Jerry Lee
09-14-2009, 05:55 PM
Growing up at Englewood Speedway in the '60's and then working at the track through the '70's, I became a Rich Codner fan. At a young impressionable age I believed he had the coolest gig in the world. A little house on South Federal with a 3/8 mile race track in the backyard. Man, I wanted one.
These clips are from a 1986 cable TV interview I did with Rich and a pre-tape soundcheck. This could have well been Rich's last media interview about the speedway as Mr. Codner passed away not long after.
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JL: "Why do you think your Dad bought the speedway?"
RC: "When my Dad bought the race track he was in bad health. He thought automobile racing was going to relax him a little bit."
JL: "And I understand that's about the time the cars went from Roadsters to Jalopies."
RC: "With the Roadsters we wern't getting very many cars. Of course, Denver was a smaller town then and racing interest really wasn't that great. Denver didn't have no television then, so therefore getting racing out to the media and the people was sort of a hard job. But in 1950, my Dad seen the fact that the Roadsters didn't have enough cars to put on a good race program with, so he decided we went into what we called Jalopies or Stock Cars."
JL: "Tell me about the switch from dirt to asphalt at the beginning of the '60's."
RC: "In 1958 I went into the service and the track was still dirt. In 1960 my Dad's health got bad and he decided to alleviate some of the work on his part, so the race track was paved for the races of 1960. They found that asphalt racing was a little faster than dirt. I think the track record was broke by like two seconds. During the early '60's I didn't get actively involved in the race track, I had an engine rebuilding service."
JL: "But you and your brother Don started racing when your family brought in the Figure 8's in '64, right?"
RC: "Yeah, I thought this is my chance to get into racing on the ground floor, so I built me a Figure 8. Being that my family owned the speedway I felt I was in a bad position, but I had a lot of fun racing. I never regretted it."
JL: "Those Figure 8's were so much fun to watch!"
RC: "(laughs) Yeah, needless to say we had a lot of accidents, a lot of close calls. It took the hearty type person to drive it and probably the heartier type of fan to sit and watch it! (laughs)"
JL: "What's one of the wildest accidents you remember out there?"
RC: "We had one ironic deal with Bill Nicholson. One night he ran over somebody's wheel going into the turn and flipped way up in the air. He went through the pit fence and ironically landed on one of his pitmen down there."
JL: "I was too young to join in, but I can remember a lot of parties in the pits after the races."
RC: "(laughs) Yeah, we used to have some wild parties back then. One night, instead of racing, a bunch of us went up to Ft. Collins to see the Rolling Stones!"
JL: "There sure were a lot of great drivers who circled that track over the years."
RC: "One of our drivers, Wayne Stallsworth, went to Rockford, Ill. in 1971 and won the championship for the mid-west United States. So that was a feather in our hat."
JL: "Anything you want to add?"
RC: "Looking back on racing y'know, I just don't feel like our local drivers ever really got a chance to prove that they're capable of going to the Indy 500 and not really winning it, but have a respectable showing."
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R.I.P. RICHARD V. CODNER
These clips are from a 1986 cable TV interview I did with Rich and a pre-tape soundcheck. This could have well been Rich's last media interview about the speedway as Mr. Codner passed away not long after.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
JL: "Why do you think your Dad bought the speedway?"
RC: "When my Dad bought the race track he was in bad health. He thought automobile racing was going to relax him a little bit."
JL: "And I understand that's about the time the cars went from Roadsters to Jalopies."
RC: "With the Roadsters we wern't getting very many cars. Of course, Denver was a smaller town then and racing interest really wasn't that great. Denver didn't have no television then, so therefore getting racing out to the media and the people was sort of a hard job. But in 1950, my Dad seen the fact that the Roadsters didn't have enough cars to put on a good race program with, so he decided we went into what we called Jalopies or Stock Cars."
JL: "Tell me about the switch from dirt to asphalt at the beginning of the '60's."
RC: "In 1958 I went into the service and the track was still dirt. In 1960 my Dad's health got bad and he decided to alleviate some of the work on his part, so the race track was paved for the races of 1960. They found that asphalt racing was a little faster than dirt. I think the track record was broke by like two seconds. During the early '60's I didn't get actively involved in the race track, I had an engine rebuilding service."
JL: "But you and your brother Don started racing when your family brought in the Figure 8's in '64, right?"
RC: "Yeah, I thought this is my chance to get into racing on the ground floor, so I built me a Figure 8. Being that my family owned the speedway I felt I was in a bad position, but I had a lot of fun racing. I never regretted it."
JL: "Those Figure 8's were so much fun to watch!"
RC: "(laughs) Yeah, needless to say we had a lot of accidents, a lot of close calls. It took the hearty type person to drive it and probably the heartier type of fan to sit and watch it! (laughs)"
JL: "What's one of the wildest accidents you remember out there?"
RC: "We had one ironic deal with Bill Nicholson. One night he ran over somebody's wheel going into the turn and flipped way up in the air. He went through the pit fence and ironically landed on one of his pitmen down there."
JL: "I was too young to join in, but I can remember a lot of parties in the pits after the races."
RC: "(laughs) Yeah, we used to have some wild parties back then. One night, instead of racing, a bunch of us went up to Ft. Collins to see the Rolling Stones!"
JL: "There sure were a lot of great drivers who circled that track over the years."
RC: "One of our drivers, Wayne Stallsworth, went to Rockford, Ill. in 1971 and won the championship for the mid-west United States. So that was a feather in our hat."
JL: "Anything you want to add?"
RC: "Looking back on racing y'know, I just don't feel like our local drivers ever really got a chance to prove that they're capable of going to the Indy 500 and not really winning it, but have a respectable showing."
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R.I.P. RICHARD V. CODNER