Mud, Sweat and Tires

Mud, Sweat and Tires

 Our next door neighbor’s front porch was a constant gathering place for several of us kids on those hot steamy summer evenings in the Sheffield neighborhood of Northeast. Mrs. Ault owned the house and in addition of having a great deal of patience with kids, she also made the best ice tea this side of the Mississippi.

   I can remember sitting there trying to stay cool when we would suddenly hear the distance roar of engines on a weekend evening just before dark. Everyone would try to guess what it was and where it could be coming from. One of Mrs. Ault’s older sons heard us talking late one afternoon and said it was the stock cars racing at Olympic Stadium about a mile away. We were around 12 years old at the time and he didn’t want to get us in trouble with our parents so he refused to tell us how to get there when we asked him.

  All of us boys were beginning to get interested in cars so we weren’t about to let something like no directions stop us from exploring a potential source of fun. It was decided that we would bring our bikes and meet at Mrs. Ault’s house the following Friday evening and let the sounds of the car engines guide us to the stadium.

  About seven o’clock on the agreed evening our quiet neighborhood suddenly erupted with the sound of twenty high performance stock cars trying to out do each other.

The startled sparrows that had been peacefully eating bread tossed out in the yard by Mrs .Ault flew away in terror from the loud noise. We jumped on our bikes and rode towards the exciting sound that continued to rise in volume as we got closer. At best, we figured we had one hour to get there, look around for a few minutes and get back home before our parents realized we were gone.

  The plan worked beautifully for a change and we were all sufficiently impressed with the stadium and all the cars being brought in on trailers. The atmosphere was fantastic with the now deafening noise and smell of hot dogs and popcorn being sold in the concession stands. We could only imagine how much fun the people in the bleachers were having as they cheered on their favorite drivers. On the ride home we made a pact that we would all come back and see the inside as soon as we could earn enough money. In time, we did indeed go back to Olympic and loved every minute of it. Sitting in Olympic Stadium on a hot summer night under the stars eating hot dogs, drinking pop and watching race after race has to rank right up there with watching a baseball game or fishing on the banks of a creek for catfish.

   My life long friend and classmate, Larry Dady did more than just sit in the stands wishing he were a race car driver like the rest of us.

  After he graduated from Northeast High school in 1968 and did a hitch in the Navy, he married his high school sweet heart and 1970 Northeast graduate, Mary Layman. In 1976 Larry didn’t have much money so he traded a CB base unit even up for an old Plymouth Fury. A good friend put in a roll cage, replaced the windshield with wire screen and Larry entered the expensive but thrilling world of dirt track racing.

  Over the last 30 years the Dady’s have owned about fifteen different cars. Mary does all the chassis work while Larry does the mechanical work. They have never had paying sponsors so every dollar spent on the hobby comes out of their own pockets.

  As a young fan in the 1960s, I didn’t really understand how your starting position in a race was determined. Larry explained to me that each driver has to compete in an 8 lap heat race which typically has 8 to 10 cars. The top two finishers of each heat race go on to compete in the feature race. A feature race has 26 cars racing for 25 laps on the 5^th mile oval dirt track at speeds up to 70 mph. There wasn’t a lot of concern about safety equipment when Larry eased his powerful Plymouth on to the dirt track for the first time 30 years ago dressed in blue jeans, a tee shirt, work boots and a helmet. Today, he wears a fire resistant suit, special safety boots, gloves and a helmet with tear offs on his visor.

  I asked Larry what his most memorable race was to date and he said it would have to be the time he beat Terry Bivins. Terry raced locally for many years and was competing on the Winston Cup Series when he came to Kansas City to race a stock car at Riverside Stadium. For several weeks leading up to the race, Larry told his buddies that he would beat Terry. Everyone had a good laugh at his bold prediction but Larry had the last laugh as he beat Terry Bivins on opening night in 1976.

   Olympic Stadium saw many great drivers entertain the fans such as Jud Larson, Charley Taggert, Bud Hunnicutt, Vito Calia, Clyde Ellis, Anthony Gulotta, the Weld and McVay families and my old boss for a few years, Dick Sutcliffe.

  In addition to watching the cars jockey for position and negotiate turns at breath taking speeds, you got to see Sammy, “The Dancing Flagman” Callahan in action. Looks can indeed be deceiving as you watched this short stocky man standing along the track suddenly take on the fluid athletic moves of a wide receiver and the grace of a ballerina as he risked life and limb dancing his way across the track.

 Another man that everyone loved was J.O. “Pop” Hartman. I never met him but virtually every person I have talked to couldn’t say enough good things about him. Pop was around race tracks in one capacity or another his entire adult life. At various stages of his life he was a driver, pitman and mechanic. He was the first riding mechanic in the first ever Indianapolis 500 in 1911. After a long career that took him to tracks from one end of the country to the other, he retired to a house trailer at Olympic Stadium. In 1961 the Blue River came out of its banks, damaging the stadium and destroying Pop’s trailer. The owners of Olympic built an apartment in the wall of the stadium when they remodeled which is where the aging patriarch of racing spent his remaining years reminiscing with friends, fans and owners.

  Retired fire fighter, Ray Elder spent part of his childhood living in a house trailer on the east bank of the Blue River next to Olympic Stadium. In 1949, at the young age of 13, Ray talked to Olympic owner, Dutch Miller and it was agreed that he would begin his four year working career at the stadium by flagging cars into the parking lots for Sunday evening races. Eventually he started parking cars on both Saturday and Sunday. Due to his small size, he got to pick up trash, soda pop and beer bottles under the bleachers during the day for extra money. In time, he did the maintenance repair work on the parking grounds and collected parking fees which were a mere thirty cents per car in 1952. The best part of the job was getting to meet and talk to all the drivers in those four years.

  There use to be a beer garden in front of the old race track called the Cotton Club where fans and drivers spent countless hours discussing the sport of racing.

Olympic Stadium opened in 1937 and closed in 1974 but what a beautiful 37 year run it was with hundreds of stock, modified stocks and midgets racers providing fans with a life time of memories.

 Check out the Racing Hall of Fame and links to area dirt tracks still in business at www.kccarb.com