Pop DeGraw
In the early years, the 1950s, Pop DeGraw and his crew had the best hot dogs in the world. They had an old school bus as the main building with a few small trucks that carried the food. They usually set up in the pits, ( the pits was a seperate area from the spectators) and they went to many tracks around the London Ontario area.
One of the wonderful things about them was the smell of their fried onions. On the way to the tracks, we would all talk about what each of us was going to do to get the car ready, but as we got to the track, that great eroma would screw up our plans, as we had to have a hot dog first.
I know that I saw them at Nilestown Speedway, Delaware Speedway, and at the Flamboro Track, and I am sure that I saw them at St. Thomas and Ailsa Craig Tracks as well. Many years later, I had a display that was over 100 feet long with over 300 models of stock cars, built and painted like the ones I used to watch at the races.
These cars were all the same scale at about seven inches long, (1/24 scale). One time at a show of some sort, I had it all set up in the display. I would try to have some scenery of the various tracks and in one section representing the tracks in the London area.
I had made a model of Pop DeGraw’s bus and all the rest of it. At this show there was a man spending a lot of time looking, but only at the London cars and that white (Pop DeGraw’s) school bus. I went over to talk to him and he told me he really appreciated the hot dog stand in the display as Pop DeGraw was his father.
Courtesy of Jim Dunham
