I just spent the last hour back in Rockingham (in my mind) living summer Saturday nights.  Google 1963 Rockingham Speedway STOCK CAR RacersReunion.  As you well know, in 1963 Rockingham Speedway was the defunct and now physically non-existent 3/8 mile dirt track located in the Foxport Community.  You will find articles written by Richmond County Journal sportswriter C.B. Kirkley about racing at the old track.  C.B. writes details of every Saturday night race along with snapshots by Journal photographers.  I saw old memories that I'll always cherish along with "discovered" memories I don't think I ever knew.  I did not know that the '63 season was so successful that a dirt track in Gastonia contacted Rockingham Speedway President John McNeil and invited him to bring his Late Model drivers to "Put on a Show" at their track.  The Late Model boys raced in Gastonia on a Friday night and less than twenty-four hours caught the green flag in Rockingham on a Saturday night.

John ran a "no admission ticket needed" race night once per year.  Big Bad John Sears won the first six late model racesand eight of the first ten.  He won so many races that the track itself protested John Sears and tore his engine down before he could load his car on the trailer.  It was well after midnight before the track announced to "several hundred fans" who refused to go home without results that Big Bad John was legal.  I remember that season.  After John's engine was declared legal, his critics were convinced that John's crew chief poured banana oil in his gas tank.  Banana oil supposedly would make gas burn hotter.  Hence, it was an advantage.  A sample of John's gas was sent to a laboratory for content analysis.  In the meantime, John McNeil required all late model drivers to come to the track with empty gas tanks and buy gas from track infield tanks.  John would then seal the car tanks.  Thus, he assured all the disgruntled fans and possibly drivers that gasoline additives would not be a player.

The track was so successful the summer of '63 that two different weeks during the week, John had to bring in carpenters and build another section of stands that were not there the previous Saturday night.  Likewise, the Rockingham Speedway was just as popular with the drivers,  One Saturday night in '63, ninety-three cars showed up to race!  John also celebrated the 4th of July week, declared "Speed Week" by Rockingham Mayor John Gore, by having an event going on at the track every night that week including a beauty pageant.  McNeil also opened the '63 season on a summer Sunday because it would give WSOC-TV, channel 9 out of Charlotte, better lighting to record racing for a Channel 9 special on dirt track racing.  The weekly late model race was 40 laps and once a month John ran a 100 lapper.  Being a promoter, John ran a first ever 200 lap race.  All drivers pitted after 100 laps, spent 30 minutes to work on their cars and under the direction of Track Steward Paul Kennedy lined up with gaps in-between rows while cars sat a stand still in drag race style.  The drivers took off at the drop of the green flag for the last 100 laps.  Wouldn't you like to see that type of start in NASCAR?  That start-up sounds like a Humpy Wheeler idea.

The 1963 season was the first year my Uncle Billy Ray Maner decided to go racing.  He was nineteen years old and lived about a mile from the track.  After the '63 season opened, Bill decided to make his dream a reality.  He found an old car but couldn't buy it until he got paid on a Friday.  Saturday morning, he and first cousin A.B. Maner picked the car up.  Billy was a third shift weaver at the J.P. Stevens Hannah Picket plant.  Billy Ray pulls his car into his first cousin A.B. Maner's garage.  A.B. was a mechanic with the Seaboard Railroad and had the reputation as the best shade tree automobile mechanic in the county as well as the best diesel mechanic on the Seaboard.  Bill had no idea how quickly he and A.B. got the old car race ready.With a set of roll bars and an A.B. tune-up along with a hand-painted 9R on both sides, Bill was ready to go racing if he only had a tow bar.  It was four o'clock and Bill did not want to wait a week to go racing.  He could always sleep later since he had only been up twenty-two hours.  As I previously mention, Bill only lived a mile from the track.  The only public highway he would need to drive on would be Wiregrass Road.  Even then it would only require crossing over Wiregrass from one private road to a private on the other side.  Who needs a tow bar?    John McNeil informed C.B. that Billy Ray  had finished his car just hours before race time.  Furthermore, he told C.B. that Bill simply drove his racer to the track and after all the racing was over, Bill would just drive it back home.  During that time period, all Billy Ray did was win the Rookie race as Cousin A.B. sat in the pits and watched Bill go round and round.  Billy Ray's dream was in 3D living color.  He actually won his first race in his first start!  The date was April 20, 1963 and I finally had a favorite Rookie.

The internet may be better than the recall of the mind.  On the other hand, all it does is present the facts, opinions and in some cases, pictures.  It cannot change your atmosphere.  It cannot put original sounds in your ears or smells in your nose.  Maybe the internet serves more as a reminder and not a recall.  It certainly reminded me of how I spent my summers as a kid that I'll always recall.  I must shut my mind down and recover from my memories.  My ears are ringing with the V-8 roar of twenty late model race cars.  I need to take a shower and wash off the red clay I have all over me.  BURP...excuse me!  I should have stopped at two hot dogs!  The days of my youth will always be precious memories of growing up in Rockingham, North Carolina - a small textile town in the South in the '50s & '60s.