John E. “Johnny” Rostek (Ft. Collins, CO)  When you ask someone what drivers from Colorado drove in NASCAR Daytona 500 qualifying races in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the most common response would be: “Fritz Wilson, and…<long-pause>…there’s someone else?”  I will get back to that later in this article.

Johnny Rostek (1925-1969) owned and operated Rostek Construction and the Lamplighter Motels, Inc. based out of Ft. Collins, CO.  His wife, Shirley L. Rostek (1925-2008), was the bookkeeper for these two booming enterprises.  Later, Rostek owned the Charco Broiler steakhouse in Fort Collins.  They were also the proud parents of two lovely daughters: Sharon and Cathy.  Sharon has an extensive collection of her father’s racing mementos, and in the past, she shared many of them with us at the “old memories” site.

In the beginning (circa 1950s), “Johnny” drove race cars and won a lot at Speedway Park (Ft. Collins, CO), Intermountain Speedway (Cheyenne, WY), Pikes Peak Speedway (Colo. Springs, CO), Lakeside Speedway (Denver. CO), and Englewood Speedway (Englewood, CO).

There was an early photo of a well publicized on-track incident at Lakeside Speedway that had always intrigued me.  That incident involved Vern Grams and Keith Lane with Vern’s car ending up on top of Keith’s car.  I’d always wanted to learn more about that incident in general and Vern Grams in particular.  A few years ago I was fortunate to have an opportunity to sit down with Vern and his wife Mariann where they shared photos and stories of his racing with me.  And yes, he had an 8x10 glossy of that photo, and more.  Here then is his racing story.

Vern was originally from the Greeley area.  It was 1952, the popularity of stock car racing was booming everywhere, including Greeley, and Vern, just out of the service, like a lot of young guys, went racing.

One of Vern’s early rides was in this car getting sideways just in front of the #11.  Things got worse instead of better as Vern took a pretty good tumble.  When the car came to a stop, Vern was unconscious and had to be helped from the car.   Not really the way he wanted to get started. 

Compton "Comp" Wilson (Berthoud, CO), a dairy farmer by trade, raced at Speedway Park in Fort Collins, CO; at Intermountain Speedway in Cheyenne, WY; and at Englewood Speedway in Englewood, CO.

The attached photo shows Comp and his "chopped-fendered" Ford coupe in the pits at Speedway Park, circa 1949-1950. Several of the drivers carried that OK Rubber Welders logo on their racecars. For the price back in that era of racing, those OK re-cap racing slicks were very hard to beat.

Comp and Lou Wendzel co-owned some #84 Ford flat-head coupes during the mid-to-late 1950s. Working together, their team won many races and a track championship at Cheyenne's Intermountain Speedway. I'll send more of Lou's photos of their #84 Ford coupes via subsequent postings to ARM.

Later in his racing career, Comp campainged a #84 modified at Englewood Speedway. If anyone has information or photos of Comp's #84 modified, please send them to ARM. ~ VintageBuzz

During the post WW II era, auto racing of all sorts in the USA was booming.  By 1950, stock car racing of the local variety was becoming popular with tracks popping up seemingly everywhere.

Interest in auto racing in the tri-state area would develop as the Interstate Auto Racing Association, and included racing clubs from Cheyenne, Wyoming,  Greeley, Loveland and Fort Collins, Colorado.  According to the Wyoming Auto Racing Club history book, Speedway Park in Ft. Collins, a one fifth mile paved track, opened in 1950 as the first facility for stock car racing only in this tri-state area. 

Among the competitors at Speedway Park was Nebraska’s Vern Westphalen, driving #13.  Only black and white photos exist, but presumably this car was green and white, as his later cars were. Green during these early years, at least in stock car racing, didn’t seem to hold the same superstition that it did in other forms of auto racing.

During 1951, Vern also became one of the top drivers at the converted fairgrounds track in Sidney, Nebraska with what appears to be the same ’37 Ford Coupe that he raced at Speedway Park.  Here he is on a Sunday afternoon getting his reward for a win.  Devils Motor Club official Ed Bauman, still in his Sunday-go-to meetin’ clothes, looks on.