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With Change Comes A Break From Tradition

click image to enlarge This picture was taken at the Pittsburger 200 at Heidelberg Speedway in Pittsburgh, PA. It was either 1968 or 1969. The significance of the picture is that both Dick Trickle and Bob James had won over 1,000 feature events in their careers. Bob retired in 1975, a veteran of the Roaring Roadsters, the Sportsman Coupes, Late Models and NASCAR and MARC/ARCA new car races. Bob won over 1000 documented feature races in a career that spanned from 1945 to 1975, racing in 19 states at over 120 different race tracks. He and Dick Trickle had much in common. Both real gentlemen, innovators, and real racers.

The Keystone State has been key to some of America's most important events. Philadelphia was the location of the constitutional convention -- the home of the Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

Some ninety years later, the battle that may have turned the tide in the War Between the States was fought at Gettysburg, the site of Abraham Lincoln's famous address. Gettysburg was also the address of Dwight D. Eisenhower and baseball pitcher Eddie Plank.

Edwin L. Drake struck oil with the world's first drilled well in 1859 near Titusville. Plants in places like Bethlehem, Johnstown and Pittsburgh switched from iron to steel in the 1870s, with as many as 350 factories in operation during its heyday. But Pennsylvania industry is also Crayola crayons from Easton, Hershey's chocolate, Heinz ketchup, and Pennsylvania Dutch pretzels and potato chips.

Entertainers Bill Cosby, W.C. Fields, Jimmy Stewart and Gene Kelly considered the Keystone State their home, as did president James Buchanan, auto executive Lee Iacocca and explorer Robert Peary. Pennsylvania's premier driver appeared during NASCAR's formative years, but racing's connection with the state continues on a triangular track in the Pocono mountains.

Dick Linder's three NASCAR victories came more than a half-century ago and his last race in the series was in 1956, but old-timers in the Pittsburgh area still rave about his talent. Born in 1923, Linder raced stock cars, midgets, sprints and modifieds all over Pennsylvania, but made his mark at the dirt quarter-mile known as Heidelberg Speedway.

Driving a Kaiser, Linder finished second to Lee Petty in 1949 at Heidelberg. He also competed at Langhore and North Wilkesboro that season. In 1950, Linder teamed up with Don Rogalla in the No. 25 Oldsmobile -- and finished eighth in the standings despite running just 13 of the 19 races. Linder won poles at Hillsboro, Hamburg, Vernon and Winchester -- and visited Victory Lane at Dayton, Hamburg and Vernon. In all, he posted seven top-10s in his 11 starts with Rogalla. In addition, Linder was almost unstoppable on his home track, winning 10 features as younger brother Gus made it a 1-2 Linder finish.

By the mid-'50s, Linder had teamed up with Don Dahle, running Modifieds in the Pittsburgh Racing Association and sharing driving duties in Ed Lowther's midget. Lowther also owned a sprint car, which Linder drove under the USAC banner. In 1958, Linder moved up to USAC's big car division with the dream of competing in the Indianapolis 500. He ran three races with a best finish of 14th. The next season, he was fatally injured when his car flipped over the fence after contact with Don Branson at Trenton. He had just celebrated his 36th birthday earlier that month. Linder, who was credited with more than 100 feature wins in his short career, was inducted into the Pittsburgh Circle Track Club Hall of Fame in 1984.

Langhorne Speedway, Langhorne, was one of the most dangerous tracks ever, the dirt mile opened in 1926 and was known for developing deep ruts before it was paved in 1965. NASCAR's first appearance in 1949 included Sara Christian, who finished sixth out of the 45 cars that started. Lee Petty was the only driver to start all 17 races, winning once. The site of the track is now a shopping center.

Bloomsburg Fairgrounds, Bloomsburg: Herb Thomas won on the dirt half-mile in 1953 Heidelberg Raceway, Pittsburgh: Dirt quarter-mile hosted four races between 1949 and 1960, with Lee Petty winning the first and last Lincoln Speedway, New Oxford: Buck Baker beat Jim Paschal by a car-length to win on the dirt half-mile in 1956 New Bradford Speedway, Bradford: Junior Johnson won $550 in a 150-lapper at the dirt third-mile in 1958 Pine Grove Speedway, Shippenville: Tim Flock bested a field of 20 in 1951 to win the only race at this dirt half-mile Reading Fairgrounds, Reading: Junior Johnson swept both races on the famous dirt half-mile Sharon Speedway, Sharon: Lee Petty lapped the field to take home the $1,000 check in 1954 Williams Grove Speedway, Mechanicsburg: Herb Thomas edged Dick Rathmann by four car-lengths for the victory in 1954

Mention Heidelberg Raceway to those whose frame of racing reference is measured in decades, not years, and the response is both reverential and wistful.

For those who were there -- as fans, as competitors, as part of the operation before it closed following the 1973 season -- Heidelberg was an icon of greatness for the Pittsburgh racing scene. It also symbolizes paradise lost.

The Heidelberg facility, a half-mile oval that shared a front straight with a quarter-mile oval inside and later added a figure-eight track, was the crown jewel of Ed Witzberger and his Pittsburgh Racing Association empire, a track that hosted Indianapolis 500 winners as well as NASCAR races.

Today, Heidelberg, like many other tracks in Western Pennsylvania, has succumbed to various pressures and ceased to exist. A shopping center, Raceway Plaza, now sits on the former track site, along Route 50 between Carnegie and Bridgeville. Witzberger lost his appetite for running the track and leased it to driver Tom Colella for 1973. The track didn't re-open in 1974.

Heidelberg was several significant steps above the shoestring operations that have faded away. Conceived as a horse-racing facility -- hence the term "raceway" -- it evolved into the top auto racing facility in Western Pennsylvania.

Heidelberg hosted several races in the infancy of NASCAR, in what then was Strictly Stock but has undergone name changes since to Grand National, Winston Cup, and currently, Nextel Cup. Heidelberg had begun as a NASCAR-sanctioned track, but that changed when Witzberger took over and, in 1954, founded the Pittsburgh Racing Association. The group ran five nights a week in an attempt to allow drivers more opportunities to win money.

Changes To NASCAR Recently

Change happens, and it's usually for the better. But with change comes a break from tradition. There have been many changes to NASCAR recently, but it is equally important to step back and notice the changes that have taken place over the last several decades that, for better or worse, have made NASCAR the sport it is today.

Sponsors: Years ago, getting a NASCAR team sponsor took effort, and the range of potential sponsors was limited to local and regional businesses. A list of today's sponsors reads like a who's-who of mainstream corporate America: UPS, Kraft, Home Depot, Target, M&M's and Budweiser, to name a few. There are still some automotive-related sponsors like Valvoline, Pennzoil and Interstate Batteries, but gone are the regional sponsors that laid the foundation for NASCAR.

Drivers: drivers now come from states such as California and Nevada — not exactly the Deep South training ground of past drivers. But with more tracks springing up around the country, geography is no longer a limiting factor.

Fans: NASCAR fans are the most passionate sports fans around. Who else emblazons their favorite team's logo on everything they own? Who else will drive hundreds, often thousands, of miles to events, treating the trips like the religious pilgrimages they are? But as NASCAR has changed — track locations, media exposure and the growth of the sport — so has its fan base. While people living in the South and the Southeast still make up the core of the fan base, you need only attend a race to see it draws a crowd from across the country.

Title Sponsor: Another big change, one that took effect in January 2004, was the switch of the name from the Winston Cup to the Nextel Cup. Winston had been the title sponsor since the 1970s, but amid lawsuits directed at tobacco companies and interest from other sponsors, Winston and its parent company, RJ Reynolds, stepped aside and let the cellular-phone giant from Virginia pony up the big money for the next 10 years.

Tracks: Gone are the days of dirt tracks in the South. Today's superspeedways are like amusement parks: hotels and condominiums, banquet halls, meeting spaces, health clubs and four-star restaurants sit alongside RV areas and vendors hawking the greasy deep-fried food we love.

Rules: The biggest change lately of course is the change in the way the Nextel Cup champion is decided. NASCAR will now use a playoff structure of the sort embraced by other sports, rather than the cumulative points system it has used for decades.

Media Coverage: These days every channel you turn to — Fox, TNT, NBC, Speed Channel — is covering NASCAR: live races, classic matchups from the past, behind-the-scenes profiles and more. XM Satellite Radio Channel 144 is dedicated to NASCAR coverage, and most of the major newspapers and sports magazines cover the sport in some form or other.

Lucas Mast. April 2004. My America. AMERICAN THUNDER. May 4, 2004.

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