20220630-HOWARDMAGAZINE - Flipbook - Page 62
RETRO HOCO
BY MIKE KLINGAMAN Howard Magazine
A cloud of dust and oil smoke rises as drivers on old Dorsey Speedway wildly ram into each other to a chorus of clanging,
clashing metal. Occasionally a car bursts into flames. 1966 BALTIMORE SUN ARCHIVE PHOTO
Rough & tumble
Dorsey Speedway attracted raucous crowds who cheered fearless drivers
It was a runt of a race track, just ¼ of a
mile, with more curves than straightaways on
an isolated and woodsy tract in Elkridge. All
the better for Dorsey Speedway, a stock car
lover’s paradise that belched exhaust fumes,
reeked of oil and burning rubber and drew
up to 4,000 hard-core fans on weekends.
They came for the chases, the crashes, the
atmosphere and the beer. And, for 35 years,
folks came to see their favorite drivers in
revved-up jalopies roar around the oval track,
sometimes in white-knuckle figure eights,
kicking up the red clay and leaving crowds
breathless, from spring to fall.
From its inauspicious start in 1951 — the
original venue had to be rebuilt because the
track sat higher than the cement grandstand
62 | SUMMER 2022 | howardmagazine.com
— Dorsey Speedway attracted raucous crowds
who cheered fearless drivers with souped-up
engines who navigated the banked turns with
aplomb. Or not. In 1958, three cars jumped
a guardrail, careened down an embankment
and barreled through the chain-link fence
that encircled the track. All survived.
Dorsey Speedway epitomized seat-of-thepants auto racing in the sport’s post-World
War II heyday. Each Friday (in later years,
Saturday), in as many as 10 races a night,
local drivers like Ace Canupp, Bud Thiele,
Ray Kable, Pete Kantorsky, Denzel Dillman
and Pee Wee Pobletts (in his car dubbed
“The Red Rooster”) spun around the track
as fast as 80 mph. One of the best was Johnny
Roberts, a national champion from Brooklyn,
Maryland, who, in 1954, shed a wheel during
a race and still finished in third place.
Drivers were, on the whole, ordinary Joes:
a sheet metal mechanic here, a bulldozer
repairman there. Sometimes, their cars
kicked up so much dust that it blinded the lot,
and races were stopped until the air cleared.
Fans used those times to hit the concession
stands (i.e., beer), or to check out the vintage
moonshine still that the feds had confiscated
from the woods nearby in 1953, a contraption
which was then put on display at the race
track.
The last of six area dirt tracks to go, Dorsey
Speedway was razed in 1985 to make way
for an industrial park. The final race was, of
course, a demolition derby.