Fort Wayne Speedway: the big track

1930 — 1964

The fastest bowl in Indiana, and the most dangerous: On farmland along dirt California Road, on the county fairgrounds north of where Glenbrook Square stands today on Coliseum Boulevard, the builder Frank Funk — who also built the Winchester and Dayton speedways and was known for fast tracks — raised a five-eighths-mile dirt oval of steep banking, dated 1928 in the track-history record and opened for racing in 1930 as the home of the Fort Wayne Speedway. Midgets were the original show. The track was remembered, in the words of its later chroniclers, as the highest-banked and fastest 5/8-mile track in the world — a claim printed here as the reputation it was — and its surface of dips and hollows and its low outer rails let cars launch clear out of the arena. Racing stopped for the Second World War and the track fell into disrepair; a new owner who bought the ground chiefly for his horses rebuilt it with half-mile and quarter-mile dirt tracks inside the big oval in 1946, paved the quarter in 1947 and the main track in 1949, and stock cars and modifieds ran successfully through the 1950s, with ARCA-sanctioned races and, on July 28, 1956, a NASCAR Convertible Division race whose field included Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly. On August 13, 1959, Gene Hartley won a 50-lap USAC National Midget race on the big track. It closed in 1936–45 and for good in 1964 — operated 1930–1936 and 1946–1964 in the county record — when the fairgrounds land was sold for industrial development; the wooden grandstand stood until the Fort Wayne Fire Department burned it in a controlled burn on June 21, 1967. Speedway Drive and Grandstand Way keep its map.

Sources:

1. ACGSI, Allen INGenWeb, "Fort Wayne Speedway" — Frank Funk, the 5/8-mile dirt oval, operated 1930–1936 and 1946–1964, the wartime rebuild and 1947/1949 paving, ARCA racing in the 1950s, the fairgrounds sale, and the grandstand's controlled burn of June 21, 1967 (Allen County Public Library Digital Collections), drawing on the Lost Dirt Tracks and Speedway and Road Race History records.
2. J. Daniel Heath, Big Track Little Track (2022), as summarized by WANE-TV (Ethan Dahlen, "'Man killer': Remembering Fort Wayne's forgotten speedway," September 19, 2022) — the 1928 construction date on California Road farmland and the track's reputation, including its billing as the highest-banked and fastest 5/8-mile track in the world.
3. TrackChaser driver records for Curtis Turner and Joe Weatherly — NASCAR Convertible Series at Fort Wayne Speedway, July 28, 1956.
4. USAC, 1959 USAC National Midget Season review — August 13, 1959, Fort Wayne Speedway: Gene Hartley first in the 50-lap feature.