Looking back at the early days of O'Reilly Raceway Park

In a past blog I talked briefly about the history of the O'Reilly Raceway Park and how the track became such a popular racing facility that is know around the world. We will continue to look back at some of the early days of the track and hear the history from those that helped make it. Today I turn the blog over to John Potts, the publicity director from 1985 to 2000. I hope you enjoy what John has to say and I thank him for doing this.



When asked if I’d like to be a “guest blogger” on this deal, I started reaching back into my memories. He wanted to know what it was like at what is now O’Reilly Raceway Park back in the day. Well, I can’t speak for the first days of NHRA’s ownership, of course, because I didn’t come on board as a staff member until 1985.


However, my first trip to the facility was in the early 60s. I got to see Don Garlits win his first Nationals in 1964, and saw Roger Lindamood win Stock Eliminator (is that what they called it then?) the same day in the historic “Color Me Gone” Dodge.


I recall one year when three friends and I rented a U-Haul, put a couple of cheap beds in it, loaded up our motorcycles, and headed for Indy. We parked in the back row of the drive-in, facing the wrong way (so we could see the screen). Saturday, Sunday, and Monday we rode our bikes down the ramp and headed across the street.


I was also there for a couple of those Yankee 300 or Yankee 250 USAC stock car races on the road course, and more than a few oval races – including Parnelli Jones’ win in the first USAC sprint car race on the pavement in 1961, and of course for several times in the flagstand while I was with the American Speed Association.

At an RPM Promoters Workshop meeting in Indianapolis in the fall of 1984, I ran into the late Bob Daniels. He remembered me as a flagman, of course, and at the time I was a newspaper editor in southern Indiana. I gave him a resume, and two weeks later he called me. That led to a part-time job as news director, and for the next three years I lived at the track on weekends.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved ASA, and I even loved the traveling. However, I was growing tired of getting home from places like Milwaukee, I-70 and others at 4:00 a.m. Monday and having to be at work at 6:00.

When the ASA folks commented that I’d still be traveling every weekend, I pointed out that my shortest drive from Scottsburg, Ind. was to Raceway Park, at 99 miles. In those three years and the twelve full-time years that followed, I got the greatest education in all forms of motorsports that anyone could have desired.

Bob Daniels was a rough taskmaster, but when he taught you, you learned it right. I had drag raced in my youth (who didn’t?), but I learned the inside of the sport, along with that of road racing. Bob said he counted on me to help him with the ins and outs of oval racing. I had learned the race managing part from Milt Hartlauf of Louisville, and Bob spent the better part of five years trying to teach me the business side. I hope I learned something.


One of the joys of working there was the people you met. I’d never had much contact with drag racers or road racers before that. I felt somebody from the front office needed to be there for virtually every event, and I made it my business to be that person. Being on hand for every ET race, every road race, opened up all sorts of friendships. I began to realize that something said by one of my new (at the time) friends, photographer John Best, was correct.


John used to say that what made racing so much fun “was the people.” He said, “It doesn’t matter whether they go straight, turn left, turn right and left, it’s the people that making coming out here worthwhile.”

I still cherish the friendships made in those Saturdays and Sundays of cruising through the ET pits on a golf cart, and even in the paddock on road race weekends. I still stay in touch with the Hertensteins, one of the finest families you’ll find in any kind of racing, and was overjoyed at finding out that Patty won the Sportsman eliminator in this year’s opening event.

I managed to get Patty and Brian involved in helping me on big race weekends, and I suppose they’re still involved. One of the best moves I ever made. They love racing and love people as much as I do, and they were happy to pitch in. They also possess the ability to think on their feet and take care of a situation on their own, and to know when to call for help. That is, when you can keep Brian away from the Apple Dumpling trailer.

First thing I found out was that Brian needed a compass. I told him on the radio to park a certain bunch for Super Chevy at the north end of Lot 2. “Uh, John? Which way is north?”

He did okay once we explained that the drag strip ran north and south, with the bridge on the south and the sand trap at the north.

If Scott wishes, maybe I’ll have more to say. Thanks for the opportunity.