The Famed Race Track Bids Farewell

(photo courtesy Jonathon Daniel/Getty Images)

The oldest continuously operated race track in the USA, The Milwaukee Mile, is without a promoter and is off the schedule for the 2010 season.  The previous promoter of The Milwaukee Mile ran into some severe financial problems following the NASCAR Nationwide and Camping World Truck races this past summer.  So 2010 will be the first time in the 106 year history of the Milwaukee Mile that it will be idle and hold no races!

Think about it, there have been races held at The Milwaukee Mile for 106 continuous years!  That is longer than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway!  Now that is all gone.

To learn that The Milwaukee Mile is fading off into the sunset is a sad feeling.  But it is hard to feel sorry for a race track.  A racetrack has no heart and has no soul.  A racetrack is nothing more that some asphalt, concrete, steel, throw in some hot dog wrappers and empty beer cans as well, right?  So why the sadness you say?

I think that the sadness is for the vivid memories that will now fade into the distant past.  For the cheers from the spectators when the cars roared to life.  For the distinctive roar of the old Offenhauser engines that were powering the front engine Indy Car roadsters of the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s, gone!  For all the times that “Super Tex”, A.J. Foyt, raced wheel to wheel with Mario Andretti, gone!  Watching such great Indy Car racer like Parnelli Jones, “Lone Star JR”Johnny Rutherford, Bobby Unser, Al Unser, Sr., Gordon Johncock, Rick Mears, Roger Ward, Billy Vukovich, Loyd Ruby, Rex Mays,  and many more cause the list is endless, wheeling their finely tuned racing machines around The Milwaukee Mile, first as a dirt track then pavement, gone!

Just think that for now there will be no young kids getting to watch the next A.J. Foyt, the next Rick Mears, the next Dale Earnhardt, Sr, the next Jimmie Johnson, or the next Jeff Gordon!

GONE, GONE, GONE!

So, The Milwaukee Mile is gone, and most likely forever.  But the one thing that can’t be taken away is all the memories that those 106 years of racing painted in our minds!  Those memories are ours and can never be removed!

TIL NEXT TIME, I AM STILL WORKING ON MY REDNECK!