It was May, 1970. The Beatles “Let It Be” was one of the top songs on the pop charts. Richard Nixon was the president and the president and stock car racing was the thing to do in De Pere at the Brown County Fairgrounds.

We at joeverdegan.com were able to unearth some true treasures – two reel-to-reel recordings of full nights of stock car racing on the dirt half-mile located just a few minutes from Green Bay. We believe the announcer back then was Paul Kaczrowski, who would later go on to become a very successful race promoter in his own rights.

The races that year were promoted by Jack Peters of De Pere. The two nights of racing we’ve posted are from the season opener on May 3, 1970 and May 17, 1970. This was an era where the coupes were beginning to die out and De Pere was running what were called “quasi-late models at the time – mainly ’57 Chevys and ’63 Fords and what not.

The May 17 race is significant as we believe this was the first time J.J. Smith came up from Appleton in his ’67 Plymouth. The first true “late model” and this race at De Pere, where J.J. appears in his car number 29 kicked off the late model revolution which mushroomed in popularity week-by-week at the half-mile dirt ovals at not only De Pere but Shawano and Seymour as well. All three were county grandstands and most often all three were full to capacity.

So sit back, click on the link and imagine yourself sitting in that big old concrete, covered grandstand listening to those raced cars and listen to Paul Kaczrowski call the action!

JERRY MUENSTER - LIVING LIFE IN THE FAST LANE