The home drivers: Bullet Bobby and the Coes

1953 — present

Fifty years of one family: The weekly fields at Fort Wayne's ovals were filled by local men whose names meant more at Winters Road and South Anthony than any visitor's. Bob Coe took to the South Anthony Speedway in 1953 in a 1937 Ford and became, in his family's record, one of the best drivers of his time at the local tracks, known as "Bullet Bobby" Coe. The family's racing ran on through the Baer Field years: in the spring of 2003 the Coe family of Lower Huntington Road marked fifty years in the sport, with Bob's son Scott Coe opening his twentieth season in a 50-lap feature at Baer Field Raceway on April 27, 2003. Post-closure video histories of Baer Field likewise remember Fort Wayne's Larry Zent as the home-track star who ran with the visiting NASCAR names on the half-mile. The full weekly record of the local fields — the Coes and the hundreds of drivers like them — is carried in J. Daniel Heath's Big Track Little Track for the two fairgrounds-era tracks and in the touring databases for Baer Field; this entry marks the family's half-century as the documented measure of the home crowd's own.

Sources:

1. The Waynedale News, "Coe Family Celebrates 50 Years of Racing," April 30, 2003 — Bob Coe's 1953 start at South Anthony in a 1937 Ford, the "Bullet Bobby" name, and Scott Coe's twentieth season opening at Baer Field on April 27, 2003.
2. Our Speedways, Baer Field Speedway history (2026) — Larry Zent remembered among the track's home drivers.
3. J. Daniel Heath, Big Track Little Track (2022) — the weekly fields of the Fort Wayne Speedway and South Anthony Speedway, in the book's published description.