In its day Jungle Park Speedway, located a short distance north of Terre Haute, Ind., near the Illinois border, was one of the country’s finest race tracks.
Today, a portion of the roofed, wooden grandstand and parts of the track remain despite the fact it has been inactive for nearly 50 years.
For the past five Septembers, Jungle Park has hosted a reunion, with a substantial number of fans, young and old, gathering amidst an array of vintage race cars.
Laid out with a gravel and oiled surface with a thin layer of pavement added later, the half-mile track has an irregular configuration. Built in 1926 for sprint cars in the midst of a thicket of trees and underbrush, the rural speedway became an instant success.
While constructed next to what was then a busy U.S. 41, the track was in no danger of encroachment and remains so to this day.
Spectators would come through the arched entrance to view the track’s racing. It never had fencing on the first and second turns or the backstretch. Drivers had to be prepared for trees if they left the track surface. It’s said that a few errant racers even made it out onto the highway. The turns had 22 degrees of banking, whereas the front and backstretch had 16 degrees.
The first race was held in July, 1926, with an advertised purse of $1,000 and a crowd estimated at more than 5,000.
In the following years, a legion of drivers from throughout the Midwest competed at the Park. The challengers to the facility included the likes of Wild Bill Cummings, John Gerber, Mauri Rose, George Robson, Duke Nalon, Kelly Petillo, Jimmy Wilburn, Harry McQuinn, Everett Saylor, Joie Chitwood, Wilbur Shaw, Bill Holland, Cliff Griffith, Ira Hall, Joie Ray, Rex Mays, Bobby Grim and Spider Webb.
Referred to as a fossil by some, many have not forgotten the thrilling entertainment brought to the track where thousands of spectators cheered on the drivers who traveled the bullrings and fairground tracks of that era. The attendees at the now so-called annual “Rumble in the Jungle” are aware of such exploits by the daredevils of the past.
A milestone was reached in 1931 when Frank Funk, the creator of the famed Winchester Speedway (aka. Funk’s Speedway), took over the reigns at Jungle Park. He was a promoter of the highest order who knew how to draw a crowd. At his inaugural Jungle show (May 4, 1931), the infield was packed with cars and “thousands” were turned away by a special detail of State Police who had to be called upon to untangle the traffic.
Funk brought AAA sanction to the track in 1941, allowing “big name” AAA stars to appear. The second AAA show had Duke Nalon on hand, setting a new qualifying mark before he captured the 25-lap feature in his first and only race at Jungle Park.
The qualifying mark (22.987 seconds) remains a record to this day, although the track continued to operate through 1960.
The last sprint-car race was held in 1955. The closure occurred in October 1960, after a midget race car running on a one-fourth mile oval within the original track, killed a spectator. The tragic event led to the death of Jungle Park. Surprisingly, the high-banked track claimed the lives of only six drivers during its operation.
This September’s reunion had a number of racing notables on hand. The group included Junior Dreyer, outstanding car builder and restorer; Patrick Nalon, Duke’s son who handled the announcing at Manzanita Speeedway for a decade; Jungle Park drivers Rex Jones and Mutt Anderson, who drove at Jungle in the 1930s.
Others included Bob Sheldon, photographer from Jungle’s glory days; Greg Weld, a USAC sprint car champ, champ car driver Eldon Rasmussen, Fred and Carolyn Hartley Johns, who own one of the few Frank Kurtis midget roadsters; Al Blixt, son of Ace Blixt, photographer and writer from the 1920s-1960s period; and Ed Hitze whose father was a Jungle photographer; Sprint Car Hall of Fame photographer John Mahoney; and Steve Truchan, who had on hand his dad’s car that won the opening AAA Jungle Park show in 1941.