Thank you so much for making this video. I used attend races there every chance i could and i also raced a 360 Modified sprint there myself back in the 1988 season. I loved the track. this brought back so many great memories. what has happened to this facility is a crime!
Tulsa Speedway was such an important part of my youth. Hahn, Howerton, Taft, Cagle, Jimmerson.... So many wondrous race cars with my hero's at the wheel powersliding thru each turn. I believe this was the replacement speedway after the neighborhoods complained of noise at the speedway long after I was gone. What magical memories.
Cagle? What was his first name? I was a Cagle before marriage. lol We went there with a friend when I was in high school and he would race his souped up Nova. We had the best times there. Sad to see it go...
This is sad. When the track opened in 85, racing was actually already having problems. It started in 1980 when we had the hottest summer in 40 years. In 81, people had other options for their Saturday nights. The Drillers had built a new ballpark and it was being promoted the way it needed to be. We had lost several drivers do to crashes on the big track so they built a smaller three eighths inside. Unfortunately when you have a grandstand that sits far from the track and you build something inside, it puts the cars too far away to get the real sensation of speed. The small track opened in 82. In 82 and 83, Tulsa split from the NCRA and kept the small engines and added the little top wing. The NCRA tracks went to a 360 cubic inch rule with fuel injection as opposed to the carbureted smaller engine. I don't remember the exact size but it was based on rules that dated all the way back to the 283 chevy engine and the 327. It was basically either a 283 with 327 crank or the opposite. That hurt car count and in 84 when they went to the 360 rules, damage was already done. There was a lady that lived near the fairgrounds that was continually griping about the noise. When the track north of town was built, some fans never came back. It seemed like there was always something. The thing that finally killed the track was the ASCS. There were a lot of guys that wanted to travel and it ended up taking some of the better cars out. Well, this has hurt racing everywhere but it is sad that in a city as big as Tulsa we don't have a weekly show.
I went to the races almost every Saturday nite. I'm sorry to see it like it is now. Is the old Indian cemetery at the South end of the parking lot still there?
@@tombrown8829 No. It was dropped on the head of the Lady complainer. On a quiet night......you can, still, hear her complaining, to this day. What really sucks, is, the Lady is Pregnant and you know that damn kid is going to complain....."You people should have dropped a bigger, yet, quieter, Indian Cemetery, on my Mother's Noodle!!! She complains about everythinnnnggggg!!!!" It never ends.
Thanks for taking such a good film of a day gone by for the racing community of Tulsa. Gone are the days when people flood to the track to watch stock cars, but one can only hope those days will reemerge. :D
TulsaGirlForever: I was born in Claremore and grew up in Broken Arrow. Now I reside in OKC. It is awesome living here now that the downtown area is fixed up so cool. We go to Thunder games all the time and it is so much fun. Bricktown is the place to be on Friday and Saturday night. I was wondering where the "place to be" is in Tulsa these days. Where do the kids go to hang out? When I was a kid, the Rhema Bible College kept us from having anything in BA. They ruled the area with religious fists. They even took our skating rink! We had to fight like hell to get a movie theater. Is it still like that?
I recall racing at the Speedway when it was located at the Fairgrounds, as I grew up less than 2 miles away. The thunder outside was not always from clouds. "Be there! At the Tulsa International Raceway!" Great memories; tractor pulls, sprints, drag racing. Got it in my blood from there.
That was sad to watch, I remember going there and watching my brother in law and cousin race. I miss watching Jerry Stone, Andy Hillenburg, Tony Armstrong, Ray Crawford, and the list goes on and on. A lot of great drivers.
Jessica Hicks I can't believe how it turned into such bad shape. It's been abandoned for only ten years and it looks it's been abandoned twice as long. Was it in bad shape before it was abandoned?
They tore out the dirt track at the Fair grounds in Oklahoma city. My wife and I used to go there every Friday night to enjoy the rumble of those cars as they passed by. Have been very sad about it since it closed.
I visited several locations like this. At one side it's sad because of the lost track, especially for race fans like me. But on the other side it has something cool such an abandoned place, and it delivers spectacular images.
The very last photo on the bottom right was my parents with a family friend . Seeing that the track looks like it never existed breaks my heart. I spent sooo many weekends there as a kid.
As I grow older seems to me more depressed on what is happening in the world.Flemington Speedway my father would drop me off lay blanket down on top bleacher sec 7-8 every Saturday now a walmart and Lowes is in place of the track.A real bummer Elizabeth I feel where you are coming from.
people the track are having a hard time everywere. if you dont want to see this happen the help promote small town racing get people exited about it. im a dirt track street stock driver from mandan north dakota even our track is having a hard time because no one get people exited about it. racing has been in my blood since i was just a kid and i would hate my life if it ever went away. so dont let it the good old days aint dead their just waiting for a rebound.
Eric Harpole Racing I live in ok and grew up at the fair grounds watching the races. It's now gone because people complained about the noise so the made a building in its place. The only thing we get excited for here is gay ass collage football and some dumb basketball team! I wish i could take my boy to watch what i got too as a kid.
Jeff Bryner man, ta hell with those people... They dont know what REAL "music" is... The sound sound of those cars blowing out my eardrums and going home with my esrs ringing to me is music... Nothing beats those sights, sounds, and smells...
Dale Campbell I totally agree.!! If would have been ou or the thunder making all that noise every Friday night it would still be there! Now you have too drive a few hours to go watch the races.
In Spokane, the COUNTY took over the track. It has not been an entirely smooth ride, but I do have to give kudos to them for hanging in there. That may be an option in other areas, use them for a "model."
It's sad to see Oklahoma's Short Tracks go to waste. I am growing up around a dirt track. And my mom and dad met at Faxon speedway in 1999!!!! This is just sad.🏁🏁🏁🏁
South of the speedway parking lot in a heavily overgrown area there is an old indian burial ground. Not many people know about it. My friend and his brother played there many years ago before the track was there.
Great pics! I did a photoshoot last year as I had just moved back to Tulsa from Joplin, MO and was sad to see the current shape it was in. I have a whole album on my facebook page of the pics I took.
one of my most favorite race tracks riverside speedway in Travelers Rest South Carolina was sold due to noise complaints and the track it self is a golf course and the parking is the country club I will always be mad at the owner makes me sick luckily another dirt track opened up about 10 miles from it that my cousin promotes
I drove out there today. I figure it would take a minimum of 500K to put it back in working order. Not much is salvageable. Entire facility overgrown. I had heard there are a lot of tax liens on the property, but have no proof of that. I would like to put together a coalition of investors, much like the PBR did and make another run of it. Tulsa without a dirt track just seems wrong!
What was the exact location compared to Fair Meadows horse track? As an ignorant European I'm in work of collecting both abandoned and other historic and present race tracks of all types as Google Earth places, but this location really stucks me. Expecting the living pictures in the vid to be quite new I cannot find anything that matches. Is all demolished now, like e.g. Riverside?
Way bak when my pappy was an outlaw he done used to race there and hed take me back into pits with em and we done used to sit up on his trailerand watch the races.
Johnny was right. heres the song list for the whole CD Track 1. "I miss casa bonita" Track 2. "tulsa speedway goes in the shitter" Track 3. "Where oh where did Bells go" Track 4. "Celebration Station woes"
lol.. hateful to break it to you, but my friend Oklahoma is far from a dying state.. oil and natural gas alone in Oklahoma will never allow the state to die.. now dirt track racing slowly dying, yes very likely..
Dear God, Please take this Speedway out and can you please put in a Beautiful Grove of Fruit Tree's and a Huge Vegetable garden ❤ With Children Schools near by that have Wonderful Solerised Schools that have Vegetable gardens ❤ Please always have All the School's teach your Ways God❤ Thank you God ❤❤❤ Amen❤❤❤ We are So Very Grateful God❤❤❤ Please NO Negative Comments after this Prayer! 😊
