Denny Hamlin doing some racing at the Langley Speedway in the YouTube video linked below!!

Langley Speedway – Hampton, Virginia

The Dirt Track Era 1951-1968

Narrative by John Nelson

October 12, 2018

         Presented here are nearly complete racing records for Langley Speedway through May 1968, when its track converted from a dirt oval to a paved oval. Gleaned from the pages of the Newport News Daily Press accessed on www.newspapers.com, my table of race results fills a missing chapter in the history of Langley. In the 2017 edition of his History of America’s Speedways, Allan Brown lists Langley as being active from 1963 to present, built on “same site as Dude Ranch Speedway”, which was active from 1949 to 1953. Without providing further details, Langley Speedway’s website,  www.Langley-speedway.com/about-us, correctly states that the speedway is in its 67th season in 2018, but inaccurately dates the opening to 1950.

         The Daily Press records that aside from a single race in 1948, Dude Ranch Speedway opened for regular stock car racing on July 1, 1951 and operated continuously through the 1962 season, after which the facility was renamed Langley Field Speedway. From late July 1951 through the end of the 1952 season, Dude Ranch operated under the name Virginia Peninsula Speedway. Initially ½ mile (.500), the track was shortened to 3/8 mile (.375) in 1954 and lengthened slightly to 4/10 mile (.400) in 1963.  

As the name suggests, Dude Ranch had its beginning as an equestrian facility. Earliest reference to Dude Ranch is in January 1943. The facility featured a half-mile track for harness racing. It also hosted horse shows, livestock sales, shooting matches, and other activities; and there was a restaurant on the premises. Location was on Back River Road opposite the west gate of Langley Field, now Langley Air Force Base.

         In 1948, Dude Ranch owner George Collier and operator H. Donnley began scheduling motorized events, including motorcycle races and an auto thrill show. On August 1, 1948 they tried stock car racing. This experiment went badly. During the 50-lap feature race, driver Ray Hollingsworth was critically injured in a rollover crash and he died early the following morning.

The Daily Press reported no further activity of any kind at Dude Ranch until Sunday, July 1, 1951, when Dude Ranch Speedway opened for weekly stock car racing. Ace Lillard, promoter, presented “straight stock” competition sanctioned by the Skyway Racing Club on a half-mile dirt oval. Results of the opening race meet are unknown. The following Sunday, Gayther “Runt” Harris of Fredericksburg, VA took the checkered flag in the 25-lap feature event, but was later disqualified for having oversized pistons, handing the victory to Alfred Saunders. Harris won the next week’s feature on July 15, and this time his win held up.

For July 22 the track was retitled Virginia Peninsula Speedway under the same club and promoter as before. The weekly guaranteed purse was $500 (about $5,000 in 2018 dollars). At the end of August 1951, Virginia Peninsula gained NASCAR sanction. Possibly because of the mixed sponsorship and short season, no point standings for 1951 are on record. Incomplete results show Dick Gervin and “Runt” Harris each winning three features, with “Runt’s” brother Odell “Shorty” Harris, Ray Holland, Alfred Saunders, and Carey Williams each winning one feature.

Val Hopkins and “Happy” Harvell came in as promoters in 1952, apparently without NASCAR sanction. The weekly program was changed to Modified and Sportsman cars racing together and “Straight Stock” as a support division. Results for 1952 are incomplete, and several dates were lost to rain. Again, no point standings have come to light.

For 1953 Jim Mabe became speedway manager and the name reverted to Dude Ranch Speedway. Now the weekly program was limited to Sportsman cars. Two drivers who became the leading winners on dirt came onto the scene this year. These are Gene Lovelace and Butch Torrie. Lovelace scored 9 feature wins in 1953 while Torrie took six, including four straight. Also taking four straight features was A.W. Weaver, but these would be the only main events he ever won at Dude Ranch/Langley. Dude Ranch was a popular venue, drawing between 1,500 and 3,000 spectators to the weekly races.

The track was shortened to 3/8 mile for 1954. Aerial images and a topographic map show that the track was shortened by cutting off the east turn. The old turn remained intact; perhaps the half-mile was used on occasion. Again, a single class of stock cars raced at Dude Ranch. The 1954 season seems to have been a financial success, as racing went weekly from late March to late October, and attendance of 2,500 was reported at two early-season meets.

During the years 1955 to 1957, Dude Ranch again ran two divisions of stock cars, titled Sportsman and Jalopy or Amateur. Detailed car specifications aren’t available, but by 1956 most of the Sportsman cars were fitted with overhead-valve engines, including Ford, Oldsmobile, DeSoto, and GMC truck engines. A few Sportsmen continued with the Ford flathead engine. The Amateur class probably comprised older cars with few, if any modifications permitted. Reading between the lines, spectator attendance probably began to decline, as it did for stock car racing in general during the late 1950s, the advent of television being a significant factor keeping people away from the track. Car counts definitely declined, Sportsman fields typically being only 10 to 15 cars. In news interviews, Sportsman drivers complained of poor track conditions compared to the local NASCAR ovals. Despite re-claying the surface and liberal addition of used motor oil, ruts and dust clouds frequently appeared. In response to decreasing Sportsman fields, promoter Bill Adcock dropped the division late in the 1957 season and continued with Amateur racing only. The entire 1958 season was Amateur only, although it appears that limited modifications were allowed. Butch Torrie, Gene Lovelace, and other Sportsman drivers found other places to race.

Reports on the 1959 season are sketchy. The single division racing was titled “Semi-Modified” allowing Ford flathead and inline OHV engines. Two changes of promoters took place; many races were lost to rain or wet grounds. For one race in October, only seven cars were able to start the feature. Clearly, the survival of Dude Ranch Speedway was in danger.

A new team of owners came onto the scene in 1960. They brought back Sportsman cars and formed a three-track circuit with Suffolk (Peanut City) Speedway Friday nights, Petersburg on Saturdays, and Dude Ranch Sundays. The organization was titled NUBAR, National Union of Better Auto Racing. In late June the field was expanded to include Modified cars, some of which were fitted with fuel injection. Butch Torrie and Gene Lovelace returned to the weekly lineup, joined by 19-year-old Lennie Pond of Colonial Heights, who would go on to a long career in NASCAR’s Cup Series.

NUBAR was out for 1961 as Dude Ranch management returned to a limited Sportsman formula, flathead and inline engines only in 1950 and older cars. This program fared poorly, as car counts hovered in the low teens while spectator turnout ranged from 200 to 700. Modified and Sportsman cars returned again for 1962, apparently with limited success, as only nine cars started the feature for the season finale in late September.

Arriving in 1963 to rescue Hampton’s speedway from oblivion was Henry Klich, Jr. Owner of a shoe repair business in Hampton, Klich had formerly raced at Dude Ranch. To begin, Klich undertook major renovation of the physical plant. The track was enlarged slightly to its present 4/10-mile, the banking was increased, and new clay applied to the surface. A new grandstand seating 3,000 was erected. Most importantly, Klich signed up for NASCAR sanction with weekly Modified, Sportsman, and Hobby divisions. As was typically the practice, the Modified and Sportsman cars raced together, but competed for separate points titles and top-finishing Sportsman cars received bonuses. The weekly purse was set at $1,775, with $350 to the Modified-Sportsman feature winner. 

Klich’s investment paid off, as 5,000 spectators thronged through the gates for the August 3 opener, featuring Linda Vaughn in the Role of “Miss Firebird”. This race ushered in five years of great prosperity for the newly christened Langley Field Speedway. Seating capacity was boosted to 6,000, and at times all those seats were filled. Competing for state and national points, many of the top regional and national Sportsman and Modified drivers raced regularly or at least occasionally at Langley. In addition to the afore-mentioned Butch Torrie, Gene Lovelace, and Lennie Pond, these included Bill Champion, Eddie Crouse, Ted Hairfield, “Runt” Harris, Ray Hendrick, Sonny Hutchins, Earl Moss, and Doug Yates. New Englander Melvin “Red” Foote set up residence in the Richmond area and raced regularly at Langley. Occasionally joining him were fellow Yankees Rene Charland and Dennis Zimmerman. From the deep South, Bobby Allison and Pee Wee Griffin paid visits to Langley.

NASCAR’s Grand National Series, now the Cup Series, made its debut at Langley Field for the Tidewater 250 on May 15, 1964. Ned Jarrett drove past pole sitter David Pearson on lap 24 and went on to finish nearly three laps ahead of second place. This was the first of nine GN events held at Langley. Accommodating NASCAR’s flagship series was a major motivation behind paving Langley Speedway in May 1968, the Tidewater 250 (May 18, 1968) being the first race run on the new surface. At the first Modified program on asphalt on June 2, Eddie Crouse circled the track in 17.95 seconds, chopping nearly two seconds off the one-lap record set on dirt. As Crouse told the Daily Press, he achieved this with a car basically set up for dirt, with the wrong springs and tires too soft. Also, most of the Modified cars used small-block engines because big-block cars could not “hook up” on dirt. New chapters in the story of Langley Speedway were about to be written.