By Mike Bennett // South Buxton Raceway
Thanks to Joe Atkinson’s dream, drivers and fans are celebrating South Buxton Raceway’s 40th anniversary this season.
It was 40 years ago this past week – Saturday, June 12, 1971 – when stock cars first took the track at Raleigh Raceway Park’s 3/8th-mile dirt oval.
“I had raced for about 15 years at Ridge, Windsor and other tracks in the area … long before anyone ever thought about building a track there (South Buxton),” said Atkinson, an 80-year-old lifelong race fan from Merlin.
He was in his late 30s when he first came up with the idea of constructing a race track in the southwest Kent County area.
“It appeared the Ridge was going to close and a lot of guys had cars but would have had no place to run if it closed,” Atkinson recalled.
He recruited Dennis Pook and the late Louis Thibodeau to see if they could build a track. They found the perfect location – the Len Bryden farm just south of old Highway 98 in South Buxton.
“It was a suitable size for what we wanted to build,” he said. “We really didn’t look at any other sites because this was just right and the Brydens were behind us.”
Securing the site was the easy part for Atkinson in seeing his dream come true.
Getting approval from the former Raleigh Township, however, was at times a nightmare.
“They were pretty hesitant,” Atkinson admitted.
“We built a model to show them what we had in mind and they agreed to let us build it,” he said, as approval came in September of 1970.
They broke ground that fall and began the bulk of the construction early the next spring.
“We had help from a lot of friends who were interested in racing to get things going,” Atkinson recalled.
“We borrowed tractors from everyone we could. George Massender brought his grader to build the track.”
It was Atkinson’s idea to build the track in a ‘D’-shaped oval, a smaller version of the famous Daytona International Speedway.
“I was at the first Daytona 500 in 1959 and thought it would be great to build a smaller version of Daytona on a dirt track,” said Atkinson, who after retiring after 31 years from International Harvester bought a winter home in Daytona to be close to his favourite track.
Raleigh Raceway Park was a profit-sharing enterprise as management, drivers and car owners all shared in the money.
Raleigh started with three classes – late models, stock and modified coupes – and had approximately 50 cars in its first year.
Records of the opening season are sketchy, but Doc Emerson won the late model feature and Fred Chambers the modified coupe feature on the second week, June 19.
Chambers went on to win the modified coupe points championship in the track’s inaugural season.
Atkinson and the Raleigh Raceway Park Profit Sharing Ltd. operated the track until 1978 when the board of directors decided not to operate the track any longer.
John and Dianne LeClerc took over in 1978 and changed the name to Raceland Speedway.
In 1981, land owners Len and Peggy Bryden took over operations and changed the name to its present South Buxton Raceway.
The Brydens ran the track from 1981-1993, with the exception of 1992 when Bob Robinson ran both South Buxton and Checker Flag in Windsor.
Mike and Heather Crombez ran the track from 1994-97, followed by Anne Rombouts and Blake Outhouse from 1998-2002.
Scott and Shelly Mihalco bought the property prior to the 2003 season and purchased surrounding farm land during their tenure to expand the pits and parking lots.
The Outhouses returned to operate the race track, leasing the facility from the Mihalcos in 2010.
Atkinson looks back with pride at all of the hard work that went into building the race track 40 years ago.
“It took quite a bit of effort, but it was worth it,” he said.
“It was a family affair for us … we all worked at the track. My sons Larry, Ron and Tim all raced.
“I’ve spent my life around racing and have got to know so many great people.
“We enjoyed every minute of it” he said.
South Buxton Raceway is holding a 40th Anniversary Night on Saturday, July 30 – a night Atkinson is eagerly anticipating to renew old friendships.
Pit Notes:
• There will be a pre-race ceremony on Saturday to present Shawn Jones with his Cory Schives memorial race trophies after his Tirecraft Comp 4 feature win last Saturday. The race was called by rain after 11 of 20 laps and the post-race ceremony was washed out. Jones and Schives were lifelong friends, growing up in Blenheim and spent their childhood and teen years together at South Buxton. Schives died of cancer in 2009.
• There were no changes among the top two drivers in all divisions after last week’s action. Jones padded his lead to 27 points over Cottam’s Denis DeSerrano in the Comp 4s; Shrewsbury’s Jim Dale Jr. increased his lead to 61 points over Leamington’s Joel Dick in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds; Chatham’s Kirk Hooker has a 20-point advantage over Ridgetown’s Dale Glassford in the Windride Transportation Sport Stocks; and the closest race is the Dover Sanitation Sport Stocks where Merlin’s Eren Vanderiviere is six points up on Essex’s Gerald Martin and eight up on Chatham’s Ken Morrison.
• Next weekend is South Buxton’s first major show of the season with the first leg of the Northern Summer Nationals sprint car series, co-hosted by South Buxton and Ohsweken Speedway. Five series – Southern Ontario Sprints, Sprints On Dirt, Empire Sprints, Patriots Sprints and the Corr-Pak Sprints – will race at Ohsweken next Friday and at South Buxton on Saturday, June 25. Over 30 cars from both sides of the border are expected to take part in the four-race series, which concludes Aug. 19 at Ohsweken and Aug. 20 at South Buxton.
• The gates open this Saturday at 5:30p.m. with racing startng at 7 p.m.
• Check www.southbuxtonraceway.com for the status of the racing program in case of inclement weather.
South Buxton Raceway
Following are the Top 10 Drivers, including car number in brackets, driver’s hometown, points (PTS), feature wins (FW) and total flags (Fl), following Sat., June 4 races.
Windride Transportation UMP Late Models
Pts FW Fl
1. Kirk Hooker (38) Chatham 426 2 5
2. Dale Glassford (60) Ridgetown 406 2 7
3. Jason Haskell (RH94) Chatham 345 0 0
4. Jim Jones (34) Chatham 351 0 0
5. Gregg Haskell (RH21) Chatham 344 0 0
6. Mike Lewis (05) Wallaceburg 315 0 1
7. Don Douglas (19D) Wyoming 201 0 0
8. Mark Glassford (90) Blenheim 110 0 0
9. Chris Ross (18R) Charing Cross 86 0 0
10. Jeff Jardine (28) Dover Center 79 0 0
Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds
Pts FW Fl
1. Jim Dale Jr. (00) Shrewsbury 421 2 4
2. Joel Dick (09D) Leamington 361 1 4
3. Eric Vanderiviere (1A) Chatham 314 0 0
4. Jeff Daniels (20D) Chatham 300 0 1
5. Dan McIntyre (77) Windsor 287 0 0
6. Brad Simpson (53) Mt. Elgin 282 0 0
7. Darryl Hoekstra (36) Chatham 248 0 0
8. Brian Speelman (22S) Wyoming 247 0 1
9. Joe Brosseau (47B) Merlin 246 0 3
10. Brad McLeod (43) Merlin 238 0 2
Dover Sanitation Sport Stocks
Pts FW Fl
1. Eren Vanderiviere (29) Merlin 250 0 1
2. Gerald Martin (43) Essex 246 1 1
3. Ken Morrison (28) Chatham 243 1 2
4. Bob Chapman (5) Kingsville 240 0 2
5. Doris Lajeunesse (38) Essex 231 0 0
6. Dave Jones (27) Blenheim 223 1 3
7. Tyler Lozon (1A) Chatham 211 0 1
8. Patrick Lajeunesse (98P) Essex 208 0 0
9. Rob Young (23) Kingsville 204 0 1
10. Tiffany/Jim Ellis (88) Kingsville 165 0 0
Tirecraft Education Comp 4s
Pts FW Fl
1. Shawn Jones (27) Blenheim 280 2 6
2. Denis DeSerrano (69) Cottam 253 2 4
3. J. St. Pierre/R.Balasin (21) Chatham 223 0 0
4. Rob Quick (43) Cottam 210 0 1
5. Norm DeSerrano (96) Kingsville 207 0 0
6. Jody Mason (4) Chatham 200 0 0
7. Jordan Arnel (33) Chatham 168 0 1
8. Randy McKinlay (26) Chatham 165 0 3
9. Steve Shaw Jr. (62) Merlin 150 0 1
10. Joel Desjardins (23D) Chatham 140 0 0
Next Race Night: Saturday, June 18 (Gates open 5:30 p.m.; Racing 7 p.m.)
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