The Franklin Motordrone
In 1970 when I was a young teenager my family moved to Franklin New Hampsire.We lived on a side street off rt 127 called Giles Pond road. This nieghborhood was a young kids dream, lots of woods , great kids to play with and best of all it came with its very own racetrack right across this little street from my house.Now after watching my dad and my uncle Buck race when i was a little kid this was like a dream come true.The track surface was cold patch because the town of Franklin used the track to mix it.The track stayed together good but it was loose like racing on dirt I think thats where I found my love for dirt track racing.We raced anything with a motor on this little quarter mile track.I have one little story I love to tell about my cousin Big Bill Moses who was a very popular driver on the dirt tracks of New Hampsire from the seventies into the new millenium. Bill and myself were working on a racecar we were building to race at the old Bryers track where NHIS is today.
Bills wife Holly came down over the hill to the track on a mini bike and stopped to talk to us.Bill asked her if he could try this mini bike? She told him no because her stepfather had just restored it and he told her not to let us try it.Bill told her cmon i wont hurt it. Well he was gittin it around the old motordrone on this mini bike. Before you knew it he was dirt tracking it and making pretty good time. Then it happened ol Bill hit a little high spot and the next thing i knew he was barrel rollin this mini bike off into the woods. If you could see the look on his wifes face, she had to take it back all stove up and tell Babe she let Bill ride it.
Uncle Buck used to use the track to start his Supermodified to work on the motor.He was the only one who seemed to know about the old track so I never could find out too much about it.George Hill who has a Website called short Track Heroes and my friend Arnold Stetson provided me with the pictures below and these are the only pictures i have ever seen of the track that ran in the fourties and early fifties.The track closed in 1952.In its day it looks from the pictures it was a pretty popular place.It hosted some poular drivers from the era of short track racing such as Paul Martel and the Hogdon brothers,Bill George to name a few.One of the pictures is of Bob Puffenburger who is the Dad of Eddie Puffenburger who drove the #47 modified at Norway Pines and Caanan usa speedway for many years.The old foundations of the buildings and the pit road and the entrance and exits on the track can still be seen if you know the layout. I played in the old foundations as a kid and after seeing the pictures i can vision what it must have been like.I only wish I had been old enough to see the races that were held there. One picture is of a car #444 I belive is Paul Martel , The body to this car sat beside Eddie Puffenburgers garage when i was a kid. The first racecar i remember working on was Puffys car and we took that body a narrowed it up and i got the privledge of sanding this body for days to hide where we narrowed it. It became the #47 B coupe that Puffy ran at Claremont in the Early seventies.
Its really great that people like George Hill and Arnold Stetson go out and find this racing nostalgia and make it public to bring back fond memories to many of us racing fans from the past. I have recently been corrospnding with a man named Bill Babadouche from up in the northern Vermont area who has a wonderful website that is dedicated to all the tracks of the northeast. I spend a lot of time there enjoying the pictures and history he has laid out at the site. If your a racefan then this site is a must see here is the adress http://www.catamountstadium.com/ double click on the photos below to enlarge them. The last picture is me warming my car up on the motordrone in 1981 you can see the track behind the car
Bills wife Holly came down over the hill to the track on a mini bike and stopped to talk to us.Bill asked her if he could try this mini bike? She told him no because her stepfather had just restored it and he told her not to let us try it.Bill told her cmon i wont hurt it. Well he was gittin it around the old motordrone on this mini bike. Before you knew it he was dirt tracking it and making pretty good time. Then it happened ol Bill hit a little high spot and the next thing i knew he was barrel rollin this mini bike off into the woods. If you could see the look on his wifes face, she had to take it back all stove up and tell Babe she let Bill ride it.
Uncle Buck used to use the track to start his Supermodified to work on the motor.He was the only one who seemed to know about the old track so I never could find out too much about it.George Hill who has a Website called short Track Heroes and my friend Arnold Stetson provided me with the pictures below and these are the only pictures i have ever seen of the track that ran in the fourties and early fifties.The track closed in 1952.In its day it looks from the pictures it was a pretty popular place.It hosted some poular drivers from the era of short track racing such as Paul Martel and the Hogdon brothers,Bill George to name a few.One of the pictures is of Bob Puffenburger who is the Dad of Eddie Puffenburger who drove the #47 modified at Norway Pines and Caanan usa speedway for many years.The old foundations of the buildings and the pit road and the entrance and exits on the track can still be seen if you know the layout. I played in the old foundations as a kid and after seeing the pictures i can vision what it must have been like.I only wish I had been old enough to see the races that were held there. One picture is of a car #444 I belive is Paul Martel , The body to this car sat beside Eddie Puffenburgers garage when i was a kid. The first racecar i remember working on was Puffys car and we took that body a narrowed it up and i got the privledge of sanding this body for days to hide where we narrowed it. It became the #47 B coupe that Puffy ran at Claremont in the Early seventies.
Its really great that people like George Hill and Arnold Stetson go out and find this racing nostalgia and make it public to bring back fond memories to many of us racing fans from the past. I have recently been corrospnding with a man named Bill Babadouche from up in the northern Vermont area who has a wonderful website that is dedicated to all the tracks of the northeast. I spend a lot of time there enjoying the pictures and history he has laid out at the site. If your a racefan then this site is a must see here is the adress http://www.catamountstadium.com/ double click on the photos below to enlarge them. The last picture is me warming my car up on the motordrone in 1981 you can see the track behind the car