Bradford Track
Bradford Track could refer to one of 'three' different raceways, all located in Bradford, Michigan.
The original Bradford Speedway, as Raymond Austin explained, "The old track is the one that used to be down under what’s now a corner of the truck parking lot at General. I have no idea when it opened but it goes back a ways."BR3-9 It was on this track that the MMSA raced and where Mel Austin was hurt in an accident in 1954. It was closed in 1965 and reopened only a short time before General bought the land for its new facility.
The Little Track is a dirt track built before the old track was closed. It's about a quarter mile in length and continues to be used for Dirt Track Sundays.
The Big Track or the New Track was built last to replace the old track with a higher class facility. "It’s a three-eighths-mile oval, twenty-four-degrees banking in the corners, twelve on the straights. It’s really only twice as big as the little track but it looks a heck of a lot bigger. There’s more here than meets the eye, too. It’s set up for kart racing in the infield, and this road, along with some pit and service roads in the back pit area behind us add up to a 1.1 mile road race course."BR3-9
As Mel once said, "We’ve had lots of different racing there, of course, including ARCA races with the big stock cars for a while, and sports car races two or three times a year. But we’ve also had rock concerts there, we’ve had Boy Scout Camporees, and one year we even had a group that did guided trailer tours stop there to use the campground for an overnight. We’ve got a fairly nice campground, and it’s a popular place to come and spend a weekend since there often are activities on both Saturday and Sunday – in fact, we’ve often had two different events going on at the same time."BR2-27
The opening heat at the freshly built new track "was Economy Stocks. Baxter Fenway surprised all of us by winning it, although not easily, in his little Rambler American."BR2-26
