Baer Field Speedway: the track by the airport

1964 — 2019

Stock cars beside the runways: The year the fairgrounds tracks died, Fort Wayne's next speedway was already growing. In 1962 a small go-kart track was laid out in the back field of John Weisenauer's farm at 4331 Winters Road, next to the airport that carried Paul Baer's name (the airfield's own record is in the Airports and Military sections); the half-mile paved oval was built in the summer of 1963 and the first races ran in 1964. The new Baer Field Raceway took national fields from the start: Mel Kenyon won USAC National Midget races there on July 31 and August 28, 1964, and Bobby Unser won a 30-lap USAC sprint-car race on September 19, 1965 — the track's own history credits Unser with a track record set in 1964 that stood for twelve years. The late 1970s were the late-model years, and the touring stars came in earnest: David Pearson, Bobby Allison, Buddy Baker, Darrell Waltrip, Benny Parsons, Johnny Rutherford, Gary Bettenhausen, Dale Earnhardt, and Sterling Marlin all turned laps at Baer Field in the track's own accounting, and Rusty Wallace won three features in the summer of 1978, one of them an ASA national tour race. Mark Martin won an ARTGO race there in 1983 and Dick Trickle in 1985. IMCA modifieds were introduced in 1992; in 1999 a 3/8-mile paved oval was added inside the half-mile and a dirt kart track outside it. The end came in stages: the track shut down in mid-season in July 2014, reopened in 2015 under promoter Dave Muzzillo's ICAR lease, and ran its last seasons as Baer Field Motorsports Park — the racing databases date the new name from 2016, the county genealogy history from 2017. After the 2019 season the property's owners declined to renew the lease and listed the land for sale; the speedway's chroniclers expect the airport to take the ground in the end.

Sources:

1. Baer Field Speedway / ICAR announcement, February 6, 2015 (TJSlideways) — the 1962 kart track on John Weisenauer's farm, the half-mile built in the summer of 1963, the first race in 1964, the July 2014 shutdown, the 2015 reopening, and the track's own list of visiting stars and its Bobby Unser record claim.
2. ACGSI, Allen INGenWeb, "Baer Field Raceway" — officially opened 1964 as a slightly smaller half-mile, IMCA modifieds from 1992, the 3/8-mile track and kart track added 1999, renamed Baer Field Motorsports Park in 2017, operated 1964–2019, drawing on the Lost Dirt Tracks history and 1964–65 newspaper listings (Chronicle Tribune, April 24, 1964; Illustrated Speedway News, June 30, 1964).
3. The Third Turn, "Baer Field Motorsports Park" — the touring-series results record: Kenyon's 1964 USAC midget wins, Unser's September 19, 1965 sprint win (with the Racine Journal Times wire report of September 20, 1965), Wallace's three 1978 wins, Martin 1983, Trickle 1985, and the name line (Baer Field Speedway 1964–2015; Baer Field Motorsports Park 2016–2019).