Let's not forget the other sports palace in town
BY RICK KAVANAUGH Special to the VOICE
In a previous Column Six [“A need for speed(ish),” May 9, 2018, p.1], a young Jenny Kumili had a dream to be able to drive her 1989 Plymouth Caravelle around Merrittville Speedway, just like the race cars have for decades on Saturday night. Well, just to take her story one step further, the fellow she mentioned seeing on a tractor was either multi- time champion and track owner Peter Bicknell, or former track owner Bryant Irvine.
Twenty-thee years ago we formed a Reunion Committee to reunite as many alumni as possible, since this little dirt track located near the border of Pelham and Thorold that opened on July 1, 1952 is now the oldest continuous operating dirt track in Canada.
For many years, sponsors, spectators, racers and yes, even prior track owners, lived and grew up within the confines of Pelham. While this summer has proven to be very hot and dry, Mother Nature decided that she didn’t like stock car racing on July14, our original reunion date, and so we were rained out and rescheduled the event for August 4. We welcomed close to 150 alumni for a catered dinner and a night at the races, with lots of memorabilia and race cars and most importantly to celebrate 67 seasons and induct two more people to the Merrittville Speedway Reunion Committee Wall of Fame, sponsored by CAA, which is clearly visible from Holland Road, displayed along the back of the grandstand.
So what has this got to do with Pelham?
We had Jack and Marvin Junkin on hand with the St. John’s Fire Department’s vintage REO fire truck as the ceremonial pace vehicle, and Marvin was involved now in two races, pacing the Jerry Winger Memorial modified feature and the other for Mayor of Pelham. (The St. John Fire Department and Pelham/Thorold Volunteer Fire Department provided fire protection for many years.)
We welcomed Brent and Jim Begolo who displayed their pristine “Bugs” #16 Sportsman under the Champions plaque, and presently Brent is hoping for his first Sportsman championship, now second in points. Grandparents and former two-time track champion and Wall of Fame member Jeno and Shirley Begolo now reside in Pelham. Jeno is turning 90 years young and competed at Merrittville on opening day in 1952.
Duane Van Alstine displayed and competed in the vintage races with his #61 Ivan Little tribute, flamed coupe. Duane followed his hero’s exploits at Merrittville as a youngster and built a replica race car in his honour. Duane resides on Balfour Street in Fenwick. By the way, Duane also built a replica Gremlin-bodied modified that was sponsored by Floyd Ebert’s Garage, which used to be at the corner of Canboro and Welland Roads in downtown Fenwick. Back in the day, when building a race car consisted of scouring the wrecking yard coupled with a lot of ingenuity, there was darn near a stock car at every corner gas station throughout Niagara.
You not only had Ebert’s in Fenwick, but also Iftody’s Esso, Law’s Motor Sales in Fonthill, Rusty Rittenhouse at Fonthill Motor Sales, on South Pelham Street, Ralph Stallwood at Stallwood’s Garage at the top of the hill in Fonthill, as well as Ricker’s gas station (now the Target/Esso) and Iftody’s Esso, now the vet clinic at the corner of Balfour Street and Canboro Road. The Iftody family presently fields two 4-cylinder Mustangs from their Hollo Maple Farm on Church Street in Fenwick.
Speaking about farms, one of our past Wall of Fame inductees, Harry Vandenzanden, competed at Merrittville Speedway in his Austin Mini stock, painted bright orange #74, using it to promote Ontario Turkeys, since Harry was also a turkey farmer and Turkey Farmers of Ontario board member. The Vanderzanden poultry farm is located on Metler Road in North Pelham, where son David still farms and yes, he has a replica of his dad’s race car.
There were many pioneer competitors who tried their skill at driving a stock car, such as Wally Gay from Fonthill, the Sargents, the Robbins, Grant Colbert, the Pattersons from the old Effingham General Store, and many others.
On the ownership side of the speedway, there are still a couple of families in Pelham with deep connections to Merrittville Speedway. While John Marino and George Cullen built the track, they owned it for a short time, selling it to our family in 1955. Our family moved to Strathcona Drive about 1957 and as soon as we were able, attended A.K. Wigg school. For a kid growing up there was nothing better than attending school and then having Merrittville Speedway as your playground.
From 1955 to 1971 Ken Kavanagh along with his friend Bill Russell pooled their savings and ran that little dirt track near the border of Pelham and Thorold townships. There is only one problem—I have never grown up, and still to this day have an affection for that piece of real estate on the corner of Merrittville Highway and Holland Road, but I’ll come to that later.
Our family has resided primarily on horse farms within Pelham for most of our lives and my parents made a decision to expand on horse racing. Therefore they sold Merrittville Speedway to its next owners, Stan Friesen and Kurt Uhl. Since then, the horse farms were also sold, and my father, Ken, lives on Merritt Road in Fonthill. The Friesen/Uhl partnership lasted about ten years, but in the meantime, daughter Janice Uhl, like me, developed an affection with the sport and even after selling the speedway, kept some involvement in the sport and married a young race broadcaster by the name of Erik Tomas. Today the Uhl/Priddy family reside on Hurricane Road in Fonthill.
So as we skipped through the decades, we land back in the 1990s, and after the 40th anniversary in 1991, we saw a need for getting more alumni together. By 1995—remember the gentleman on the tractor, Bryant Irvine—we formed a committee, and since I still had a desire to be involved in the sport and facility, myself along with Jim Irvine, Erica Bicknell-Jones, Ted Renshaw, Bill Willard, Ken Walsh, Mark Swartz and Bill Tripp try to keep the memories alive, these 23 years later.
Former committee members Mark Lovell and Jeno Begolo are also residents of Fonthill, with wife Shirley Begolo being a Stirtzinger from Pelham. Nancy, wife of former track owner and multi-time champion, Peter Bicknell, grew up in Fenwick.
So while some community leaders are celebrating the opening a twin-pad hockey arena and basketball courts, there is another sport that has endured the decades, less than ten minutes from the new Meridian Community Centre—a piece of real estate with a clay oval that has roots in Pelham and throughout Niagara, which still adds to its history every Saturday night from April through September.
Who am I? Just the same kid who still loves our sport and its people, only six decades older and yes, I live in Pelham on Balfour Street in Fenwick.
Just one little note of interest: On Saturday nights in Niagara, from the 1950s onward, stock car racing attendance outgrew lacrosse and ranked second overall to hockey.
Happy 67th Anniversary Merrittville Speedway!
P. S. Jenny, I, like you, have driven around Merrittville, but my wish is to do it in a Sportsman or Modified to feel what those drivers feel! That is The Need for Speed!
