Lakeside Races, first hand experience.

[Mitch G.]

I was lucky enough to have gotten a few races in at Lakeside in the midgets. It was a tough little joint to get figured out, all those years growing up sitting in the stands, you would never think driving around that little oval would be that big of a deal. We admired our hero's out there, but those of us who dreamed of racing on that track always thought, "well it's small, can't be that tough". Well, it was tough. I can tell you it was harder to get good back to back laps in at Lakeside, than it was at Belleville, or CNS (when it was dirt).
http://autoracingmemories.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=9&pictureid=491
Here I am in Gary Higgs Stanton VW, that's Bob Gregg, Mike Gregg's dad outside me in Hank Hersh's Challenger Cosworth. Gregg was something like 68 years old (a pacific northwest midget, sprint, super mod champ, and ran several national championship races in the 50's, 60's,and 70's) in town for a visit, so Hersh put him in the dirt car. This was a 50 lapper, as I recall Mike Gregg won, Randy Roberts was 2nd, can't remember 3rd, Bob Gregg 4th, and I got 5th. This is a LeRoy Byers photo, that's Brian Brazzill in my old Barnett midget in the middle.

[webby]

Mitch, what year was this?

Also... it doesn't look like too many fans were in the stands. That's kinda strange because it seems like the midgets always used to draw a pretty good crowd.

[Mitch G.]

1986, I think, and that's turn 3 and 4 , more people sat in the front and back chute stands. For some reason, crowd size was real hit and miss in the 70's and 80's. I remember having good crowds on a Saturday night, then the next week Saturday again, the crowd would be way down, no explanation. Seems to me in 82', my rookie year, Bill Redden (president of the RMMRA that year) was always troubled about what to expect crowd wise, when we ran Lakeside. I know that the last race of the season in 1982, at Lakeside, we had about 14 or 15 cars, and hardly anybody in the stands, and we raced for free that night, small crowd, no purse.

[webby]

I think Gary Higgs is racing a Sportsman out at CNS these days.

[superstroke]

Kool stuff Mitch. Rick Carelli told me that Lakeside is still the hardest track to drive, even after he had toured with the trucks. Thats saying a bunch. You are right about running consistant laps....especially if you are in front. I can remember getting out of rythm...even getting dizzy. You sort of get hipnotized. When your chasing down the pack, thats when its the most fun. Early 1980's were indeed hard on racers pocket books. Hardly any crowds. I did a clean sweep one night and ended up making a little over $200.00. You couldn't buy a tire with that much. The modifieds were taking the bigger piece of the pie, and refused to share any more with their racing buddies.

[Mitch G.]

A quick Gary Higgs story. Higgs was fearless, he ran one of the best midget races I've ever seen at CNS on the dirt, truly fearless at throwing a car into the corner at full speed. Also one night after CNS was paved, he started dead last in a heat in the midget, a car he just bought, and had never driven. In a 8 lap heat, he passed 7 other guys in 2 or 3 laps and won that heat going away, amazing. Anyway, he had very little background about midget racing in Denver, and he could not get around Lakeside at all. Must have ruined 3 right rear wheels in 2 weeks, one night he shows up with a steel wheel on the right rear of the midget. All proud of himself saying "Now I don't have to be so careful!", he goes out and folds that wheel up against the wall also. We tried to tell him, "Higgs, at Lakeside, you have to go slow to go fast" He never got it. One night he asks several of us about set up on the midget, on this rare occasion Rick Carelli was in town and in the pits at Lakeside. Higgs was asking guys who raced midgets at Lakeside since the 1940's, how to set the car up, but he was not happy. Finally Higgs comes walking back to his pit stall, huge smile on his face " I just talked to Rick Carelli, and he told me how to set the car up for this place". If was funny, in the respect that he asked everyone around how to set the car up, but until Carelli told him something he wanted to hear, he was not happy. He went out and promptly hit the fence again. That's how I ended up driving his midget for him at Lakeside.

[Mitch G.]

Hey Rick, my dad used to race coupes at Lakeside for a few years, and he used to tell us that after he got out of the car, for several minutes it felt like he was still going in circles, a sort of vertigo. I don't remember that so much as being totally physically exhausted, toward the end of a main and just sort of laying on the steering wheel hoping the race would end, especially if you weren't having a good night.

[superstroke]

I know what you mean. It gets tough to even hold your head up straight because of the G force. I ran a couple of 100 lapers at Lakeside. During one of these, I had not put any kind of vacuum between my 180 degree headers and the drivers compartment. This was the first 100 laper in this car and where my right foot rested against the aluminum while I was accelerating, it blistered from the heat. I just had to finish the race. My foot was a mess. 100 LAPS around that track was no easy feat. And yes, I was completely exhausted. In the fire service, if you are in route to a structure fire, adrainelin spike will exhaust you before you even get to the fire. I think that it was responsible for a lot of the exhaustion a driver is affected with.

[superstroke]

I watched a lot of guys come from the dirt and try and throw their cars into the corners at Lakeside....usually with horrible results. On the contrary, I decided to go to Ft. Morgan one night. This was in 1984, the year I won 7 mains at Lakeside. I had already won several mains and my ego was about to burst. My wife was sick of me walking around like I was Richard Petty.....anyway, Jim Brown and I set the car up for dirt, (as best as we could) and I go out to pack the track. As I rounded the track several times, my head became so heavy that I thought there was something wrong with me physically. I went into the pits and as I was removing my helmet, there was the problem. We did not put a barrier between the driver and the left rear tire. The back of my helmet was packed with mud. I had a horrible time trying to keep the car on the track. I think the leader lapped me a dozen times, if not more. The old ego took a beaten on that night. My wife loved every minute of it. The same thing happened up in Wyoming. We were close on the setup, but could only run maybe 4th or 5th. Not to badly spanked, but not the outcome KING RICHARD was expecting.