Thunder In The Night

I have writen before on this blog about the shear joy of night racing. Night time car action goes back to the first lights that were added to ½-1 mile horse tracks. Horse tracks were where most early oval track racing took place. Eventually it was NASCAR who took night racing away from the local short track and made it mainstream.

There have been NASCAR night races almost since the beginning, but when they “electrified” the 1½ mile Charlotte Motor Speedway, racing under the lights took on a whole new meaning. Soon many super speedways including Daytona had night racing. Not long after that the IRL (now Indy Car) and Champ Car (also known as CART) even took to screaming through the night. I witnessed (and photographed) a Champ Car race the Milwaukee Mile under the lights. This was when these cars were wide open as far as horsepower and chassis was concerned. Averaging over 180 mph on a flat mile under the lights was exciting.

Like many race fans my first car racing experiences took place when my parents took me to the local short tracks. ¼ to ½ mile dirt and asphalt tracks with modifieds, midgets and stock cars, all in the night time was an exciting way to view racing. Often the lighting was so bad that there were dark spots around the track. The cars would litterally disappear and reappear at different parts of the track.

In 1963 my parents took me to my first afternoon race. It was a 250 mile USAC Stock Car race at the Milwaukee Mile. I couldn’t sleep for days. Imagine, A.J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones, Roger Ward, Norm Nelson, Don White, Curtis Turner, Paul Goldsmith and more. When the cars took to the track for their first practice it was like any weekly short track practice. They all begin in the daytime. When the race itself began I was initially disappointed. I was used to the feature race beginning under the lights. The cars seemed too slow in the daytime. 250 miles is a long ways, and by the time the race concluded I was used to the daytime action

In the mid 1980s I took my girl friend to a race. It was an ARTGO Late Model race with practice, qualifying, heat races, semi mains, and a 100 lap feature. The practice and qualifying took place in the daytime. It slowly got dark as they moved through the heats and of course by the time we got to that 100 lap feature the lights had long been turned on and the sky had become black. My friend began asking, how come they are going so much faster now? I explained that they are not faster and because the track had gotten slicker they were probably going slower. I further explained that it was an optical illusion. A beautiful one. As they raced under the lights everything seemed to happen faster, and the race itself actually became a little confusing. I mean that it a good way. The lights would sparkle off the cars. It was like a thunder and lightning storm.

I started serious racing photography in 1971. My first race was a night race but I did my share (several hundred) over the years in the day and in the night. Day racing is easier as you had no need for electronic flash equipment, and battery packs etc. to provide your own light. Still it was always exciting to stand in a turn, oh so close to the cars, with no barriers, and attempt to do your job in the middle of all that speed and confusion. I sometimes wonder how any of us survived.

Let’s celebrate some night racing with three images that I have not shown before. We have a midget, a late model, and a sprint car.

Thank you