Lest anyone think that Rand suddenly was bitten by the racing bug, let me just tell you that our first real "date", was to go to the races at Berlin Raceway. Berlin was still a dirt track back then, and I grew to love the super modifieds. At that time, if there was an occasional sprint car, they ran with the super modifieds. Not the case anymore, but back then that's how it was.
Doug Lang, who owned the gas station on the NW corner of Buchanan and 36th street, owned a sprint car. It was driven by Norm Brown. He spun out...a lot. We loved the huge horsepower of the engines, inside an open wheel car, flying sideways around the turns and most of the straightaways.
The times were pretty innocent, at least for us, but I'll admit we had resorted to assorted ways to see races for free. On Friday nights at the Speedrome they used to have an intermission prior to the feature races. We would arrive, go to the concession stand, buy popcorn and pop, and walk in carrying our booty. They could see our hands were full and never bothered us for ticket stubs. We'd watch the features, sometimes lasting til quite late.
Saturday night we paid for Berlin. On Sundays we drove down to Kalamazoo, but we stopped off at the drag strip in Martin. We used to sit at the end of the strip on the grassy bank outside the fenced-in bleacher area. I remember one time we were sitting on that grassy bank when a rail's parachute didn't deploy properly to stop him. Off he came beyond the end of the track much to our shock and amazement. I can't remember whether we ever did that again.
We continued our drive to D Avenue in Kalamazoo to the track there. Again, we went when the super modifieds were running. Also again, we couldn't afford to buy tickets. There was a tree somewhere in the vicinity of turn three. We climbed it and each sat on a branch to watch the events of the evening, returning home with sore buns from our less-than-ideal accommodations.
