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SUPERTRACK HAS TRAGIC BEGINNING
Dallas International Motor Speedway (DIMS) opened in June of 1969, a new, modern
super track that should have been destined for a long, bright future.
The first event for the new dragstrip was the '69 NHRA Springnationals.
So new, they were still paving the pits when time trials started on Friday
of that weekend! That event was marred by a tragedy however, it was the first sign
of trouble for the track which would have a rather short, sad life. Round one of
Funny Car eliminations pitted F/C builder-driver Pat Foster in one of Mickey
Thompsons Mach I's versus Gerry Schwartz in his "Ratty Cat" Chevy powered
Cougar. Foster had left on Schwartz, but lost traction and mid-track, ended up sideways
in the path of the oncoming Cougar. The resulting collision left
Foster slightly injured. Gerry Schwartz was declared dead on arrival at Parkland
Hospital, the same hospital JFK was taken to only 6 years before.
HIPPIES INVADE DIMS
On a lighter note, on Labor Day weekend 1969, instead of loud screaming funny cars,
DIMS hosted Jimmy Page and his loud screaming guitar. The event, held two weeks
after Woodstock, was the
Texas International Pop Festival, sort of the
'Woodstock' of the southwest U.S. The performers included future
rock legends
Led Zeppelin.
Also on stage that weekend were Santana, Grand Funk Railroad,
Chicago, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, B.B.King,
Canned Heat, Sly & the Family Stone, Spirit,
Ten Years After, and others. For three days in 1969, DIMS was sex, drugs
and rock 'n roll.
SHOW ME THE MONEY
Despite the rough start, DIMS looked forward.
NHRA had awarded the track two
of the four national events at the time, the
Springnationals and World Finals. DIMS also added a 2.5 mile road
course and ran SCCA sanctioned events, and
later added a quarter mile dirt track for motorcycle
racing. Nascar and Championship Cars (Indy) were
considered but the cost was prohibitive at the time.
The track had visions of being a 'speed city' and land
around the track was being marketed for race teams and
sanctioning body offices. In spite of all these
promising ideas, 1970 brought more trouble, in the
form of Mother nature. Several rained-out events and a flooded track
spelled financial disaster. The Trans Am race
scheduled for April
26th was a wash, canceled due to heavy rainfall. The race
was not rescheduled and the Trans Am series never returned to Dallas.
The track management asked the NHRA for
financial assistance to help recover, they declined. And in more bad news
for DIMS, unhappy
neighbors concerned about noise and traffic pressured the
Lewisville City Council into imposing a 10 pm curfew.
MORE TRAGEDY IN DALLAS
In October of 1971, a Dallas TV news reporter named Gene Thomas was at DIMS
doing a story on drag racing. Art Arfons was there with his two-seat
"Super Cyclops" 280-mph jet-powered dragster,
and Thomas strapped in for ride. At the end of the pass, the dragster apparently
blew a tire and went into and then
through the guardrail on Thomas' side. The crash killed Thomas and two spectators,
Robert Kelsey and Sean Panse. Arfons retired after the tragic incident.
THE IHRA FIX AND THE END
Tremendous debt kept the
track from really growing and in order to address that
in 1971, the management of DIMS elected to switch to
the new IHRA group led by Larry Carrier as they only
got 25% of the gate for national events where the NHRA
got 50%. That did not fix the financial problems and
in 1973 the track went bankrupt, and closed forever.
The property was sold to Xerox for a
proposed new facility for them - that never happened
and the tower finally came down in the late 70's and
cattle took over. Today the property is part of a
large retail complex and not a single sign of its
existance remains. Even had it survived,
the track would have never
survived the growth of Dallas.
RIP DIMS - RIP Gerry Schwartz
UPDATE 7/30/06:
I moved to Lewisville in the summer of 1982, the race track was still there and visible from the interstate for many years.
The tower was still standing when I graduated high school in 1987, the little dirt go-cart track (now replaced by La Hacienda) north
of the track was still in operation into the early 1990's. Can't give an accurate time of the razing of the tower, as it happened after I
left the area in 1991 to serve in the Navy. Have been back in the area since 1997, and there is absolutely NO trace of the history
of the land there - now dominated by large arcade and a Honda dealership. - David Iwanicki
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