From my 1994 Lakeside Speedway cable TV documentary 50 Years of Lakeside Speedway comes this wild story I thought would be fun to share with you guys.
Local Midget historian Gary Martelon was nice enough to share some great stories that were passed down to him from some of the great local drivers of the '30's and '40's. This one had to be my fave.
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(Gary Martelon collection) Sorry for the bad quality of this pic, it's a still from the video tape
of the actual photo. Here we see an empty Midget race car wildly flipping on the right. If you
look close you can see the driver of the car landing on top of another passing car on the left!
Here's the explanation.....
Gary Martelon: "One of my favorite stories was something that happened out at Lakeside Speedway in 1940. Harold Mainard was telling me one time about him and Bert McNeese, who was a very prominent driver here in Denver. Harold told me that one night Bert McNeese kept hammering on him in every corner trying to spook Harold enough to move out of the way so he could get underneath him. Harold wasn't going to give. After awhile Harold said he got tired of it and went in to the first corner and just parked the car. McNeese went up over his right rear tire and started flipping and fell out of the race car. There was another man named Bill Logan who was going by at the same time, and when Bert came down he grabbed a hold of Logan around the shoulders and hung on!"
Apparently McNeese just ended up with a hurt knee in the deal.
Wow!
Local Midget historian Gary Martelon was nice enough to share some great stories that were passed down to him from some of the great local drivers of the '30's and '40's. This one had to be my fave.
(Gary Martelon collection) Sorry for the bad quality of this pic, it's a still from the video tape
of the actual photo. Here we see an empty Midget race car wildly flipping on the right. If you
look close you can see the driver of the car landing on top of another passing car on the left!
Here's the explanation.....
Gary Martelon: "One of my favorite stories was something that happened out at Lakeside Speedway in 1940. Harold Mainard was telling me one time about him and Bert McNeese, who was a very prominent driver here in Denver. Harold told me that one night Bert McNeese kept hammering on him in every corner trying to spook Harold enough to move out of the way so he could get underneath him. Harold wasn't going to give. After awhile Harold said he got tired of it and went in to the first corner and just parked the car. McNeese went up over his right rear tire and started flipping and fell out of the race car. There was another man named Bill Logan who was going by at the same time, and when Bert came down he grabbed a hold of Logan around the shoulders and hung on!"
Apparently McNeese just ended up with a hurt knee in the deal.
Wow!