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.

The Passing Parade

The "parade lap" before the start of a Pine Brook main event, circa 1970.  We guess 1970 because Larry Michaels' car (#39, outside of the third row) has a roll cage, while no other car in the shot is so equipped.  Roll cages were being phased in at the time.  (Click the photo for an enlarged view.)

Weekly feature races at Pine Brook were 35 laps in distance and started 16 cars.  18 cars would start the extra-distance races that punctuated the racing season.  In the track's later years, during the promotional tenure of Jack Bellinato, sometimes 20 cars would take the green.

The group of people at the upper left of the shot are gathered around a table on the roof of the box office building.  That rooftop is what passed for a "press box" at Pine Brook.  No one brought their car to the races in an enclosed trailer, either.  Simpler times...

This is a Dave Innes photo from the collection of Gary Mondschein.

Jaws 02

In this shot from Jeff Scott’s SpeedwaySnapshots.com web site, Tony Romit is getting ready to be pushed off in the Wehrle #02 on a Friday night at Pine Brook circa 1972.  This was the year that the race car sported the "shark's mouth" paint job around the radiator opening.  Can't you just hear that distinctive music from the movie Jaws?

That's John Wehrle walking alongside the right-rear tire, while the Fisher Automatic Transmission Service push truck goes by on the inside.

Lining up behind Romit in the #60 upright is Bob Cicconi.  Bob Cicconi would soon add his name to the list of winners at Pine Brook, although not in this car.

Spy in the Sky

The first space satellite was launched several years before the Pine Brook Stadium was built, but the sort of satellite technology that today serves civilians with GPS directions and online maps was not readily available until several years after the track closed.

Here is a Google Earth satellite image of the Pine Brook track from April, 1995, nearly six years after the last race was run, on which the outline of the racing surface is clearly visible.

Click the photo for an enlarged view.

Route 46 is the road extending from the lower left to the upper right, and Bloomfield Avenue is the road across the lower portion of the photo. The warehouses of the Pio Costa industrial park are at the right, across the Passaic River behind the track. These were built on land that was largely vacant – and largely what today we would call “wetlands” – when the track was constructed.

To the left, across Route 46 from the track, we can easily see all the junk cars at G.I. Auto Salvage, which was there before and after the track but which today is gone.

The track office was still standing when this photo was taken, as was the “powerhouse” along the backstretch, but everything else was gone. The bleacher seats disappeared within weeks of the track’s closing in 1989, and the guardrail and the light poles went away soon afterward. At some point before this photo was snapped the rest room building outside of turns three and four was demolished and the old backstage building in the pits, behind the powerhouse, was torn down by this time also.

Now, take a look at this satellite photo, from 2010:

The Home Depot has been built, and the G.I. Auto Salvage property is in the midst of being cleaned up, but the surrounding area looks were much the same.

Long Before Digital Photography

A simply great shot from Jeff Scott’s SpeedwaySnapshots.com web site. Black and white, grainy, blurry and soooo evocative!

Click the image for an enlarged view.

If you were never at Pine Brook this was taken from the spectator seating, looking into turn one.

The only car recognizable is Jim Gosford’s 61. The rest of them are pure art.  A great photograph from a time when you did not know what kind of shot you had until you went home and into the darkroom to develop the film and print the image.

Just Stand There

This grainy and scratched print is from 1968 or 1969.  (Click the photo for an enlarged view.)

Joe Lacy (18) is spinning into the fence and Jerry Stover (25) may or may not be spinning out also.  Exiting stage left, in the Pouleson 7o7, is Len Duncan.

Even though persons in the pits could stand right alongside the fence, in all the years at Pine Brook, only one person in the pits was ever injured.  Which, in hindsight, seems amazing.

Name That Driver

Who is this?  (Click the photo for a larger view.)

Time’s up.

It’s Bobby Courtwright (the younger), one of two racing sons of Bobby Courtwright (the elder), photographed behind the wheel of George Verhoest’s #59 at Pine Brook.

Billy Courtwright is his brother and is generally more well known to Pine Brook expats because he raced there more frequently and won there more than a few times. Billy is still in New Jersey and is still active in racing as a crew member, but these days Bobby lives in Georgia and still races, in 360 sprints and vintage modifieds.

Bobby’s non-racing weekends are spent volunteering at Feathered Friends Forever, America's largest rescue for endangered and exotic parrots. Feathered Friends Forever is operated entirely by unpaid volunteers and is funded only by private donations. You can check out the web site here, and Bobby isn’t shy about stating that more support is needed!

Exactly 50 Years Ago

It was Friday, July 6, 1962, when the Pine Brook Stadium opened its gates for the first time.

Bob Dini -- yes, D.I.R.T. followers, that Bob Dini -- was the winner of Pine Brook's first main event that night.

The headlines said that 3,500 people were in attendance, and while that was a bit of Nat Kleinfield's PR puffery, it reallywas not off by much.

What the news clipping at left does not report is who finished in any of the runner-up positions.

Click on the image of the newspaper clipping for a slightly enlarged view.

50 Years Ago This Month

Pine Brook Stadium opened in July of 1962, but before it did the final season of indoor racing took place in the Teaneck Armory.

On March 3, 1962, a young driver by the name of Mario Andretti won what he later described as “my first victory of any consequence,” beating accomplished racing veteran Len Duncan by mere inches at the finish line.

The photo shows the Andretti TQ as it appears today, at the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing in York Springs, Pennsylvania.

Who knew that the Teaneck finish line would be the starting line for the career of one of the world’s most accomplished racers? Andretti, of course, became the only man to have won the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500, and the Formula One world championship.

The Teaneck Armory, first opened in 1936, still stands on over 13 acres, and still serves a wide range of purposes – but auto racing is not among them.

A Belated Victory Lane

When the ATQMRA Vintage Division's annual “Celebrity Roast” took place on Saturday, March 17, one of the planned surprises was reuniting Ben Trimble with the newly-restored car with which he recorded the first feature race victory by a rear-engine car, almost 40 years earlier.

That victory did not come at Pine Brook, even though Ben raced at Pine Brook regularly.  Rather, it came at New Egypt Speedway, at that time a paved track as opposed to the dirt track that it is today.  But to Ben's dismay at the time, there was no victory lane celebration.  He got to take a victory lap with the checkered flag -- remember victory laps? -- and that was that.  No trophy, no photographers, no way to prove to his wife when he got home that he had in fact won.

Well, at the roast, Ben got his victory lane celebration.  Completely unknown to Ben, roast organizer GaryMondschein had arranged for the restoration of the car Ben drove on that day nearly 40 years ago, and prepared a handsome trophy.  When Ben Trimble was called to the front of the room he was blown away by the unveiling of the beautifully restored car and the presentation of the trophy.

Ben, now in his mid-80s, told us later that when he got home following the roast, he showed the trophy to his wife and said,"See, I did win!"

In the photo, Ben, speechless, looks over the car.  That's emcee and former Pine Brook announcer Earl Krause in the background.

With the Packards and the Duesenbergs

Here is the Boyd #43 Triumph, a many-time Pine Brook winner, on display October 8, 2011, as part of the Antique Automobile Club of America's annual Eastern Divisional Meet, better known to classic car enthusiasts simply as "Hershey," the Pennsylvania town where the big show has been taking place for generations.

The AACA is devoted to stock production automobiles, in either original or restored-to-original condition -- no street rods or customs.  But there is a class for vintage race cars, again in either original or restored-to-original condition.  TQs, midgets, sprints, Indy cars, road racing machines, dragsters, land-speed cars, they are all represented.

One of the other requirements is that all cars must be driven onto the show field under their own power.  This is problematic for a push-started car such as this TQ, so to accommodate the race cars the organization stages an event known as the "Race Car Condition Run" on the day before the show.  Here every car is started and driven around the old track in the Hershey stadium to demonstrate its operability.

For old racing fans it is both wonderful and sad to see.  Wonderful, of course, to see and hear these great racing machines.  Sad, however, to see the remnants of the Hershey track, now reduced to two straightaways with a walkway at one end and an awkward loop behind a large stage at the other.  Still, the stadium itself is in fine condition, and on a beautiful warm autumn day as we had this year it was a great place to spend a day.

Here also is the old Pine Brook poster that the car's current owner, Jim Hempfill, displays along with the car.

Hail to the Chief

We like this photo, taken on a Friday night in the 1960s at Pine Brook, for two reasons:

First, the car. Jim Gosford’s #61 was always a favorite. We just liked the way it looked. Bronze with gold-leaf numbers. Clean, classic lines. Plenty of chrome. It didn’t hurt that it was a competitive machine as well. Gosford’s nickname was "the Chief."

Second, the driver, Bobby Courtwright. Courtwright was a URC Sprint champion before taking to the TQs almost exclusively in the 1960s and 70s. He was a smooth driver who was always near the front. Courtwright was only one of a number of top drivers who drove for Gosford.

Courtwright could be curmudgeonly – he grumbled when roll cages came in, for example – but Gosford could be set in his ways, too. They were both great competitors.

This is one of the countless Dave Innes photos now in the collection of Gary Mondschein. Keep ‘em coming, Gary!

Springtime Means Roast Time

The race car in the photo turned many, many laps at Pine Brook, and won its fair share of races in the process. It’s the Tom DeMasco No. 18 Crosley, and it was unveiled in restored form this past weekend during the annual ATQMRA "Roast" at Lenny and Donna Boyd’s Ocean Aire facility.

The roast was the second such event organized by Gary Mondschein for the ATQMRA, having begun last year with Alan Mollot in the hot seat. This year’s honoree – or victim, if you prefer – was Mike Osite, the 1985 driving champion and arguably Brooklyn’s best race driver.

But also on the agenda was a salute to the "Bad Guys," the merry band of Long Island-based racers whose unofficial leader was Pete Petraitis. That’s Pete’s son, Jon, second from left in the photo.

Also in the photo is driver Sonny Sanders’ daughter, Christine, far left. Sonny Sanders was just one of many great drivers to pilot this car. At the far right is Peggy Smith, another Long Island racer whose success as a driver came three decades before "Danica Mania."

In addition to organizing the event, Gary Mondschein also undertook the restoration of this car, which was rescued from a Florida swamp, alligator eggs and all, only 14 weeks earlier.

The event had an excellent turnout and it was wonderful to see people whom we have not seen in some time. Looking fit was Dick Peterman, whose racing career began the same year that the ATQMRA was formed back during the Eisenhower administration and who raced at Pine Brook from the track’s opening in 1962 through its closing in 1989.

It was also delightful to see Maryanne Michaels, widow of Larry Michaels, the law enforcement professional who won a championship in the 1970s and who was always a fan favorite.

Among the persons delivering barbs to Mike Osite during the roast was Bruce Kindberg, proprietor of Bruce’s Speed Shop and himself a many-time winner at Pine Brook. But Bruce is not the man he once was – literally. Bruce shed some 140 pounds to get himself in better shape, and he looked great and smiled broadly all night.

Last year’s man in the spotlight, Alan Mollot, was not on the dais but he did have one of the better stories to tell, concerning Mike Osite’s personal monetary policies. Mike is notorious for being extravagant and frugal at the same time. Some years back, Mike was visiting Alan’s home for dinner, and he brought with him two very expensive bottles of wine. But he got lost en route because he used Route 9 instead of the Garden State Parkway. This because the tolls on the Garden State Parkway had risen by a dime and Mike was unwilling to pay the ten cents.

Below is a photo of the DeMasco No. 18 taken nearly 40 years ago, at Pine Brook, after roll cages were mandated and with Bruno Brackey at the helm.

Would YOU Drive a 1963 TQ?

Racing remains a sport with risks, but none so vivid as that shown in this sequence of photos from Pine Brook in 1963.

No roll cage, just a rudimentary roll bar. No five-point harness, just a padded "Sam Browne" belt. No Snell-rated helmet, just a basic "Cromwell" or, if you were truly state-of-the-art, a Bell Star.

I question seriously how many of today's drivers would drive one of these cars.

Happily, this driver was not injured in any significant manner, despite his car rolling over fully and traveling to the guard rail, off of which it bounced before coming to rest. Unhappily, I have no idea who it is! The car is numbered 65. Does anyone out there have any specific knowledge? If so, send a note to  us at Vairteccorp@gmail.com.