Delaware State Fair, Wawaset Park, 1915-1917 and Elsmere, 1918 to 1939

By John Nelson

Revised March 19, 2025

The earliest known automobile races in Delaware, which thrilled thousands of spectators in Delaware’s largest city, are little known today. Aside from period newspapers, the only authors who mention auto races before 1921 are Chad and Wayne Culver (2012) in Delaware Auto Racing. Such noted historians as Allan Brown in The History of America’s Speedways (2017) and Don Radbruch in Dirt Track Auto Racing (2004) indicate that the first organized motorsport in the Diamond Sate took place at Harrington in 1921.

Through the online news archive www.newspapers.com I have uncovered records of auto racing at the Delaware State Fairgrounds between 1915 and 1939. These records consist of articles and advertisements in Wilmington’s three daily newspapers, the Evening Journal, Morning News, and News Journal. Between 1915 and 1917, State Fair auto races took place on a ½-mile dirt track in Wawaset Park, a neighborhood in the western part of Wilmington. For 1918 the fairgrounds were relocated a few miles west to Elsmere, and auto racing took place every year from 1918 to 1924. When the State Fair was discontinued in 1925 and the fairgrounds sold, the new owners continued to present motor racing intermittently through 1939 on the ½-mile dirt track.

The stage was set in 1912 when the Delaware State Fair Association leased Horse Show Park in Wawaset Park from the New Castle County Fair Association. This action enabled the State Fair to join the “big fair circuit” of thoroughbred horse racing. Through 1914, only horse races took place at the Fairgrounds. Automobile races, “the first ever held in this city” and probably the first organized auto races in Delaware, made their debut on the evening of Friday, September 10, 1915. Motorcycle races had taken place the night before. The auto races on Friday involved two-man cars, each with a driver and riding “mechanician”. The program comprised one-mile time trials, a one-mile (two-lap) race, a five-mile free-for-all, and a chase and pursuit race with a 15-minute time limit. The latter event, commonly called “Australian pursuit”, was popular in the early days of motor racing. The cars were spaced evenly around the track and started together at a signal. When a car was overtaken, it pulled off the track and the race continued until only one car remained to be declared the winner.

Dominating the proceedings was Roy Freck of Wilmington, winning all four events in his Mercer Raceabout. Built in Trenton, New Jersey between 1910 and 1926, the Mercer had a 4-cylinder engine of 300 cubic inches and 34 horsepower. Like the rival Stutz Bearcat, the Mercer Raceabout came from the factory with a bare minimum of equipment, an open two-seater with no doors and no windshield. However, the newspapers devoted far more ink to Roy H. Bacon, whose Renault overturned when a tire blew during the free-for-all. Thousands of spectators rushed onto the track as police and Fair officials scrambled to flag down onrushing racecars. Bacon spent about two weeks in the hospital with broken bones and other injuries, whereas his riding mechanic was treated and released the same day.

Photos in the September 10 Evening Journal show Roy Freck and mechanic A.F. Witt in the Mercer and Roy Craig and E.L. Kinsler manning a Regal roadster. Pictured on urban streets, both cars bear license plates. The Regal, a 20-horsepower roadster manufactured in Detroit, has been stripped for racing, whereas the Mercer is pictured street-legal, as it was shipped from the factory. Most likely, Freck and Witt removed fenders, toolbox, headlights, and spare tires at the fairgrounds before the races. So, these were basically stock, production automobiles.

The next program of auto racing opened the 1916 Delaware State Fair on Labor Day, September 4, 1916. Eight cars were entered: three Fords, and one each of Chalmers, Cole, Mercer, Oakland, Stearns, and Stoddard-Dayton. Retiring as a driver, Roy Freck served as racing director. The Ford cars dominated, Frank P. Green of Salem, New Jersey clearly having the fastest machine. As The Morning News reported the following day, Green’s Model T “was stripped and geared exceptionally high and the driver in addition to having the speed also had an edge on all his rival drivers in manipulating the sharp curves.” The races, however, were rather boring. For example, four cars started the 10-mile handicap race, but only one was running at the finish. Autos returned to close out the 1916 Fair four days later on Friday, September 8. Crossan (no first name) driving an Oakland (the predecessor of Pontiac) won four out of five events and was runner-up in the fifth.

Chad and Wayne Culver published a photograph of a Ford Model T at speed on the Wawaset Park track in 1916. Although the car has been stripped of fenders and running boards, its headlights are in place and appear to be lit. At the edge of the flat dirt track, spectators view the race from behind a wooden picket fence beneath shade trees.

Two auto races took place at the fairgrounds in 1917. On Memorial Day, only six cars were entered, and mechanics struggled to keep them running, leading to long delays. Their work went largely for naught as three of the four machines that started the 20-mile Delaware State Championship race dropped out with flat tires and mechanical failures, leaving Strickler (first name unknown) and his Chevrolet the winner by default. Officials then cancelled the rest of the program. Even with only a handful of cars on the track, “The cars in making the turns threw up vast clouds of dust that not only hid the racers from the view of the spectators and proved dangerous for the racing cars, but covered the spectators with a shower of dust that continued until each race was finished.”

A better show kicked off the State Fair on Labor Day, as six Fords and two Chevrolets ran closely-matched time trials ranging from 80.0 to 86.5 seconds for two laps (one mile). The quick time set by William J. Strickler and his Chevrolet equates to 45.0 mph, which is close to the top speed of a stock Model T. Strickler went on to win the 5-mile free-for-all. Race director Freck joined the field for the 3-mile race, but had to be treated for facial lacerations after tearing down 25 feet of board fence. Driving a Ford, Sherman Oran went on to win the 10-mile finale. A second program of auto racing on September 7, the final day of the Fair, was rained out as the first event was getting underway.

1917 proved to be the final season at the Wawaset Fairgrounds, as the Du Pont Company purchased the land to erect a housing development. The West Chester U.S. Geological Survey topographic map from 1915 shows the old fairgrounds and racetrack in the Wawaset Park district on the west side of Wilmington. The site is now a residential neighborhood bounded on the west by the Ed Oliver Golf Club.

In March of 1918 the Fair Association closed the deal on a 54-acre tract in Elsmere, about two miles west of downtown Wilmington. A new ½-mile dirt oval track was constructed and the 4,000-seat grandstand was moved from the old fairgrounds to the new.

The only auto races at Elsmere in 1918 took place on Labor Day, September 2, with J.H. Strickler (relation to William J. Strickler unknown) winning four out of five events, his string broken only by Gleason (no first name given) setting the fastest one-mile time trial of 77.4 seconds. Strickler drove a Chevrolet; other entrants drove Fords and an Oakland (predecessor to Pontiac). Races scheduled for the final day of the Fair, September 6, were canceled because of wet grounds.

Races in 1919 and 1920 followed the previous format, with Ray Freck continuing as racing director. For 1921 the Elsmere fairgrounds twice hosted the top level of automobile racing, the AAA. For July 4, eleven drivers from five states vied for $1,000 in prize money. This small field was divided into two classes, under and over 450 cubic inches. In contrast to previous Elsmere race meetings dominated by lightweight, inexpensive cars, AAA entries included Stutz, Mercer, Wisconsin, and Duesenberg. A 1922 Duesenberg advertisement reproduced in April 2018 Hemmings Classic Car lists the lightest, least expensive model, a 2-passenger roadster, at $6,500. This was approximately 20 times the price of a Model T Ford and equates to about $95,000 today. The Duesenberg had an overhead-cam straight eight of 260 cubic inches and 90 to 100 horsepower. Driving a Duesenberg, “Wild Bill” Anderson of Penn Yan, New York set quick time and won his heat, the semi-feature, and the 20-lap main event.

The AAA returned on September 9, 1921, the final night of the Delaware State Fair. This time a different Duesenberg driver, George Kirchhuber of Brooklyn, New York, swept the program except for the 10-lap handicap race, which went to Jay Davidson of New York City.

Aside from an aborted program in 1933, 1921 was the only year the AAA conducted races at the Delaware State Fair. The AAA sanctioned races at the Kent and Sussex County Fair in Harrington from 1932 (possibly earlier) through 1955. By the time the Delaware State Fair returned to Harrington in 1962, the AAA had departed from the racing scene.

Most of the auto races at Elsmere during the 1920s took place under direction of David Coxe and the National Motor Racing Association (NMRA). Founded by a group of Philadelphia businessmen in 1919, this group raced at Pottstown, West Chester, and Byberry in Pennsylvania, plus Elsmere and Harrington in Delaware. However, the NMRA is best known for building the one-mile circular track at Langhorne, Pennsylvania, which opened on June 12, 1926. The field included former Elsmere winners Warren Chadwick, Jimmie Gleason, and Ellwood Wolfe, but another Elsmere veteran, Fred Winnai, established the Langhorne qualifying record at 84.90 mph and won races of 10 and 25 miles.

Early in 1925, the Delaware State Fair Association entered receivership and was forced to discontinue the annual Fair and to auction off the fairgrounds. Daniel Cauffiel bought the entire fairgrounds – land, buildings, grandstand, and racetrack – for $45,000 (about $630,000 in 2018 money) and continued to present auto races and other forms of entertainment. Cauffiel organized an unofficial Wilmington-area fair in 1927 and the following spring a three-week volunteer firemen’s fair was to have included auto races sanctioned by AAA. These apparently were cancelled in the wake of police investigation into gambling that took place during horse races at the firemen’s fair.

From 1929 onward, auto racing and other activities at the Elsmere fairgrounds became intermittent. The Depression was a difficult time for fairs and racetracks in general; many went under during the 1930s. Cauffiel tried dog racing in 1930 and rodeos in 1932 to bring in more revenue. Several auto races took place in 1933, including a program sanctioned by the AAA on June 10. These races were cut short due to a dangerously rutted track. The local papers recorded no activities of any kind at the Elsmere fairground in 1934, 1935, and 1936.

The Speedway Racing Association of Philadelphia sanctioned three racing programs at Elsmere during late spring of 1937. Several top drivers participated, including Mark Light, Bill Holland, Charlie Breslin, and Ted Nyquist. Light, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, raced sprint cars from 1932 to 1951 and has been inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame. Bill Holland won the Indianapolis 500 in 1949 and probably would have won in 1947 were it not for misreading a signal from the pits.

From May through November of 1938 the Elsmere fairgrounds hosted Big Car racing every Wednesday night under the name Diamond State Speedway. To my knowledge, this was the only weekly Big Car racing in the eastern United States before World War II. In June and July Larry Cooper of Chester, Pennsylvania served as promoter and the Atlantic Motor Racing Association was the sanctioning body, with no engine size limit. For the first meet in August, M.E. McLaughlin came in as director with the Eastern Racing Association and ran both “A” and “B” class cars (definitions unknown). The August 3 program was marred by tragedy when blinded by dust, a driver struck and killed flagman Robert Harper, who following the custom of the time, worked the flags from the racing surface. Ironically, his brother Harry Harper was declared the race winner. Although a coroner’s jury recommended that racing be halted pending track improvements, the schedule continued uninterrupted. As of the first week of September, Harry Harper had won 5 out of 13 feature races and led the track’s point standings. Other feature winners of 1938 were Clyde Dotter of Lebanon, Pennsylvania; Slim Enterline of Philadelphia, Ray Griswold of West Chester, Jack McNeil of Chester, Lou Morrow of Manoa, Pennsylvania; and Walt Walker of Philadelphia.

The last known racing at Elsmere took place in June of 1939 under direction of the Central States Racing Association (CSRA) promoted by Capitol Speedways, Inc. of Washington, D.C. The CSRA at the time was one of the leading regional Big Car racing organizations. However, following the second race meet of June 14, the local papers reported that police were seeking the race promoter for operating without a permit and generating multiple complaints of dust from fairgrounds neighbors. Hawley Kight of Philadelphia took the final checkered flag that evening. Another driver who raced at Elsmere in 1939 is better known to future generations of racing fans. He was Elton Hildreth, the “Wild Man” from Bridgeton, New Jersey.

The Elsmere fairgrounds carried on two more seasons with auto thrill shows in 1940 and 1941. Grandstand and buildings were demolished in November of 1941, although the site continued to host auctions and in 1945 was used as a riding academy. An air photo dated 1937 on www.historicaerials.com shows the fairgrounds and racetrack just south of downtown Elsmere. Straightaways ran north, parallel to present Filbert Avenue on the east and Linden Avenue on the west. On the next newer aerial image, dated 1954, the fairgrounds have been totally replaced by housing. Nearby Fairgrounds Park serves as a memento.

Sources:

Culver, Chad and Culver, Wayne, 2012, Delaware Auto Racing: Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, SC, 127 p.

Riggs, L. Spencer, 2008, Langhorne! No Man’s Land: Pitstop Books, Zionsville, IN, 548 p.