Checking In

[indybigjohn]

New member today. John Potts in London, Ky. I got involved in racing before the age of 10, selling National Speed Sport News. Except for four years in the service, I've been involved ever since. Was an official at the old Fairgrounds Motor Speedway in Louisville for 20 years, flagged for ARCA in the 60s and early 70s, and for ASA from 1972 through 1984. During most of this time my "real" job was as a weekly newspaper editor in southern Indiana (I did drive a propane truck for a couple of years between newspaper jobs). In 1985 I was appointed news director at Indianapolis Raceway Park, and was there until being retired by NHRA in the fall of 2000. Although I'm in a wheelchair, I now help operate Corbin Speedway near Corbin, Ky.

I'm a big racing history nut, and am particularly interested in the racing history of the Louisville area. A friend and I plan to start a website this winter devoted to that topic.

[Quick Time]

Welcome to this great site. Hope you enjoy all the information here. By the way you found a gem with this one. Glad to have you on board.

Chuck

[Mitch G.]

Indybigjohn, great to have you on board, I've always admired your insight, and knowledge of the sport and it's history. I've been following your post's on the HAMB, the pre-1969 sprint car thread, which is a history lesson in itself. Hey, all you ARM followers, you will learn a lot from John.

[webby]

New member today. John Potts in London, Ky. I got involved in racing before the age of 10, selling National Speed Sport News. Except for four years in the service, I've been involved ever since. Was an official at the old Fairgrounds Motor Speedway in Louisville for 20 years, flagged for ARCA in the 60s and early 70s, and for ASA from 1972 through 1984. During most of this time my "real" job was as a weekly newspaper editor in southern Indiana (I did drive a propane truck for a couple of years between newspaper jobs). In 1985 I was appointed news director at Indianapolis Raceway Park, and was there until being retired by NHRA in the fall of 2000. Although I'm in a wheelchair, I now help operate Corbin Speedway near Corbin, Ky.Wow! That's some serious racing history my friend. I certified your membership so you can post pictures and stuff if you want to.

I'm a big racing history nut, and am particularly interested in the racing history of the Louisville area. A friend and I plan to start a website this winter devoted to that topic.Make sure to give us a link when you get your site going and we will all check it out.

In the mean time, we can't wait to hear about your auto racing memories. :up:

[webby]

Indybigjohn, great to have you on board, I've always admired your insight, and knowledge of the sport and it's history. I've been following your post's on the HAMB, the pre-1969 sprint car thread, which is a history lesson in itself. Hey, all you ARM followers, you will learn a lot from John.For all of you HAMB'ers, please spread the word about ARM. HAMB is great but it isn't dedicated to auto racing therefore all the auto racing stuff gets placed in humongously long threads which makes it near impossible to find anything. Here at ARM we run the same top-of-the-line forum software as they do, but we dedicate the entire site to auto racing memories so it would be great to get more of the discussion here where it's more focused.

So.... spread the word about ARM!!

[indybigjohn]

Thanks for all the kind words, guys. I'm lucky to have lasted this long, I suppose. My avatar is a photo from an ARCA race at Louisville Downs, a trotting horse track, in the late 1960s when I had to work from the track. That's Iggy Katona's Dodge qualifying.

I'll let everybody know when we get that Louisville area site going. I'll try to post a larger version of it. I had a ball that day. Before radios, etc. and the flagman was in charge.

You can be sure I'll be a daily visitor here, whether I comment or not.

[indybigjohn]

I'm giving this a shot from my PhotoBucket site to see if it works here.

http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh178/indybigjohn/LouisvilleDowns01.jpg

You guys interested in open wheelers might also like the "Semi Official Cool Old Indy Car Pics" thread on Track Forum's Nostalgia section.