Bradford Speedway (place)

This article is about the place. For the book, see Bradford Speedway .

Originally about a quarter mile dirt racetrack on around twenty acres just outside Bradford, Michigan where Mel Austin crashed while racing with the Midwest Midget Sportsman Association travelling show.^BR1-38 It was later referred to as the Old track.

Smoky Kern owned and promoted the track in 1954^BR2-1 and continued until closing it in 1965.^BR2-20

Mel Austin was persuaded to buy the place in February 1967 realising that if he couldn't make the race track pay he could make the land pay by planting soybeans.^BR2-21 After a lot of volunteer hours restoring the place racing started in May. When General Hardware Retailers wanted the land for a regional distribution center Mel decided to build a replacement track on his land a couple of miles away.^BR2-25

Initially Mel built a quarter mile dirt track, later known as the Little Track to complete the racing season while building a three eighths mile paved track, known as the Big Track, for the following season. See Bradford Track for other information.

Mel and Arlene Austin passed management of the track to their son Ray and his wife-to-be Ginger Marston in about 1984.^BR3-35 Ray and Ginger were still running it in 2003 when Telzey Amberdon stayed with her grandparents in Bradford.^BR4-3