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I had the pleasure of talking Monday with Tommy Trader, a Hanford car salesman also known as one of the more successful drivers to race at Marchbanks Speedway.
Trader was a big name in Central California tracks in the mid-1950s and helped me fill in some blanks I've had about the track during that period between NASCAR dates in 1951 and 1960-61 and leading up to the transformation from dirt-clay tracks into a paved tri-oval superspeedway.
Trader let me borrow a bunch of wonderful old newspaper clippings and personal photos, two of which I've posted here.
The 1953 aerial photo of the track shows the third-mile oval inside the half-mile oval, as well as a rodeo arena and what the back of the photo describes as a road course (note the oddly white surface). Destruction derby races also were held in the rodeo ground area in front of the grandstands.
I'll post more later when I update the main track history story but here are some highlights of my conversation with a gregarious gentleman nearing 80 years old who is filled with great stories:
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