My chat with Bobby Unser

Bobby Unser leads Roger McCluskey during 1969 Champ Car race at Hanford Motor Speedway. The race was the last national event held at the track.Bobby Unser was a dominant force in his three races at Hanford Motor Speedway, with an average start of 3.2 and average finish of 4.0.

Those performances included a pole in the first 1968 race, and three other Top 5 starts, and finishes of 2nd, 5th, 2nd and 7th. He drove for Bob Wilke all four races, in an Eagle-Ford in 1967 but Eagle-Offys in 1968-69.

Bobby Unser was driving this Ford V8 Rislone Special for Bob Wilke's Leader Cards Racing in the 1967 race at Hanford"We had good races there but I distinctly remember sand when we raced there," Unser told me in a telephone interview from his home in New Mexico. "It was a "big slide for life" type of deal, that's what Hanford was."

Despite strong Hanford performances that included leading 98 laps in the first 1968 race  -- the year he won the national championship -- Unser kept referring to sand on the track.

"It wasn't a good place to race on," he said. "Lots of sand would blow on the track. It  wasn't a completed race track. It needed an infusion of "finish it up."

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My chat with racing legend Mel Kenyon

Mel Kenyon is best known for his brilliance as a midget driver, winning 111 USAC Midget races, seven USAC national titles and nearly 400 midget feature wins. It's with good reason he's known as the "King of the Midgets."

Mel Kenyon, left, and Thermo King teammate Art Pollard in 1967 promotional photoBut Kenyon also raced Champ Cars in three times at Hanford Motor Speedway in 1967-68, driving for Fred Gerhardt of Fresno. 

"I thought Hanford was a pretty nice racetrack," Kenyon told me in a telephone interview from his home in Lebanon, Ind. "It was smooth and you could see all the way around it. No trees -- not like Indy, where you can only see a straightaway at a time -- you could see all the way across it." 

Kenyon recalls the 1.4-mile Hanford tri-oval being a challenge to drive, like the similarly shaped Pocono.  

"Set-up was a challenge because of the three corners and the different degrees of banking, Kenyon said. "One was always good, one was medium and one was 'hang on!' " 

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Readers share recollections of racing at Marchbanks, Hanford

Got two emails this weekend from readers with interesting observations of the track as drivers and spectators. 

First was from Bob Dayton, who shared a great story of being a Fresno State student who took a road trip in 1959 that led he and his Porsche 356B coupe to what must have been the brand new 2.5-mile Marchbanks road course. In a series of email exchanges, Dayton wrote:

"It all started at a PCA (Porsche Club of America) meeting one night to go find this 2 1/2-mile high speed racetrack, Marchbanks Stadium. Oren Crumbly wanted to test his tube frame VW & I wanted to try racing the Porsche. Ken, a possible buyer for my Porsche, and I set out for Marchbanks with Oren. ...

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