By Al Robinson

NSSN Correspondent

While statistics may not tell the whole story, there are two numbers that help portray the current health of the American Racing Drivers Club. The numbers are 70 and 36.      

The significance of 70 — the birthday ARDC will celebrate in 2009. Except for the World War II years, it has been in continuous operation longer than all but one other midget club in the country — the Badger Midget Auto Racing Ass’n. It has always been, and intends to remain, a membership club with an elected board and officers.
The significance of 36 — the car count for ARDC’s recent Tuesday night race at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pa.

In its seven decades, ARDC has been home to many midget legends. Its leading career winners — Dutch Schaefer, Johnny Coy, Bill Schindler and Len Duncan — are among the giants of the first two generations of midget drivers. More recently, the likes of Leigh Earnshaw, Hank Rogers, Ray Bull, Noki Fornoro, John Heydenreich and the Cicconi brothers have toiled in ARDC competition.

STILL GOING: ARDC goes back as far as 1939. Here drivers fight for position during a 1961 race at Old Bridge Stadium in Old Bridge, N.J. (Chris Economaki Photo)

ARDC FACT SHEET • The American Racing Drivers Club was organized in 1939 by a group of East Coast midget drivers and car owners for the purpose of looking after the interests of fellow midget drivers and owners. Bill Schindler was elected its first president and virtually every midget driver in the East signed up. • ARDC is governed by a board, which consists of a president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, drivers’ representative, owners’ representative and a member at large. A trustee is elected into office for a three-year term. Elections occur at a general membership meeting held in November. The Board of Governors usually meets once a month to discuss matters of the club.

Top Winners in ARDC history 1. Ed “Dutch” Schaefer        78   2. Johnny Coy        69   3. Len Duncan        58   4. Ray Bull            50   5. Leigh Earnshaw, Jr.        46   6. Nick Fornoro, Jr.        45   7. Hank Rogers, Jr.         43   8. John Heydenreich        36   9. Lou Cicconi, Jr.        34 10. Tony Bonadies        30

Without a doubt, the most famous ARDC graduate is Mario Andretti. The club gave him his open- cockpit baptism and he responded by winning three features in one day on a memorable Labor Day weekend in the early 1960s. Today, a crop of young talents like Andy Martin, Steve Buckwalter, Randy Monroe, Brett Arndt, Stephanie Stevens and Billy Pauch, Jr. dot the roster.
Driving talent is vital, but car count is the lifeblood of a traveling short-track series. Strong numbers not only mean backgate income for the promoter booking the show, but car count is the accepted measure of a series’ health. For many years, ARDC struggled to travel with a full field of 24 cars and struggled to build a solid schedule. Now, a meaningful consolation race is often necessary to set the feature lineup. The schedule for 2008 shows 24 events with no co-sanctions.
ARDC went wingless in 2006, and it embraced both the new driving talent and the potential new car owners produced by the multitude of micro-sprint tracks at its doorstep in Pennsylvania and Delaware.
The Keystone State had become synonymous with winged open-cockpit racing and ARDC had gone along with the trend. With its New England paved-track counterpart — the Northeastern Midget Ass’n —winged-midget racing was the norm on the East Coast. But winged racing requires horsepower and the team with the newest and strongest piece under the hood usually won.
 “If you saw our shows with the wings compared to now when we were running with the wings the fast guys were lapping (the slow cars) in about five laps. Now, if we run 20 laps non-stop, you might have two or three guys at most being lapped. The competition through the whole field is tight. They’re running two or three wide for 15th,” said ARDC President Ron Lauer.
“I think when you take the wings off, you’re not locked to the track and you can miss a little bit on the setup and you don’t need a top-of-the--line motor. The driver can move around and has the freedom to pick a different line. It really helps the driver show what they can do,” says two-time and defending ARDC champion Andy Martin.
“You can get out of the gas and the guy in front of you won’t pull you five lengths,” added top-runner Steve Buckwalter. “I’ve looked at other people’s tachs and some of them are turning more than 9,000 (rpm). I know if I turned mine over 9,000, I’d have a box of parts.”
Aside from the horsepower issue, ARDC found it had an identity problem. With the wings, it was difficult for the casual race fan to differentiate the full midget from the far less powerful 1,200 c.c. mini sprints that gained a foothold as a step up from the chain-driven 270 and 600 c.c. micros.  Meanwhile, the popularity of the USAC midgets on ESPN’s “Thursday Night Thunder” in the 1980s and the growth of the Chili Bowl had kept wingless-midget racing in the public eye. Someone needed to point ARDC in a different direction, and the job fell to Mike Miller.
Miller, a Reading, Pa.-area Yamaha and Polaris dealer, stepped up from the micros in 2003 with a stable of fast cars, a multitude of contacts in the micro-sprint ranks and an attention-getting pair of teammates — his daughters Tracy and Michele. Today, Tracy and Michele have moved to other parts of the country and Mike runs a limited schedule, but their influence is still felt.
“He came up with the idea of having an open practice for the micro guys who wanted to try a midget. We picked up several teams from that — they sold their micro stuff and moved into midgets,” Lauer said of Mike Miller, who became the club’s series sponsor and booking agent as well. “He brought extra race cars to put people in and he had two daughters who were not only good race drivers, but they were nice people and were more than willing to do the PR and help the club.”
In 2004, Mike Miller finished second in ARDC points and Michele was fourth.  
Also in 2004 and 2005, ARDC experimented with a unique format at selected shows — twin 20-lap features, one with wings, one without.
“The promoters seemed to like it, so two years ago we decided to just go non-winged the whole season. The competitors, the promoters and the fans all seemed to think it was a good idea,” Lauer explained.
Another key player was Todd Fisher, the operator of Susquehanna Speedway Park in Newberrytown, Pa. Like ARDC, Susquehanna was searching for an identity after spending many years as the neglected stepchild of the crowded central Pennsylvania dirt-track scene. “Susky” became the home track for ARDC in 2006, booking 12 events. While the number has been cut to eight in 2008, the three-eighths-mile red-clay oval remains the club’s premier showcase.
“We were looking for something new and so were they. They were interested in running several races at one track and I told them we would do it if they were non-winged. They went back to their board and made the decision,” Fisher said. “The last thing we needed was another class that looked just like the 410 sprints, the 358 sprints and the micros.”
For 2008, the schedule has expanded in geographic scope as well as in number of events. It includes returns to Penn Can and Five Mile Point speedways in the New York-Pennsylvania border region and debut races at the lengthened Accord Speedway in eastern New York and at Winchester, Va., as well as the traditional North Carolina swing.
The bulk of the slate, however, remains on short tracks within a two-hour haul from the Allentown-Reading-Lancaster corridor of eastern Pennsylvania, which is home to most of the teams.
The non-winged identity and the doubleheaders with USAC’s Eastern sprint-car tour bring inevitable questions about links to midget racing's major leagues. Is ARDC seeking the status of a developmental series?
“Ever since I got into midgets, we were pushing for ARDC to go non-wing because that’s what the Chili Bowl does. You look all year long to go to the Chili Bowl and do well,” declared Buckwalter.
“You can get national recognition and run at Knoxville and the Chili Bowl,” concurred Martin. “I would like to run USAC, but we don’t have the funding to run USAC, so this is the closest thing I can do.”
Visitors are welcome if they meet ARDC’s rules.
“We like anyone to come in and race with us. If you’re good, you’ll make our guys run better, like Jerry Coons. In the name of cost, we haven’t allowed some of the bigger motors USAC does, the Esslinger and the Fontana. As long as the owners like things the way they are, that’s how we’re going to keep it,” Lauer explained. “Not many things last 70 years any more and it’s taken a lot of good people over that time to keep it going. It seems that when ARDC needs it, somebody new comes along with enthusiasm and new ideas.”
But for the forseeable future, it’s non-winged midget racing in and around the Keystone State with an eye on equipment and travel expenses.
A committed field of top-flight weekend racers has made ARDC prosper again, and they will remain the primary focus as the 75th anniversary comes over the horizon in 2014.