Flash from the Past
A racing fan see shadow snapped this image of the Bridgeport Speedway more than 50 years ago.
Photo Courtesy of Jim Bignell
Bridgeport Speedway drew stock car racing fans
LIVING May 24, 2013 Waterloo Region Record
Fifty years have raced by since the roar of the Bridgeport Speedway last drifted over the streets of Kitchener and Waterloo.
Last week’s ‘mystery’ photo was snapped looking south over the quarter-mile, asphalt track, which lured stock car racers from across Ontario and the northern United States to vie for cash prizes. The image, from the collection of Jim Bignell of Kitchener, combines two photos snapped by a racing fan more than five decades ago that were recently put together with computer software.
The old speedway site now holds the Bridgeport Sportsfield, two ball diamonds and a soccer field that sit between Bridge Street East and the Grand River in the former village of Bridgeport, part of Kitchener since 1973.
The speedway’s history was told by Marion Roes in a story headlined ‘Thrills, Chills and Spills’ that appeared in the 2002 annual report of the Waterloo Historical Society, available at many area public libraries.
In 1951, the year Bridgeport became an incorporated village, it gave its OK for the Maple Leaf Midget and Stock Car Racing Club of Brantford to hold races on an old dirt course that decades earlier had been used for horse racing.
The Brantford club was there for just a year, but in 1953 the newly formed Bridgeport Speedway Co. Ltd. arrived on the scene. It built grandstands, had the track paved and soon was drawing crowds to its races. Later a go-kart racing track was added.
Glenn Kreitzer was the company’s key man. His partners were Wilf Meyer and the brothers Albert, Roy and Howard Weber.
As in 1951, the speedway site was leased from Elsie Weber of Kitchener, widow of J. Philip Weber and the mother of Albert, Roy and Howard. The Webers, who had no earlier experience with auto racing, lived on a farm off Highland Road West, near today’s Westmount Road. The sons were customers of Kreitzer, who worked at E.B. Koenig Ltd., an International Harvester dealership his father-in-law owned at 200 Highland Rd. W., near Belmont Avenue. All five partners and many family members helped out at the speedway over the next 10 years, doing everything from timing racers to selling programs and snacks.
Track announcers included CKCR radio broadcasters Gord Shaw, John (Hoppy) Hodges and Don Cameron.
“Speed is for the speedway, so let’s keep it where it belongs,” Hodges would caution departing fans.
Dozens of readers phoned or emailed to identify the speedway photo and relate memories about everything from favourite drivers to the smell of cigars in the stands.
Bob Snyder of Kitchener went to the races often with his father, Joseph, and recalls that once when they left early he could still hear speedway sounds as they neared their Westmount-area home.
Doug Sowa of Waterloo recalls wading across the Grand to watch races without paying.
“There were no guardrails on the turns. We would stand in the field at turn one (the first turn) and watch the cars come out of turn four around 90 miles per hour, heading straight toward us, awesome stuff. If they missed the turn, they ended up in the field.”
Harold Pheiffer of Kitchener remembers watching races from the pits, where he did chores for Dixie Engel, a local racer he knew.
Some other local racers were Ron Snyder, Johnny Reick, Gary Witter, Ron Thring, Norm Wheeler and Fred Engel, Dixie’s brother.
John Costello of Guelph went to Bridgeport races with his father, Carl, and his uncle, Fred.
“I can sit and visualize the cars going around that track to this day,” said Costello.
He returned to the site as an adult, he said, and after searching found a tiny patch of asphalt, the only evidence of the speedway he could detect.
What drew U.S. racers to Bridgeport, Costello said, were special ‘internationals’ when a $1,000 prize went to the winner of a 100-lap race. One notable U.S. visitor was Gordon Johncock, a Michigan native who later won the Indianapolis 500 in 1973 and 1982.
Former racer Jim Dunham of Meaford emailed to say he remembers Bridgeport as one of the most exciting and fun tracks ever.
“I drove my first race car there in 1955 in the jalopy class. It was Saturday of the Labour Day weekend. I was about 16 and until we got the green flag to start I was so scared I thought I was going to pass out. Green flag, fun, fun, fun,” said former racer Jim Dunham.
Both drivers and fans suffered injuries over the years. A crash killed Burlington driver Billy (Flipper) Coates in the late 1950s.
Bridgeport racing came to end in 1963. The final race card was on Sept. 14 and the last 20-lap feature was won by Dixie Engel.
By then some of the speedway company’s partners wanted to move on and there was now competition from Flamboro Speedway, which opened in 1962. As well, there were noise complaints from area residents. After a summer without racing in 1964, Bridgeport council in 1965 refused an application by the Bridgeport Speedway Co. Ltd. to operate motorized vehicle racing of any kind.
Kreitzer continued to work for several years at E.B. Koenig Ltd.
Now 83, he and other family members today run the King’s Portage Park Campground in the Muskoka Lakes area north of Barrie. He said by phone at the time that he has fond memories of the Bridgeport Speedway and hopes to soon see the growing collection of speedway memorabilia that Jim Bignell displays at his business, Woodside Tires at 50 Lancaster St. W., Kitchener.
Bignell attended speedway races as a boy with his father and recalls that the old grandstands and oval were still in place when he was a teen in the late 1960s.
“We used to go there and drive around the track just for fun.”
