"Winfield is the only racetrack where you ran in your own dust.  Even the motorcycles ran in THEIR own dust!"~~~  Ken Hauschild

 

    "It was a dust bowl but I think the experience helped me later on when I raced sprint cars.  We ran on a lot of tracks just like it."~~~  Harold Leep

 

 

 

 

     Willard Bodkins of Winfield, Kansas told me that, in the early 1950s, the Winfield racetrack would be muddy in the morning but so dusty at race time that, at times, all he could see exiting the fourth turn was the top of the Ferris wheel over on the midway of the fair.  It might be worth noting that there was only a small board fence and about 100 feet of space separating the fair midway from the racetrack in those days.  After the first few years, the late summer race date was moved to Labor Day and, thereafter, run separately from the county fair.

     Red Forshee of Wichita, Kansas told me the Winfield racetrack was so dusty he once drove right through the wooden guard rail around the inside of the racetrack without realizing he had left the racetrack.

     Gordon Dodson of Wichita, Kansas was racing in a preliminary event at Winfield one Sunday in 1967 and feeling it was too dusty to continue, pulled his 1957 Chevy off the racetrack and headed toward his pit.  A competitor who had been running right behind Dodson trying to focus on the large chrome bumper on Gordon's car (it being the only thing the competitor could see in the dust), followed Gordon into the infield.  The competitor was angry with Gordon for dropping out of the race thus causing him to abandon the race as well.

     When I raced at Winfield in 1967, the only guard railing was around the outside of the racetrack and was made of 2” steel pipe.  I can remember it being so dusty that I could not see the front of my car and, not wanting to hit that pipe railing, I kept steering more and more to the inside of the racetrack.  That is, until I just missed a large electric pole to my right.   That pole was on the infield so I had to have been WAY off of the racing surface. ~~~ Bob Lawrence

 


 

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