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1946 — present
The weekly record: The national names passed through; the speedway belonged to its own. Gus Klingbiel, the Wisconsin native who finished behind the leaders on opening night, closed the 1946 season as its first champion. Charlie Szekendy stands in the record as a builder first — one of the fourteen — and a driver of the track he built. In USAC's own points record the South Bend name of the midget era is Red Marley, 12th in the 1957 National Midget standings with 429 points in car 88; a decade later Tom York and Cap Arnold of South Bend stand in the 1966 national standings, and York finished fourth in the USAC feature at his home track on 4 June 1966. Dick Good, Ebe Yoder, and Bob Newton were the early favorites the crowds came for; Denny Nyari called the place home.
Nine championships: The modern measure of a home driver is Rich Boal, a South Bend native who began racing at the speedway in 1986 as a high-school freshman — his father Rick had raced there before him — and became, by his own account in SPEED SPORT, a nine-time track champion, the most of anyone. His daughter Hailey races as the family's third generation at the track. Between Klingbiel's first championship of 1946 and Boal's nine, the weekly fields of eighty years are a record of hundreds of local names; this entry carries the ones the surviving record fixes, at the size it fixes them.
Sources:
- Stan Kalwasinski, SPEED SPORT, 27 May 2024 — Klingbiel's first championship; Szekendy among the builders; Good, Yoder, Newton, and Nyari; and Rich Boal's account of his 1986 start, his father Rick, his nine championships as the track's most, and his daughter Hailey's third-generation racing.
- USAC, National Midget season reviews, 1957 and 1966 — Red Marley of South Bend, 12th in the 1957 points (429, car 88); Tom York and Cap Arnold of South Bend in the 1966 standings; York fourth in the 4 June 1966 feature at South Bend.