Peterborough Speedway opens for 50th season
The original Peterborough Speedway owners dumped their opening day proceeds onto their living room floor and danced on the pile of cash.
John Plunkett, now 79, has difficulty remembering a lot of the details of that day 50 years ago but that one sticks with him and his wife Lorna who sold tickets and scored the races. Plunkett was partners with Bob Boynton, Harley Coons and John Van De Bor.
“The boys didn’t know how it would go,” said Lorna. “They’d spent a lot of personal time building it and we knew we’d invested a fair chunk of money. We didn’t know how successful it was going to be and the place was packed. We had all the cash and we didn’t have security back then. I went home ahead of John and then Harley and Bob and their wives came and they dumped the money in our living room floor and walked in it. They were just so elated.”
The track was known as Westgate Speedway when it first opened May 28, 1967 as a quarter-mile paved oval. Renamed Peterborough Speedway in 1986 under new ownership, the track opened for the 2017 season, it’s 50th anniversary campaign, on Saturday night. None of the original owners could be there.
Plunkett is in Peterborough Regional Health Centre recovering from an illness. He and Boynton, who now lives in a city seniors home, are the only surviving members. Van De Bor was the last to join the group. His investment in the facility was donating the asphalt to cover the track’s original 18-inch soil-cement base.
Plunkett and Boynton were partners in a car dealership on Clonsilla Avenue where the original Spaghetti House stood. Coons, who was a transmission mechanic, was their lifelong friend. They were all stock car racing fans who often drove to Toronto’s Pinecrest to watch races and decided to build a track closer to home. It took them two years and cost $70,000 to build it.
“We worked on it every night,” John Plunkett said. “We’d close up our car lot and work all night. We didn’t have any running water and had to haul everything in. We had some good kids who worked for us.”
One of those kids was Bill Dummitt who was a teen when he helped his father Don build the original grandstand which still stands today. On opening night he and a few friends parked cars and cleaned up the stands afterwards.
“We lined the cars up in the big field so they weren’t scattered all over the place,” he said. “It was packed because it was all new. It was pretty good weather that day compared to when we were putting in he footings and it was all mud. It was a really good crowd and good racing that day.”
The second year they switched from Sunday afternoon to Saturday night races. It proved to be popular with cottagers who were usually heading home on Sunday afternoons.
“Back in those days there was no internet so they all came to the races on a Saturday night. The place was packed,” Dummitt said.
All three are proud to see the track still going all these years later.
“That track is history,” said Lorna. “Something that lasts 50 years is history.”
Coincidentally, current owner J.P. Josiasse lives down the street from the Plunkett’s.
“We hope for John Paul that his business is a success because he’s a really nice young man,” said Lorna. “We can see his house out of our living room window. We’ve been here 27 years and known him since we’ve been here. It’s kind of a small world.”
Racing will continue at the track each weekend through to Sept. 2. The track’s biggest event, the annual Autumn Colours Classic, runs on Thanksgiving Weekend Oct. 6-8.