Hundreds of 1980s Pine Brook Photos on the web

Bruce Bennett, who was an every-Friday-night presence at Pine Brook in the 1980s, has now made a treasure trove of Pine Brook photos from that period available to all.  Here’s what Bruce told us:

“I recently completed a big project – a labor of love really – digitizing over 300 of my color and B&W photos of Pine Brook's final years and making them available worldwide on Shutterstock for editorial use (journalists, publishers, editors, webmasters, etc.). There are some pretty now-historic shots of Jack Bellinato, Dave Innes Jr., Nick Fornoro Sr., ATQMRA and AMSRA class pictures on the final night of racing, etc.

“A majority of the photos have never been seen before, which was my primary motivation for tackling the project. I couldn't bear the thought of all that history possibly being lost someday when I pass on, so now it's all out there for the world to see and use.”

Check them out at 

https://www.shutterstock.com/search/atqmra

Reunited, More Than 50 Years Later

 On June 22, 2024, former ATQMRA President John Little was reunited with the radical and championship-winning TQ that he and Jack Bertling built for the 1973 racing season.

Along with Harry Williams, Little and Bertling built the car in the garage seen in the background of the photo.  John Little and his wife, Pat, have lived in this house since 1958 (!) and are still going strong in their 90s.

With Bertling driving, the car won the 1973 series championship, and it won the ardor of Ray McCabe, who along with Joe Grandinetti restored the car over the past year.  The car had been found in Arizona, languishing and barely recognizable, and was brought back East by the late Bruce Kindberg.  Bruce was not able to undertake the restoration prior to his passing, so Ray and Joe picked up the ball and completed a faithful restoration.

When Ray and Joe brought the car to show it to John this past June, it made for a special moment because both John’s son and grandson were there to see the car as well.

(Click any of the photos for an enlarged view.)

Larry Rice's Best Pine Brook Finish

Larry Rice – the East Coast Larry Rice, not the midwestern Larry Rice – takes a victory lap after a qualifying race win at Pine Brook on Friday, August 15, 1969. He then drove this rear-engine car to a strong second-place finish in the feature behind four-time ATQMRA champion Doug Craig. 

24 hours later he was gone, killed in an ARDC Midget race at the Islip Speedway.  Rice was 29 years old at the time, and left behind a wife and three children.

Rice’s death was the second ARDC fatality that year, the other claiming Bob Wilkey on June 3 at the Reading Fairgrounds.  Wilkey was also a Pine Brook regular, and somewhat ironically his best finish at the track was second, coming two years earlier, on June 10, 1967.

The deaths of Wilkey and Rice were the catalyst that added roll cages to the ARDC Midgets.  The topic of roll cages was controversial, as many of the more seasoned drivers objected to them, but then-ARDC President Ken Brenn stood firm on their addition. At Pine Brook, no such controversy arose.  Series champion Craig quietly added a cage to his car for 1970, and for 1971 cages became a requirement on the TQs. 

An Anniversary to Note

by Bob Marlow

Pine Brook Stadium operated for 28 summers, 1962 through 1989.  But it has now been gone longer than it was there.  It’s final race came 30 years ago this week, on Friday night, October 6, 1989.

I was there for the first race, on July 6, 1962, but I missed the last one.  I was on a Caribbean cruise, a freebie that my then-girlfriend won at work, but I had no concerns about missing the last race of the season.  The track was supposed to operate for an additional Friday, October 13.

Property owner Anthony Pio Costa had other ideas.  For whatever reason, on race day he informed track operator Jack Bellinato that this was to be it.  Word spread quickly, and the group photo shown here was made that night.

(Click the photo for an enlarged view.)

As the son of the track’s builder and as someone who spent nearly every Friday night there for those 28 racing seasons, I have mixed emotions.  Anthony Pio Costa had ambitions to develop the property, and indeed a Home Depot occupies the site today.  But it took ten years for the necessary approvals to be obtained, ten years during which the track could have continued to operate.

Yet, by 1989 the TQ Midgets had outgrown the track, so maybe it was time.

The closure of Pine Brook was a key contributor to a long, slow decline in the ATQMRA, which today exists as a sorry shell of what it was in the 1970s and 1980s.  The loss of other good TQ tracks, such as Dorney Park, Freeport, Islip, and Riverside Park, contributed as well.  It’s a shame all around.

Raise a glass to Pine Brook this Sunday, 30 years to the day since its last race.

The 2018 Pine Brook Reunion

Pine Brook Stadium was the focus of the 2018 speedway reunion during the Pioneer Pole Buildings Motorsports 2018 Race Car and Trade Show, presented by Sunoco and fueled by Insinger Performance at the Greater Philadephia Expo Center January 19-20-21.  (Click the image above for an enlarged view.)

Each year a different regional track from racing's past is highlighted at the show, and in 2018 a special display dedicated to Pine Brook was erected in Hall D of the spacious Expo Center, which offers more than a quarter million square feet – some six acres – of racing related exhibits over the three day period.

Activities at the Pine Brook display included interviews and autograph sessions with drivers who raced at the tight and highly-competitive track, and attractions included a lineup of race cars representing the evolution of the machinery through the three decades that the track was in operation.

A special added attraction was a live television-style stage presentation on Friday evening, January 19, where in a one-hour late-night talk-show format, mimicking the old Johnny Carson Tonight Show, personalities from the track's history told their stories.  Dino Oberto was the host, and among those appearing on the stage in Hall E were Bob Dini, winner of the very first race at Pine Brook in 1962, brothers Drew and Noki Fornoro, prolific winners at the track through the years, Jack Duffy, who raced at Pine Brook in each of the track's 28 seasons, Lenny Boyd, a championship driver in TQs, Midgets, and Modifieds, and Johnny Coy, Jr., who raced at Pine Brook against both his father and his brothers.

A Winner No Matter How You Spell It

Holding the checkered flag at Pine Brook is “Sal Gamby,” as lettered on the side of the car (click the photo for an enlarged view).  But the name was a phonetic spelling so that people would pronounce it correctly. The driver’s real name is Salvatore Gambelunghi, and 50 years later he sent this photo to us.  (You should send us your photos, too!)

Concerning his truncated racing name, Sal told us: "You can see why I shortened it – by the time the announcer would say it the race would be over!"

50 years ago Sal was a feature race winner at Pine Brook twice, claiming victory in the first race of the year on May 17, 1963, and then repeating on June 21.  In the first race, finishing second to Gamby was another young driver by the name of Mario Andretti.  Andretti would go on to win his first and only Pine Brook race on July 5 of 1963.

Gamby, whose name was also at times abbreviated as Gambe, had been the ATQMRA’s “Rookie of the Year” in 1962 and his two 1963 wins proved that his strong rookie performance was no fluke.

Note that in the photo, someone has already stuffed a rag into the downdraft carburetor that feeds the Crosley engine, and another one into the tailpipe.  This practice was common in those days, as the TQs of the time did not use air filters, or even screens, on the carbs.

Here's another shot of Sal in Victory Lane, possibly at a winter indoor race to judge by the heavy apparel on the others:

And one more, showing the man 50 years later, in 2013:

Which Night is it?

From Paul Weisel of the Eastern Auto Racing Historical Society comes this newspaper clipping detailing the race results from Saturday, June 13, 1964.

It is a particularly interesting report because it notes the planned switch from Saturdays to Wednesdays, as well as the Montville Township Fire Department’s July 4 fireworks show which was drew the largest crowd in the stadium’s history... with no races.

The planned series of ATQMRA Saturday night races in Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium was short-lived, rain claimed five of Pine Brook’s Wednesday night races, and the season finale was run on a Friday, the only Friday race of 1964.  See all of the 1964 race results on our Results page.