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Farewell, Godfrey Speedway

The Godfrey Speedway stock car track in Godfrey, Ill., is no more. The 55-year-old dirt track held its final races Friday night, and it is being replaced by a concrete plant.

You may wonder why I'm writing about the demise of a small stock car track. You see, my late father, Henry "Gene" Kramer raced stock cars there in the early 1950s. My dad and my late uncle, Bob Yost, owned a stock car, and my dad raced it at the track. He never won a feature race and only won one heat race, but he and Bob enjoyed working on the car anyway. My dad was known as a wild and crazy driver in his day, and the track gave him an outlet for that aggressive driving.

My mom, Jean (Yost) Kramer, met my dad while he and Bob were working on the car. Hence, stock car racing helped bring my mom and dad together.

I never quite developed his love of auto racing. My dad took me to a few races in my youth, but he didn't like the style of stock car racing being practiced at the track in the 1970s. There was too much yellow-flag racing for his taste. Besides, my dad was a bigger fan of Indy-car racing, and I was glad for him that he got to see the Indianapolis 500 once in person before he died.

My mom wasn't there for the final race at Godfrey Speedway, but she could hear the cars from our family farm near Brighton, nearly six miles north of the track.

On that note, I'm off to see my mom to wish her a happy Mother's Day.

Roger 1 comments 10:59 AM

Comments:

Nice story w/ good memories.

# posted by  Bike : 2:31 PM

 

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