RACING IN NEWPORT, 1950-1953
Special Report by Justin St. Louis
Vermont’s “Stock Car Boom” of 1950 reached all corners of the state, and the small, international city of Newport quickly became a hotbed for jalopy racing. For four years, from 1950 through 1953, racing was held at Veterans Park, on the shores of Lake Memphremagog and just five miles from the Canadian border.
The racing operation was known as Border City Raceway for its first three years and as Newport City Speedway in its final season, and the dusty, quarter-mile dirt track was just one facet of the busy summer schedule at Veterans Park, which also included regular concerts, shows, baseball games, and horse races.
The track held a weekly program that was consistent with the formats of many of the Vermont operations in the era, with heat races, a consolation round, and not one, but two features every week; the regular feature race was usually around 10-15 laps, and the “Free-For-All” or “Mad Scramble” race was usually the same distance. Newport’s card stood out from the rest, though, as it was one of the first in the region to hold regular “Powder Puff” races for women on a weekly basis.
Weekly races were held on Sunday afternoons, except for the 1951 season, which ran under the lights on Thursday nights. Newport’s racing programs were quite successful for the time, drawing crowds of around 1,000 spectators and fields of 16-22 entries. Some of the cars were wild-looking creations with roll cages built outside the body. Car numbers were wild, too, including P-14, L-160, 16-32, 600, 999, “Crazy 8”, “Fly-O”, and “Lucky Dice”. Cars flipped with alarming frequency, and it was commonplace to have one or two cars tip over per race – not per day, per race – every heat, every consi, and every feature!
Almost all of the drivers were from the sparsely populated Northeast Kingdom region of Vermont, and the track relied heavily on fan support from St. Johnsbury, Barton, Lyndonville, Holland, Wolcott, Charleston, Brownington, Island Pond, Derby, and – of course – Newport, as well as western New Hampshire towns including Groveton and Québec locales like Stanstead, Rock Island, and the city of Sherbrooke.
Though the track’s lifespan was a short four years, it made a big impact on the future development of racing in the area. The biggest star turned out to be Freddie Mills of Groveton, N.H., who copped 11 feature wins and another five free-for-all races – he swept both races in back-to-back weeks in August 1951. Other frequent winners through the years included Aubrey Stoddard, Glen Greenwood, Charlie Nadeau, Glen Ashman, and Alfred Gleason. A series of star drivers – like Mills – would also win big at other tracks during their careers, including Barre drivers Larry Granger and Norm Chaloux, Allan Maskell, Pete Bryant, Jackie Colbeth, Basil Royea, and Burlington’s Red Dooley.
Isabel Hauver and Betty Lowe were the biggest winners of the Powder Puff events. Lowe drove the No. 999 car owned by future Vermont State Champion and Milk Bowl winner Johnny Gammell, winning three races; interestingly, Gammell never won a feature at Newport.
While newspaper coverage was excellent in the Newport Daily Express, the city’s citizenry was never fully sold on the idea of automobile races, and the issue went to vote every year on Town Meeting Day. Racing permits were passed by narrow margins until March 1954, when the opposition won. Racing was done in Newport after just four years, but it left an important mark on Vermont’s racing history books.
MAIN EVENT WINNERS (Feature, Free-For-All, and Ladies combined)
Freddie Mills – 16
Glen Greenwood – 10
Aubrey Stoddard – 9
Larry Granger – 7
Allan Maskell – 5
Norm Chaloux – 5
Alfred Gleason – 4
Glen Ashman – 4
Paul Barnard – 4
Betty Lowe – 3
Charlie Nadeau – 3
Jackie Colbeth – 3
Basil Royea – 2
Harold Carter – 2
Isabel Hauver – 2
Jake McGill – 2
Pete Bryant – 2
Bert Hauver – 1
Bob Wright – 1
George Roy – 1
Jane Colburn – 1
Ken Hitchcock – 1
Les Emerson – 1
Lyle Reed – 1
Mabel Densmore – 1
Patsy Turner – 1
Paul Mason – 1
Raymond Hauver – 1
Red Colburn – 1
Red Dooley – 1
Roderick Bowen – 1
Sid Carter – 1
Ted Rivers – 1
Ned Lemieux – 1
Arlene Maskell – 1
(All photos from Newport Daily Express)