Every so often, stuff passes through here that’s both interesting and not easily predicted. Did anyone out there know that stock car racing used to be all over the place in Montana, which is still a pretty unpopulated place today, much less 50-plus years ago? Allan E. Brown’s definitive “History of America’s Speedways” has a list of more than 40 tracks that have run over the years. One of them was the Great Falls Fairgrounds, which ran from 1917 through 1962.
Hemmings Nation citizen Gary Gudmundson, who raced rough-and-tumble stock cars in Montana, self-published “Montana Racing Memories,” a thoroughly detailed look at the track’s 1953 season. The appeal here is the wacky stuff that used to be racing material back when anything went. Check out the post-1948 Hudson, which had likely been wrecked and thus became the newest car in the pits when it was salvaged for competition. Back around 1970, I can remember a (very) short-lived hobby stocker in New Jersey that also ran Hornet-era sheetmetal.
The next photo is even weirder. Amid the welter of mostly Fords ready for bashing at Great Falls is an honest four-door Chrysler, or maybe De Soto, Airflow sedan. The delicate grilles were usually the first thing to get knocked out of these cars, but usually not this way. The book’s $22.50, including postage. You can get one by writing Gary at 316 Edgewood Drive, Kalispell, Montana 59901.
