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10 | The Invasion B eauchamp wanted to go up against national competition. His success had come by defeating local drivers of old model stock cars, and in the southwestern corner of Iowa he had achieved as much as possible. Racing additional seasons at Playland offered only repetition of past struggles and attainments. His challenges were to be found on more distant tracks with drivers gathered together from farther afield. Several steps up was the Indianapolis 500. Indy racing, however, involved a type of vehicle and competition vastly different from the old model stock cars Beauchamp was used to. A stock car usually is a production automobile, manufactured for sale to the public to drive on the streets and roads. An Indy car is built to race. It is lighter in weight and without the top of a typical car. And one place it races is the Indianapolis 500. In the 1950s, an Indy car’s typical speed was approximately 140 miles per hour in contrast to a speed of about 60 miles per hour on the one-­fifth of a mile dirt track at Playland. In addition, Indy cars were open-­wheel vehicles —they had no fenders, and the wheels were set beyond the body of the car. This design meant that contact between such vehicles could result in disastrous and deadly accidents, much like the hot rods and midgets driven at Playland. In contrast, however, Playland’s old model racing was bang and bump; it was a contact sport, but the stock car’s greater weight and its roof provided better protection for a driver than did the Indy car. Typically, a driver interested in Indy racing might begin by piloting a midget. A midget had a smaller engine, and its wheel base was 72 inches, compared to an Indy car’s approximately 96 inches. Playland’s old model competitors Bobby Parker and Keith Rachwitz drove midgets regularly, and they had connections with Indy car owners that almost gave them a chance to race at the Indianapolis 500.1 Many drivers in the 1950s believed Indy racing was the ultimate in competitive motor racing. Young Playland driver Bob Kosiski told an Omaha World-­Herald reporter he hoped to compete in the Indianapolis 500, and The Invasion | 49 the reporter commented that Kosiski’s “chief ambition is practically the same [as] all stock car chauffeurs.”2 Lund’s mother in 1950 worried that her son would compete at Indianapolis: “I’m afraid his ambition now is to drive at Indianapolis.”3 Hazel Lund did not worry for long about Tiny racing Indy cars. Beauchamp and Tiny Lund competed with midgets a few times, but neither continued with open-­ wheel contests. There was another path to move up in the racing world that appealed more to them: late model racing, also called new car racing. The adjustment to new cars was substantially easier than a transition to open-­ wheel, Indy-­ style cars. Although late models typically went faster and raced on larger tracks than the old models, how the driver handled the car with competitors nearby was similar. The spectators liked the idea that the cars on the track looked like the new cars in the showrooms, and many believed that new car races had better drivers than the old model events. As a result, late model events tended to draw larger crowds paying higher ticket prices resulting in more prize money, which lured competitors away from the old model events. In 1953 Beauchamp heard about the biggest late model race in the nation , which was held in Darlington, South Carolina. It was billed as the “Southern 500,” and in 1952 the prize money had totaled $25,500. Fonty Flock from Decatur, Georgia, had won the race and $9,500, second place won $3,500, and third place took home $1,500.4 A first place at Darlington represented more money than Beauchamp could win in an entire season at the Playland track. But it wasn’t just about the money. Beauchamp wanted to compete in these high stakes events against the high-­ caliber drivers who raced in them. He believed he was the equal of or better than any stock car driver, regardless of region or racing association, and he was anxious to test the limits of his ability. Beauchamp did not have long to wait for new competition. In 1953, two late model racing circuits sponsored events in the Midwest. One was the Circuit of Champions, formed by the...

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