Once upon a time, in a magical land called Laconia, there lived a tire salesman and Baptist minister named Keith Bryar. Mr. Bryar was the owner of Belknap Tire, which still exists on Union Avenue in the aforementioned magical land. One of Mr. Bryar's favorite ways of getting his ya-ya's out was to race sled dogs. He was very good at it; reportedly so good that he would occasionally travel with his dogs up to Alaska, where such things were invented, and whip their frosty little derrieres. Sarah Palin was just a little tyke, so she probably doesn't remember it.
Anyway, Mr. Bryar kept his dogs kenneled on a piece of property he owned over in the nearby town of Loudon. Being an enterprising gentleman, he also had a little amusement park on the same property, which included a merry-go-round, a kid's roller coaster, and a go-kart track. There was also a mobile home there, which served as an office.
In the early 1960's, Mr. Bryar apparently noticed that there were a number of small racetracks dotting the landscape; Claremont Speedway, Thunder Road in Barre, VT, the Waterford VT Speedbowl, the Legion Bowl in Rumney, the recently shuttered Gilford Bowl, and others. I would guess that Mr. Bryar looked at this burgeoning trend and thought; "Gee, having a race track sounds like fun."
At any rate, around 1962 or 1963 - I'm not sure, but I think it was '62, because I remember it being significant that one of the drivers drove car number 62 (Hey, I was 6/7/8 years old) - he opened the doors, or rather, gates, of the 106 Midway Raceway. It was named such because it was located on the grounds of his little amusement park.
For the track, he took the front straightaway of the asphalt go-kart track and cut a fifth-mile ring around the rest of the tiny road course. It looked cool with that little strip of tar running through the infield. I don't know where he got the clay he used for the rest of the track, but it always seemed to be just as hard as the paved front stretch. To this, he added a cement retaining wall on the front stretch and what appeared to be a ridiculous amount of bleachers.
Those bleachers quickly filled. I remember hearing that they usually got around 5000, that's thousand, people to come out on a Saturday night. There were also a ton of race cars in the pit. The track was a blazing success from day one.
My parents and my grandmother made up the core of the officials. Dad, Sonny Clogston, was still serving as the announcer at the Legion Bowl on Sunday afternoons. Keith asked him to be the pit steward of Loudon, which Dad took to with relish. He had a unique way of conducting a safety test on a new car. He always kept a short-handled sledge hammer in our car. If you were new to the track he would go and get that hammer and climb into your car. If he could make another way out aside from the way he got in, your car wasn't safe enough. You could hear his safety inspections for a mile in every direction.
My mother and grandmother, Marge and Pearl Clogston, held jobs that at the time were known as Checkers; now often referred to as Scorers. There was no one to train them in this important task, so they developed their own method which is still used as most of the tracks in the area. It's pretty intuitive, so it's probably done that way pretty much everywhere, but it takes practice to do well. At 7 or 8 I got good enough at it that I would help out sometimes.
The flagman was also a transplant from the Legion Bowl, the great Teddy Winot. Guy Burnham served as the tech man, and Dad hired a local kid named Donnie . . . shoot, I forgot his last name. But I still see him around occasionally, and he was the Assistant Pit Steward.
It was the days of one class. None of the 4/5/7 classes of race cars, you had race cars and road cars, and that's it. On this tiny track, the most they would ever dare to field for the feature was 24 cars, which made the qualifiers very real indeed. There would often be between 40 and 60 cars in the pit on any given Saturday night.
The way an evening ran was this; there would be 10-lap qualifying heats of around 10 cars each. The top four qualified for the feature, and the top 3 went into the semi-feature. After the semi, there would be consolation races, or consi's, for everyone that didn't qualify, again divided up into ten-car, ten-lap heats. In these, the top 2 earned a spot in the feature.
It was not unusual for more than half the cars in attendance to spend the feature on their trailers. This may seem draconian, but the simple fact was the track was so small you simply couldn't put any more cars out there.
One classic story from Loudon that I'll never forget involved Ted Winot. Ted was quite the showman, and usually started a race by taking the green and red flags and walking down to the inside of the first turn. As the lined-up cars came out of turn 4 he would leap high in the air waving the green flag. Then, holding the green flag out, he would run down the infield as the cars rushed toward him. It was all timed so that he would be directly across from the flag stand just as the last cars were going by. Then he would rush across the track and leap up onto the flagstand and flag the rest of the race from there. He did this at the beginning of every race, and also for every restart.
Normally, for the feature, Dad and Guy Burnham would come out into the infield bearing red flags. They were intended to be extra eyes for Ted because of how crowded the track was, and had the authority to throw the red flag if they saw a problem that Ted missed.
So for one feature Ted, Dad and Guy took their positions. Ted threw the green and ran toward the start/finish line as the cars rushed past. But this time, just as he was about to cross the track, the first cars came out of turn 4. Ted hesitated, and that's all it took. By then the cars were too close, and he didn't cross. And he didn't get to, either.
So there he stood, in the infield praying for a break in traffic that was never going to come. Dad was laughing so hard he sat down on the grass. After a few laps of Ted standing there looking forlorn, somebody spun out and Dad and Guy waved their red flags. Ted flagged the rest of the race from the flagstand. Including restarts.
There were a lot of great and memorable drivers at the old 106 Midway Raceway, and none moreso than Paul Martel. He drove a blue and white number 444, which went like stink. He won at least one track championship, and probably two as best as I can recall. '64 and '65, probably. At one point it was discovered that, instead of a '34 Ford chassis like he was supposed to have, they'd built the car on an International Scout frame. Wa-a-a-y illegal. He was kicked out for two weeks, and when he returned the owner of his car had acquired an old beater of a racer, the 3J, which wasn't much compared to the old 444. It didn't matter. Paul kept right on winning.
One of his championship seasons came down to the last race. Paul was locked in a tight points battle with Buck Moses, father of the late, great Big Bill Moses. Buck was, in my humble opinion, quite possibly the greatest car builder in the history of short-track racing in Northern New England. After the qualifiers on that final night of the season, they were neck and neck. But Paul blew his engine in the heat, and was out of the feature. All Buck had to do was take the green flag and the championship was his. Instead, he loaned Paul his car. Of course, Paul went on to win the title. Got a lump in your throat? I do.
Model of Paul Martel's 444, made by Neal Davis
"Smiling" Bill George of Andover, NH was another star of the track. He won the championship in '63 with his #64 car. Bill's brother, Carleton, ran a service station in Andover, but Bill farmed. We often saw him at the fairs where he would compete in the oxen pulls.
Model of Bill George's championship car, made by Neal Davis
The Taylor brothers, Art and Walt, raced there. One of them owned a gas station and raced as the Flying A, the brand of gas he sold. There was also the aforementioned #62, driven by Bob "Lollipop" Brown. He won the nickname by giving my mother an extra-large lollipop, presumably as a joke bribe for the head checker. She kept that lollipop, wrapped in plastic, for years afterward.
Another of the stars of the track was Si Colby, driver of the 1H. Si owned a service station in Bristol and he and Dad were old friends. One time there was a problem with somebody who was running studded snow tires, which was highly illegal. Try as they might, nobody could figure out who was using them. They would scour the pits, and no one had them on their car. Then a qualifier would run and the evidence was obvious. Studded snows really tore up the track.
One evening Dad was making the rounds of the pits, which were poorly lit. He made his way over to the back corner where Si happened to always park. He could see Si putting something in his truck. Dad offered to help, and when he got out his flashlight he discovered that his old friend was busy hiding the studded snows. He would slip them on quickly, run his race, and then hustle back to his pit stall and remove them. It broke Dad's heart to do it, but he kicked Si out for two weeks. Si understood, though, and they remained friends.
The other popular means of cheating was to put moth balls in your gas. Supposedly, it gave your car extra horsepower. You could always tell by the smell if someone was treating their fuel with mothballs. Those, and the use of a Jeep or Scout frame, were the biggest ways anyone had of getting around the rules.
The rules were simple, but strict. Everything had to be show stock, and there could be nothing on your car that didn't come with that year's make and model. Sometimes somebody would pay the $25 tear-down fee and the car, the owner, Dad and Guy would go after the races to Belknap Tire where they would examine the offending part of the car. If the complaint regarded your rear end and you drove a Ford, they would remove the rear end and every gear had better be stamped FoMoCo, for Ford Motor Company. You could have the identical gears, made of the identical material with the same number of teeth and everything, but if they didn't say FoMoCo you were illegal and lost your winnings and points.
Keith Bryar was always my favorite track owner for the reason that he knew what he didn't know. He was not an expert on racing or race cars, so he hired people who did and trusted them. Anyone who came to the track owner with a complaint would be directed to whichever official was in charge of that area.
The one time I can remember him being tempted to step in involved a popular driver, I forget who, who had been caught adrift of the rules. Policy was that they would be kicked out for at least two weeks, so it must have been a serious violation. Keith was on the verge of panic, according to my father, because so many people cheered for this driver. Dad told him that if he wanted somebody else to be pit steward, Keith was free to do that, but he would only stay if the rules were the rules. Keith swallowed hard and backed my Dad.
As it turned out, once word got out that this driver was out for two weeks, six new cars showed up along with their fans. The offending driver came back after his sentence was up, shamefaced and legal as a judge.
Dad, Mom, Gram, Donnie and Ted worked in Loudon on Saturday nights and Rumney Sunday afternoons for a few years. Finally, the team left Rumney and were invited to officiate for a new track in Groveton, the Riverside Speedway, for Sundays. Around 1967-68 Keith announced plans to expand the facility. He wanted to tear down the little amusement park and move his kennel and turn the 106 Midway Raceway into a road course. He offered Dad the job of being pit steward for the new facility, a job that would require him to quit his regular job and work for Keith full time. Dad was tempted, but turned him down.
BMP was, of course, another success. They soon acquired race dates from the SCCA, including its very popular Trans-Am series. They also became the home of the Laconia Motorcycle races. He even kept one foot in the local racing scene by having a dirt oval on the property. We never went, but my brother, Butch used to race there.
If anyone out there has any stories or pictures from the 106 Midway Raceway, or know of anything I got wrong, I'd be more than happy to share them.
