{"id":4089,"date":"2017-02-07T15:46:41","date_gmt":"2017-02-07T21:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/?p=4089"},"modified":"2017-07-08T12:04:03","modified_gmt":"2017-07-08T17:04:03","slug":"oklahoma-city-stock-car-racing-memories-from-a-young-fan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fredsportsextra.com\/?p=4089","title":{"rendered":"Oklahoma City stock car racing-memories from a young fan……"},"content":{"rendered":"

Herb Lobdell was my favorite…….<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n
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Fair Grounds Speedway OKC, OK. Was demolished a few years ago for political reasons as the current Mayor and city fathers of the city are not racing fans. OKC currently has NO major structure\/track to have car racing in the city.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Stock car racing in Oklahoma City was very popular back in the middle 1960’s as crowds as large as ten thousand fans would attend the popular races at the State Fairgrounds Speedway.\u00a0 Names such as Wayne Cox, Melvin Rogers, Bobby Reynolds,\u00a0David Brotherton Jr., \u00a0Carl Ferguson, Bobby Laden, and Bob Eichor\u00a0(just to mention a few of over 25 great\u00a0race car drivers)\u00a0were on the big half mile track every Friday night from the spring through the end of the summer.<\/p>\n

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As a youth and\u00a0teen during this time, more often than not I would be in the historic, and now torn down grandstand, on those hot Friday evenings.\u00a0 Having\u00a0my father involved as a pit member of one of the youngest, and best drivers\u00a0in the\u00a0super-modified\u00a0classification in the\u00a0Oklahoma\/Kansas\/Texas area of the country, Herb\u00a0Lobdell, \u00a0I was\u00a0as personally and emotionally involved in\u00a0racing as any young person\u00a0could be.\u00a0\u00a0Not only did I live dirt car racing in OKC, I followed NASCAR, watching anything on the tube.\u00a0 The Grand Prix circuit, Formula 1, was\u00a0also special, with drivers Jim Clark and Graham Hill my personal favorites driving\u00a0the N\u00fcrburgring<\/span><\/u><\/a>\u00a0in Germany\u00a0or the streets of Monaco.<\/p>\n

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My Dad, Fred Pahlke Sr.\u00a0was not only a member of the pit crew\u00a0of Herbie’s\u00a0number five race car,\u00a0he was also a very close friend of the twenty something driver who made a significant mark on racing in Oklahoma City of the time.\u00a0 My Dad also was the man that put the iconic number five on Herb’s race cars, with a trademark arrow that shot out of the number.\u00a0 My Dad,\u00a0known as a sign\u00a0painter, was as an expert in painting numbers and letters.\u00a0 Because of my Dad’s expertise,\u00a0Lobdell\u00a0always raced a beautiful car,\u00a0striking and\u00a0visual from the stands, \u00a0like the bright orange Shakey’s Pizza Wagon, a 1934 sedan body with a large V-8 racing motor that could take the half mile speedway at over 120 miles an hour.\u00a0\u00a0 Herb’s\u00a0car’s\u00a0large racing tires were not like drag strip tires, but rubber that gave the look of a stock car with speed and traction.\u00a0 I will always remember\u00a0that the Lobdell cars always had the newest and best on the wheels.\u00a0Tires were a big deal and I heard many conversations on\u00a0them through the years between pit crew members.\u00a0 Be it OKC, Tulsa, Hutchinson, KS, or Enid, OK,\u00a0Herb Lobdell\u00a0was right up there with the best\u00a0 and was as good as they come during\u00a0this time period.\u00a0 Just ask Wayne Cox in the 1967 race season.<\/p>\n

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Stock car racing was very important to Oklahoma City from the days the Friday night show was staged at Taft Stadium on North May.\u00a0 Various drivers of the time showed their skills at the dirt track that circled the grass playing area of the largest and best stadium in the city for the better part of the history of the city.\u00a0 The races moved from Taft Stadium in the early 1960’s and most of the drivers in the 60’s transferred their skills to the outstanding facility at the State Fair Grounds at Northwest 10th and May.\u00a0 The Fair Grounds speedway was\u00a0just a little over a mile south of\u00a0Taft.\u00a0 Some might remember the Indianapolis 500 driver from Oklahoma, Lloyd Ruby, started his successful racing career driving the oval at Taft, but didn’t drive at the new venue.\u00a0 The Fair Ground was also used as the racing oval in the movie State Fair<\/em> staring Pat Boone.<\/p>\n

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Herb Lobdell and the Ye old pizza wagon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My first remembrances of Herb Lobdell and car racing was when\u00a0I would be with my Dad on his visits to Herb home\u00a0in a near OKC neighborhood.\u00a0 I do not\u00a0know\u00a0how my Dad met Herb for the first time but I was soon to know that\u00a0he cared about the\u00a0future\u00a0driver that lived\u00a0close to Northwest\u00a010th and Indiana.\u00a0\u00a0My Dad would have been in his early forties and Herb in his early twenties if that.\u00a0 From their friendship, my Dad was\u00a0always on Herb’s pit crew when he raced in OKC and\u00a0in Enid.\u00a0 To note, boat racing was my Dad interest in the\u00a01940’s and 1950’s in around Oklahoma and\u00a0Texas, and he was among the very best.\u00a0 My Pop did not race for a lot of money, but he garnered many trophies during his time.\u00a0 He. was a master woodworker, and he built the speed boats he raced.\u00a0 My Dad’s first notoriety in boat building was when he was just twelve, when his boat (actually an intricate raft), sank in the Belle Isle lake in 1929.\u00a0 A picture of him and his best friend was published in the Oklahoma Times (the evening paper from the Daily Oklahoman).\u00a0 The photo showed the\u00a0boys\u00a0laughing for the Oklahoman photographer, standing in a foot of water\/mud, with the raft next to them, half way submerged.\u00a0 They were covered with the mud and my Dad’s pearly white teeth stood out from his tanned and dirty face. My Dad had\u00a0big, straight,\u00a0teeth\u00a0that was always noticeable. As of\u00a0his gene pool, he never had a cavity, and neither did I, or my two sons. The picture noted my Dad’s attempt to float the lake. (I would post the picture but I do not have access to the Oklahoma Times archive (if there is one).\u00a0 Later in life my Dad built boats for his personal pleasure to fish, including his favorite construction, a twenty-two foot fiber glassed\u00a0cabin cruiser, and as nice a home made boat can be.<\/p>\n

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As I attended races most Friday nights during racing season, the family always pulled for Herb to win his races.\u00a0 But it was a sport with no animosity toward any other drivers, that I could tell.\u00a0 Good racing, outstanding drivers, fast cars and always competitive. The track at the Fairgrounds for the veteran drivers, a half-mile with two straight-a-ways, was dirt.\u00a0 Being a large track, the best drivers in Oklahoma and\u00a0Kansas were in OKC on Friday nights.\u00a0 The track in OKC was fast.\u00a0 Accidents were not numerous on that half mile, but the\u00a0danger was ever present.\u00a0\u00a0From my memories, deaths occurred often\u00a0in stock car racing, and OKC was\u00a0blessed not\u00a0to have any (that I can remember).<\/p>\n

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Herb Lobdell’s coupe, first car in OKC to use a wing on top.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Herb, from newspaper articles, raced for pleasure, especially when he drove for an owner and not “his” car that he had to build and finance. With that, Lobdell would always be the master mechanic on his machine, as he was the most knowledgeable man in his pits.\u00a0 A savant mechanic from his early teens, Lobdell’s skill with a motor is of legend, as he became the head mechanic for Fretwell’s Motors in Oklahoma City at a young age.\u00a0 Fretwells was the place in OKC where you would buy a Jaguar, or MG, or other foreign cars.\u00a0 Want the newest Jag, you would go to Fretwells.\u00a0 As a man\u00a0that did not fear speed, Mr.\u00a0Fretwell would have Herb test\u00a0drive the new Jags that came off the truck at their location on South Western, close to the Air Park.\u00a0\u00a0Mr. Fretwell wanted to make\u00a0sure that the\u00a0Jag could perform at high speeds before they were turned over to their new owners.\u00a0 Point in fact, Herb became a test driver.\u00a0I will not tell you where Herb did his test driving but some of those Jags were considered the fastest production line cars on the market and Herb would put his foot down to see what they could do.\u00a0 In later life Herb was known as the best MG mechanic in the country, and he opened his own specialty MG shop where the now Chesapeake offices are located at Northwest 63rd and Western.<\/p>\n

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As for racing, the 1967 season was one I remember most.\u00a0 Wayne Cox (best driver in OKC with respect to Harold Leep) was challenged by Herb Lobdell for the racing championship.\u00a0 Not that Herb was going to beat Mr. Cox, as the #141 had pretty much wrapped up the title in the first half of the season, Lobdell’s second half was so successful that the #5 car make it’s way to second in the point standings and gave Herb his first “feature” wins, beating Cox to the finish line on more than one occasion.\u00a0 Point in fact, the 1967 season’s second half was\u00a0so competitive that any one of six or seven cars were likely to win the night, and the racing in OKC for super-modified cars was as good as any in the country.<\/p>\n

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As the years passed, I became entrenched in other sports as I entered junior high and as is with most things, interests change. Not that I\u00a0did not go to the races, other things started to occupy my time.\u00a0 As for Herb Lobdell,\u00a0 already the best foreign car mechanic in Oklahoma City, a bad Saturday night at the Tulsa Speedway was telling.\u00a0 He was pushing his machine to win a race when a rock that had become embedded in the clay track at the Tulsa Speedway came loose and fiipped into his driving cage and cold knocked the driver into a spectacular flip, nine rotations of the car before it finally rested on the track in a heap of bent metal.\u00a0 Herb, from my remembrance, does not have any recollection of the accident.\u00a0 He retired that night from racing.<\/p>\n

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Feature Photo:\u00a0 Photographer:<\/strong> \u2022AbandonedOK Team<\/span><\/u><\/a> \u2022Billy Dixon<\/span><\/u><\/a><\/p>\n

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Herb Lobdell was my favorite…….     Stock car racing in Oklahoma City was very…<\/p>\n

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