the number of laps I took. Thanks to Doug, Allen V. and Motor Trend. Like, the one there I'm doing a burnout with Greg in the Superbird next to me........... After the tires stopped smoking, I didn't let up......... I kept on going, hauling butt, into turn 1 & 2 to begin one of my 125+ mph laps...  

Believe me,,,, I took FULL advantage of the situation...

[70Sbird]

CONDRATS TROY!!!!!!
Sweet opportunity, and couldn't happen to a nicer guy, I thought of you as I flew over Texas motor Speedway today on my way into DFW, I could almost picure your car as a reddish blur going around the oval!

[charge69]

Hi 70SBIRD ! I live in the Houston area like Troy and know exactly where the old racetrack is located. I, also, retired from being an air traffic controller recently (this year) due to some medical complications and College Station Airport (Easterwood field) was in my area. If you flew over the racetrack on your way to DFW, you had to have taken off from College Station and must live somewhere nearby unless IAH Approach (which owns the airspace 8,000 and below) put in some new rules I didn't have to live with when I was working.

I hope to introduce myself and my old Charger to you someday soon. My Charger is only a very few months away from being finished and like-new again. I would be happy to meet you and share my joy and pride of finally getting her on the road again. I would love for Troy to have the chance to see it again finished. He saw and took a bunch of pics before I started anything.

Congrats to Troy again for a wonderful opportunity!

Well, I read this again an you are talking about Texas Motor Speedway, not Texas World Speedway!  Got that wrong again. Sorry Troy and 70SBIRD.

[hemi68charger]

... I would love for Troy to have the chance to see it again finished. He saw and took a bunch of pics before I started anything.

You ain't kiddin, I would love to see your car again.... Would be nice to take the Daytona on the track in Bryan (Texas World Speedway). But, I think the banks are deteriorated to the point of being unsafe..

Troy

[Mopar John]

Troy,
Congrats on the magazine article and pictures!
MJ

[Aero426]

Would be nice to take the Daytona on the track in Bryan (Texas World Speedway). But, I think the banks are deteriorated to the point of being unsafe..

Troy

There was some grinding and surface maintaince performed to the turn 3 and 4 banking at Texas World to accomodate Cup teams testing.  I know it was used by some teams in 2009 and 2010 after NASCAR banned testing at tracks hosting national events.    It was described by Greg Biffle as a little rough, but fast.    TWS is pretty much a clone of Michigan.   Being a track that the aero cars ran, it is one I would like to see.   It has been existing as something of an operational ghost track for many years now.  

[hemi68charger]

Would be nice to take the Daytona on the track in Bryan (Texas World Speedway). But, I think the banks are deteriorated to the point of being unsafe..

Troy

There was some grinding and surface maintaince performed to the turn 3 and 4 banking at Texas World to accomodate Cup teams testing.  I know it was used by some teams in 2009 and 2010 after NASCAR banned testing at tracks hosting national events.    It was described by Greg Biffle as a little rough, but fast.    TWS is pretty much a clone of Michigan.   Being a track that the aero cars ran, it is one I would like to see.   It has been existing as something of an operational ghost track for many years now.  

Shoot, I should call them up and have a meeting out there.. The track is only about 45 minutes from me... I was there once at an ARCA race, something like the ARCA 500... High banks and all...  Maybe I can get 'Tona on the high banks again at full throttle... Where's that release form !!!!!!  

Didn't Bobby Issac win the Dec. 7th Texas 500 in a Daytona?

Maybe I can make a scene like this again... Snap shot of the '69 Texas 500; Isaac and Baker....




Edit: I just sent TWS an email with pictures from Talladega and Indy...  Who knows............

[nitrometal]

Hi 70SBIRD ! I live in the Houston area like Troy and know exactly where the old racetrack is located. I, also, retired from being an air traffic controller recently (this year) due to some medical complications and College Station Airport (Easterwood field) was in my area.

I live just a few miles from Easterwood airport.  I drive by it 4 times every day.

Would be nice to take the Daytona on the track in Bryan (Texas World Speedway). But, I think the banks are deteriorated to the point of being unsafe..

Troy

There was some grinding and surface maintaince performed to the turn 3 and 4 banking at Texas World to accomodate Cup teams testing.  I know it was used by some teams in 2009 and 2010 after NASCAR banned testing at tracks hosting national events.    It was described by Greg Biffle as a little rough, but fast.    TWS is pretty much a clone of Michigan.   Being a track that the aero cars ran, it is one I would like to see.   It has been existing as something of an operational ghost track for many years now.  

My car club gets invited out there twice a year for a car show and they let us run full speed laps afterwards. Last year, between turns 3 & 4 was full of potholes but if you hug the wall it's not bad.

I first arrived here in College Station 24 years ago now and the first thing I did after I moved in was drive the few miles down to the speedway.  It was abandoned but I found a hole in the fence and made my way over to turn 1.  I was shocked to see a huge tree growing up right in the banking there! Oh well, they obviously weren't using this track anymore.

About ten years later a Japanese investor leased the track and ripped it up and had it laser leveled to perfection.  It was a thing of beauty. I volunteered to do any odd job just to get in there and hang out. The Andretti's and A.J. Foyt rented the track for several weekends before the Indy 500 to test and were running laps 10 mph+ faster than they ended up qualifying at Indy for.  They said it was the best in the nation.

They ran an ARCA race and I volunteered to work on a LOW budget local driver's team and we were in the pit stall next to Adam Petty. It was amazing to watch and listen to Uncle Maurice tell the crew what to do. The motor was missing real bad and Adam pulled it back into the stall.  Maurice told them to pull the # 4 plug and sure enough it was fouled (that blew me away!). Right before the race started Dale Earnhart (RIP) & Darrel Waltrip borrowed some cars and ran some laps and they agreed that the track was in outstanding shape.

I've been to several Superspeedways and one thing I was amazed about was when the cars run the final qualifying lap they will cut the motor past the finish line and coast back to the pits.  Well, it gets real quiet when they do that and at other tracks you can hear the cars bouncing and moving around. When they repaved this track there was hardly any noise, like they were running on a surface that was glass smooth.

They ran a few IMSA endurance races ( I worked pit in & pit out for those races) and ended up getting the eventual winner of one event fined because he pushed past me to talk to his pit crew during his driver change. He had his firesuit unzipped and hanging down to his waist.  I was told by the IMSA officials that anyone going into the pits had to have a shirt on with sleeves among other things.When I tried to stop him an official saw what was going on and grabbed him and took him to the trailer. After the race was over I made my way up to the winners stage and that driver saw me and dumped that whole bottle of champagne on top of me!!!  But he was still happy to win.

Alas, one really bad feature of the track was, when it was built, it would only hold about 20,000 spectators in the grandstands and they had to actually turn people away that didn't want to go into the infield. A year or so later they discovered that the grandstands, that had been built on an earthen berm, the soil underneath was erroding away and ended up condemning most of the seating area.  That was the last straw for the Japanese investor (some people said he got bored with it also) and he pulled out.

The track is still active and is booked almost every weekend by the Ferrari or Porsche clubs out of Houston or some road race motorcycle clubs but they don't hold any official races there anymore, much to my chagrin. I've been told that if you go stand out in the sun all day flagging a corner one of the drivers will take you out for a hot lap at the end of the day.

Doug, if you want to run some laps in your car out there sometime I may be able to arrange it.  My car club's president is best buddies with the track manager and you're welcome to stay with me. I only live 13 miles away.  It's blast to drive out there.

I wonder if Ramo ran out there back in the day?  

[held1823]

what a cool story, and a very interesting history of the track from first-hand experience.

[hemi68charger]

...My car club gets invited out there twice a year for a car show and they let us run full speed laps afterwards. Last year, between turns 3 & 4 was full of potholes but if you hug the wall it's not bad.

Phil, can you let me know when you guys are going to do this again? I emailed the track yesterday, but haven't heard back....

Troy

[charge69]

My first and only Indy car race I attended was at TWS back in the  mid to late "70's and they were touting the track as a 200mph track back then. A bunch of us got tickets and had a blast watching the race. I think the tickets in the grandstands around the start/finish line were about $25.00 back then but I'm not sure. I saw my first 200mph lap there and was pretty impressed.

One of my friends that I used to work with got his "corner-worker" credentials there and was a regular fixture there with the Porsche Club from Houston. He actually drove a Honda S2000 and got pretty good at it.

The track does still see regular use from the various clubs around here but I am sure they use the road course portion of the track that uses only part of the high-banked original oval. The rest is still set up on the infield like the old days on the track.

It has been so dry around here and around all of Texas lately and I am surprised it sees regular use right now.

I would like to see the old track again someday.

Hope you get to run the track Troy as it is an impressive track that only seems to see club use these days and , maybe , the occasional ARCA race.

[bobs66440]

Congrats! 

I didn't even know that mag existed!  It looks like a good one! I'll have to look for it...I've never seen it on the stands...

[Aero426]

Yes, Ramo ran a lot at Texas World, but not in the Superbird.    I do have a 1973 USAC program from the track which coincidently has pics of Ramo and the Bird winning at Michigan in 1972.  

Texas World was a real interesting story, in that when it was built in 1969, it was part of a conglomerate called American Raceways Inc.    ARI was way ahead of its time in that they owned Michigan, Atlanta, Texas, Riverside, and planned a track in New Jersey.    Kind of like what Bruton Smith did in the 90's.  But in 1970, nobody owned more than one track except Bill France, and he only owned two!  But ARI was overextended and went belly up by 1971.    The guy in charge, Larry LoPatin also tried to unionize the NASCAR drivers which did not go over well in Daytona Beach, and he quickly became persona non grata.   When ARI failed, Texas World wound up getting sold to Dick Conole who operated it for many years.  

When built, ARI placed Texas World midway between Houston, Dallas and Austin.   One writer said the mistake was they located the track on the back side of nowhere.   But the thought was there were so many millions of people within a 2 1/2 hour drive of the track.  What they did not consider was they put the track smack in the middle of college football country.     The huge race crowds never really came.     The last Cup race was in 1981, and eventually the track fell into disrepair as Phil described.    

Dick Conole leased the track to the Japanese company called Ishin in 1991.  Ishin dumped the money into repaving and rehab job believing they would get a NASCAR or Indy car date.   NASCAR boomed in the 90's, but the dates never came back.  Ishin defaulted as Phil described.  The track went back to Dick Conole AND he got a free paving job out of the deal.  I don't know who owns it now, but maybe Phil can tell us.

The final death knell was when Bruton built Texas Motor Speedway in Dallas.      So the oval portion of the track has been sliding slowly back into disrepair.   I don't think the large press box has any windows.    I am personally fascinated by ghost tracks like Texas World as the wing cars raced there.  

[nitrometal]

...My car club gets invited out there twice a year for a car show and they let us run full speed laps afterwards. Last year, between turns 3 & 4 was full of potholes but if you hug the wall it's not bad.

Phil, can you let me know when you guys are going to do this again? I emailed the track yesterday, but haven't heard back....

Troy

You bet Troy!  They just had a Mother/Son day just a month ago (they hold that every year, but I didn't go this year because I was getting ready for Indy). When they hold that they invite all the local car clubs out so the boys have something to see. They also have a Mazda Miata race team take them out for some "semi-fast" laps (don't wanna scare them) and the Oscar Weinermobile usually shows up. That thing is cool if you've never seen it before!  That event has been free to enter just because they want to draw cars out there. 

The other car show they hold they will charge $20 or $25 entry fee but the money goes to our local Children's Museum. The only good thing about going out there is getting to take some laps on the track.  Sometimes they stay on the oval, then other times they run the road racing track. The trick is to hang back from the pack with the pace car and open her up when you get a good gap.  I've had the speedo buried every time I've been out there and it was still pulling hard down the backstretch (I have 2:71 peg-leg differential and it doesn't start moving until I hit 60mph). I'm going to pick up a suregrip 3:11 pumpkin today after work. Yay, no more pitiful one wheel burnouts! That is after I get the new tranny in.

Am I the only one to ever burnout a big block 727 Torqueflight?  From what I've been reading, those things are bulletproof.  It may have been on its last legs when I won the car years ago.  It never seemed to transfer the power that I know the motor is producing. When I installed that shift improver kit it perked her up a little bit but it must have put too much stress on some worn out parts and let go.

Sorry, I got off track there.  I'm still really bummed that it made me miss Indy. 

[nitrometal]

  The track went back to Dick Conole AND he got a free paving job out of the deal.  I don't know who owns it now, but maybe Phil can tell us.

Dick Conole died about two years ago and I think his heirs are still fighting over what to do with it. From what I've been told Dick never had any interest in the track.  He was more interested in raising his championship racing Greyhound dogs.

My wife's late first husband was the track manager when Nascar was holding events there until they removed it from their schedule.  She told me that she was the only woman Nascar allowed in the pits back in that period.  They threw a fit the first time she showed up, but her husband convinced them that he needed her there to help him run the track operations. I guess the France's were male chauvinists. Ah, the good old days!

The sad thing is, she could car less about cars or racing, then or now.  All that history just wasted away on her. 

[Aero426]

Phil did you ever think to inquire as to whether they had any kind of photo archive from the old days, or is that stuff all long gone?

[nitrometal]

No I haven't.  Can you believe that? You know how I want to have every photo & article ever done on the Aero Wars.  Where was my head at?   

I'll start asking around and see what I can come up with and start another thread and quit hijacking Troy's glory moment.  Sorry Troy!!!