ENGLISHTOWN: ONE FAN’S TRIBUTE

By David Hapgood

Jerry Caminito in 1980. Photo by Dave Milcarek.

Englishtown was a state of mind. To understand this better you’d have to rewind the clock about forty years. What was it like to visit Englishtown back in the day? For starters, unless you lived near the track, it involved a trip into the NYC metropolitan area, the most densely populated region in North America. Inevitably this meant a nice drive on the New Jersey Turnpike, a writhing mass of multi-laned asphalt that snaked through the center of the state. If you were coming from the north you were driving in NYC traffic, from the south you were in Philadelphia traffic. And if you were paying close attention you might spot the Berserko Bob sticker that some race fan had stuck on one of the toll booths. In any case, the turnpike was the portal that transported you into what was then the semi-rural world of central New Jersey. But your destination that day wasn’t Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, as nobody called it that. It was known simply as Englishtown or E-Town, ground zero for drag racing on the eastern seaboard.

As you arrived at the track, it was hard not to be impressed by the fact that some consideration had been put into creating an actual grand entrance instead of just some ticket booths. The road into the facility passed through a tastefully landscaped corner of the property. With your admission, you received the latest copy of E-Town’s free souvenir newspaper, Raceway News.

Two of the several different formats the newspaper had over the years.

These little publications were filled with photographs and showed the results of the most recent events at Raceway Park as well as plugging their upcoming events — and at this track, there was always another funny car show on the calendar. Raceway News was also interesting in that it featured ads for practically every speed and machine shop in New Jersey. For me, the paper’s finest years were under the earlier editorial stewardship of track photographer Vincent Mele, who, I was told, had a darkroom on site in a building down past the finish line. The rest of the photographers had to set up shop in motel bathrooms. Later versions of the newspaper were sold for ten and twenty-five cents and were edited by Steve Bell and then the man who pretty much personified the E-Town scene, the one and only Bob Doerrer, whose mythical Bob’s Berserko Lounge was lettered under the spoiler of every other funny car in the Division. He was an announcer, a promoter, Jungle’s sidekick and many other things as well.

A sample of the variety of tidbits to be found in Raceway News.

As you entered the heart of the facility and surveyed the wide racing surface, the broad grassy areas off to each side of the strip, the stands lining the track nearly to the finish line, the super-tall white masts evenly spaced every few hundred feet in front of the left side stands that provided the track lighting, the iconic three-story starting line tower, you were left with the indelible impression that this was drag racing’s biggest stage on the eastern seaboard. And then there was the pit area. At a time when so many tracks, including Indy, had grass or gravel pits, E-Town had pavement, with each pit space neatly delineated by white lines. The track was a cut above any other facility on the east coast.

It also had a few interesting idiosyncrasies: while touring E-Town’s pits you could not help but notice a long, narrow man-made lake running parallel to the pits, separating it from an airport runway. The water in this lake was often a muddy color, which I thought suited its environs. The track had huge ambiance. Before the ugly sound wall was built in the mid-1980s, the scrubby trees behind the starting line made Englishtown easy to identify from photos.

Bill Dee’s Nor’Easter AA/FC circa 1979. Handout photo.

Whatever the season, the central New Jersey air had a tendency to be humid and sludge-like, resulting in the infamous and excruciating heat that the Summernationals were known for. Everyone who wasn’t too drunk to know the difference practically begged for the sun to go down. So many acres of sunburnt skin certainly was a sight to behold. But one myth about E-Town I’d like to debunk is that the fans were the most drunken and belligerent in all of drag racing. Yes, they had a surplus of attitude, but it was New Jersey, after all. Chants of “The other side sucks!” directed at the stands across the track occurred during any break in the action. Inevitably, as the energy built, one intoxicated fan or another would run out onto the racing surface, pull down his pants and moon the stands on the other side, stirring things up just a little more. But I personally saw far worse behavior at several other tracks. Sorry, E-Town, in this respect, Sanair had you beat!

The Summernationals was the ultimate east coast event, but for me, the heart and soul of Englishtown were its match races, mostly held on Wednesday nights during the summer months, typically every other week — the 1976 schedule, for example, had no fewer than ten funny car shows. Early in the decade, the track’s near-weekly top fuel programs also gave the area racers a place to run their cars. Then there was Englishtown’s WCS Divisional race with qualified fuel car fields. Englishtown was a very busy place! And since Division 1 was known for producing so many Sportsman champions, there were superstars in every class. Here are just a few prime examples.

The Terenzio Bros. were terrors anywhere they raced, and they raced often at E-Town. Photo by Peter Kumble

Connecticut’s Dale Hall out on Ken Veney with E-Town’s classic tower in the background. Photo by Norman Blake

The fearsome B/SA Challenger of Ray Cook out of Hillside, NJ. He won the 1979 Summernationals, went on to set the national record and win the world championship and the Grace Cup. Photo by Norman Blake.

The decades of record-breaking action that took place at E-Town are too large in scope for a small tribute, but I would like to mention what I considered to be the track’s best moments: Jungle’s final round wheelstand and near-victory at the ’74 Summernationals, and his big win the following year. I might add Jim Bucher’s top fuel win that same year with a Chevy-powered car.

Funny car final round at the 1975 Summernationals had Jungle Jim taking his only NHRA national event win over Tom Prock. Norman Blake photo.

Jim Bucher defeats Gary Beck on his way to the 1975 Summernationals Top Fuel title. Photo by Norman Blake.

By virtue of his 1975 Summernationals win, Jim Bucher got his portrait on the tickets in 1976!

Part of the reason why the track became legendary nationwide was the abundance of first-rate photographers at Englishtown; basically, everyone who was anyone passed through at one time or another, and a large contingent of top lens-men could be found here almost all the time. This meant tons of good publicity for the track in the big magazines, especially Super Stock and Drag Illustrated. If anything exciting happened, someone usually got a photo of it, and almost always, one of those someones was Norman Blake.

Bob Pickett 1979. Photo by Norman Blake.

Larry Fullerton’s car in a familiar profile, doing something thrilling. Photo by Norman Blake

Because the track ran so many match races, E-Town had a more or less continuous presence in the racing newspapers of the era.

Englishtown in National Dragster, circa 1978.

Drag Star Racing News was another publication that covered Englishtown in the late ‘70s through the early ‘80s.

The Wizard of Oz behind the track was its owner-operator, Vinny Napp. As a young fan, I never had a reason to meet him, but I was acquainted with many Division 1 funny car teams, and through them, I learned he had a reputation for running a tight ship. He expected his booked-in racers to perform. Early shut off passes were duly noted, and at the end of the night when the racers went to get paid he would let them hear about it. Still, it impressed me that he appeared to be universally respected as someone who played fair, a pretty high compliment in this sport.

Another person who comes to mind when thinking of E-Town is Bob Gerdes of Circus Paint which at that time was located in Lyndhurst, NJ. Circus was arguably the finest race car paint shop in the nation, and the beautiful cars that Gerdes and his letterer Glen Weisgerber produced really stood out. E-Town and Circus complimented each other in this way and, being in the same general neighborhood, added much to track’s mystique as ground zero in the east coast drag racing world.

Here are some images of E-Town, some from my own photo collection and some from the archives of Norman Blake.

The unforgettable Frank Kramberger in the Philadelphia Flyer at E-Town. Photo by Auto Imagery.

Summernationals contestant stickers varied from year to year but were always done in summertime hues.

Big Al Hanna at the 1975 Summernationals where he qualified fourteenth while 1974 winner Al Segrini in the other lane didn’t make the cut. Photo by Norman Blake.

Tom Anderson demonstrating E-Town’s legendary bite. Photo by Norman Blake

Another wheels-up pass, this time with former Jungle and Swensen & Lani driver, Jake Crimmins. Handout photo from 1978.

The most popular funny car driver of all time in his most popular funny car. Norman Blake Photo.

A classic E-Town TF battle: Ed Moses battles Roger Toth. Photo by Norman Blake.

Grant Stoms and crew celebrate a victory with Darwin Doll and Beserko Bob. Photo by R.F. Bissell.

Local boys John and Les Cassidy out of New Providence, Rhode Island. Photo by Norman Blake.

NJ Pro Stock great Frank Iaconio on a pass he would probably rather forget. Photo by Norman Blake.

Legends of Pro Stock in match race trim at E-Town. Photo by Norman Blake.

The Summernationals was the premier event in all of drag racing during the summer months. Naturally, everyone who was anyone showed up. Here we see Dale Armstrong battling Ken Veney in their AA/DAs.

Jumping ahead a decade, we have 1970s stars Butch Leal and Bob Glidden still battling it out in 1989.

Bobby Lagana in his family’s top fueler gets out on Shirley. The Laganas were widely respected for making do with less. Based out of Scarsdale, NY, just north of NYC, the team were E-Town regulars.

The most aggressive funny car driver of them all, Roy Harris, circa 1981. Photo by Dave Milcarek.

Well, that wraps up my little tribute. My apologies to the many names that deserve mention in this tribute; it really would require a short book to do the E-Town scene full justice. In the past few decades, many legendary drag strips have bitten the dust, but I really think one would have to go back forty-five years to Lions’ demise to find a track closure on the magnitude of what just happened at Englishtown.