CHAPTER 10 TRACK WENT SILENT May 1979 To all swift things for swiftness did I sue; Clung to the whistling mane of every wind. But whether they swept, smoothly fleet, The long savannahs of the blue; Or, whether, Thunder-driven, They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue. James Lawrence, Hound of Heaven
Mediterranean people possessed a knack for auto racing. By the 1970’s, Granatelli and Andretti headed that hit parade but in Kansas City Vito Calia and his contemporaries lit them up at Kansas City’s Olympic Speedway. By 1936 mules had dragged-out its oval, pulverizing coarse dirt into fines, partially replicating the Million Dollar Speedway’s Hank and Dan's. The family-owned Olympic boasted no boards, no millions, but more importantly, no out-of-town promoters. The Miller (Molle) family’s track was removed from the Million Dollar Speedway mistake by twelve miles and nearly a decade. Kansas City never re-embarrassed itself on the boards given that the Olympic’s arching turns flowed into flat pulverized dirt beds. During late 1935 a modular wooden track had been rail transported to Kansas City before storage in an unused convention hall, one storing seasonal items like parade floats and Christmas decorations. But before Kansas City could rejoin the velodrome circuit, the old structure caught fire in late 1936, converting floats, decorations and, yes, that modular track into ashes. The Olympic Speedway seated nearly three thousand fans, sometimes doubling as an arena for baseball games, professional wrestling contests or even Wild West shows but most importantly it was an urban venue reachable by car, bus or even on foot. Chins hooked over front seats, unrestrained children bounced like marionettes as their parents drove them to Olympic. At the gate spouses held drivers’ beer cans while wheelmen fumbled with