The Pittsburgh Board Speedway

Our Book Club has been reading “Faster” by Neal Bascomb this month. It is an interesting non-fiction work dealing with the development of motorsports in Europe in the early twentieth century, culminating with the 1938 Pau Grand Prix race in which a French team led by heiress Lucy Schell upset the dominant German combine of Daimler-Benz and Auto Union in a heavily nationalistic environment. Driving a Delahaye 145 for the team was Rene Dreyfus, a major victim of the anti-Semitism prevalent at the time.

Most of the book takes place in France, Germany, and Italy, with one foray across the Atlantic to compete in the Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island. This got me wondering about motorsports in this country in those days and eventually reminded me of the Pittsburgh Board Speedway and Bridgeville’s brief tenure in the national spotlight while it was in operation.

Although the Indianapolis two-and-a-half mile oval, paved initially with bricks and ultimately with asphalt, was the most famous speedway in the country, smaller board tracks dominated racing in the first three decades of the 1900s.  

In early 1927 the Keystone Recreation Corporation announced that it had engaged construction engineer Paul Tustin to design a half mile board track to be constructed in Bridgeville. The actual site was in South Fayette Township, roughly where the I-79 interchange is located today.

The Pittsburgh Board Speedway consisted of two banked five-hundred-foot diameter half circles, separated by straightaways five hundred feet long. The super-elevation of the banked ovals was thirty-five degrees.

The running surface was timber two by fours. A wooden grandstand seated ten thousand spectators. The project used one and a quarter million feet of lumber, and cost a quarter of a million dollars. Mr. Tustin’s father, James E. Tustin, functioned as construction superintendent.

The Speedway was completed in time for a 150-mile race on Memorial Day, won by Fred Harder. His time was two hours and twenty-five minutes.  Harder also won the 150 mile Fourth of July race that year, with a winning time of two hours and ten minutes. Bill Chittum came in second, two laps behind Harder.

Chittum’s turn came when he won the 75-mile feature race on August 13, in one hour and six minutes. Harder lost control of his car halfway through the race and was severely injured. Labor Day featured another 75-mile race, this one won by Joe Baker in one hour and one minute. The Speedway claimed its only victim when Brentwood resident William Engelhardt died from injuries suffered in a crash during a practice run.

Memorial Day, 1928, featured a 50-mile race, won by Sammy Brabiak in thirty-seven minutes. On the Fourth of July Wilbur Shaw recorded his first Bridgeville win, logging forty minutes for the 50-mile event. Shaw had already competed in the Indianapolis 500 twice and would go on to win it three times.

The Fourth of July race also produced its first spectator injury when a tire from Bill Lindau’s car came off and hurtled into the grandstand, striking Wilbur Goldbach, of Pressley Road. His injuries were reported to be slight. Lindau finished the final thirty yards of the race driving on his hub, to finish fourth.

Labor Day brought another exciting 75-mile race, this won by Bill Chittum in one hour and five minutes. At about the fiftieth lap, Bill Lindau’s “Junior Special” suddenly burst into flames. Lindau managed to get to the pits and escape with minor burns.

At the same time, Joe Baker was thrown out of his car in a collision. Undaunted, Baker borrowed another car and won the 25-mile consolation race. One of the also-rans in this race was another future three time Indy winner, Maury Rose.  

Wilbur Shaw dominated the races in 1929. On Memorial Day he won the 100-mile feature with a time of one hour and twenty nine minutes, then followed it up with another 100-mile win on the Fourth of July, this time in one hour and twenty four minutes. The crowd that day was reported to be nearly 20,000.

August found a new use for the Speedway, as the Keystone Kennel Club sponsored thirty days of greyhound racing. Prominent Bridgeville officials – C. W. Murray, Frank Wyke, Ralph Fryer, Dr. R. C. Lutz, Frank Mayer, and Arthur Silhol — thanked the Club for the positive publicity the event had brought the community.

The feature race on Labor Day was a twenty-five-mile event, won by Jimmy Gleason in twenty-one minutes. A supplemental entertainment was the Ashcan Derby, featuring head-on collisions by junk cars at thirty-five miles an hour. Two Bridgeville residents – Henry Bainke and Joseph Blew – were among the twenty six volunteer Ashcan drivers.

Gene Haustein won the Memorial Day 1930 feature one-hundred-mile race with a time of one hour and thirty minutes. The race was delayed twice when workmen had to repair the running surface on the north turn.

Shaw easily won the Fourth of July race, with a relatively slow time of one hour and thirty minutes. His first-place finish earned him $1,500. The seventh-place finisher was Billy Arnold; five weeks earlier he had won the Indianapolis 500.

By 1931 the glory days of the Speedway were over. Memorial Day featured a 50-mile race that attracted only local drivers. Included was Frank Demitree, of Bridgeville. Joe Baker won the race in fifty-nine minutes, before a crowd of 5,000 fans. That may have been the last major event at the venue.

Greyhound racing continued at the Speedway until mid-September when County District Attorney ordered the track closed because of unauthorized betting. County Detective R. L. McMillen was among the officers closing down the track.

An advertisement in the September 3, 1933, Pittsburgh Press suggested that the lumber in the Speedway grandstand was available for salvage. The site continued to serve as a venue for football and soccer games well into the 1950s, although it continued to be called “the Bridgeville race track”. “Sic Transit Gloria”!

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