When Robert “Sonny” Eriksen died February 6th, 1996 at his Florida residence, he left a solid lifetime legacy in the Hesston Speedway that he built in 1961 and promoted for 18 seasons. His legacy lives on through his family and in the stock car racing sport that he played a part in building into the number one sport in America.

The 1996 season championship in the top Semi-Late division at Hesston Speedway was a tribute to their father by driver ”Tiger Tom” Eriksen and his brother, Crew Chief, Chief Mechanic and car owner David Eriksen.

Sonny Eriksen loved racing, and he got his start as a car builder and owner, racing at the Huntingdon Fairgrounds and Port Royal Speedways. His black and white car number was 2, and his first race cars were the vintage pre-war coupes that developed into today’s sprint and modified racecars.

Eriksen was born October 28th, 1926 in Brooklyn NY, a son of the late Oscar Norman and Hazel (Dahl) Eriksen. Surviving him are his wife, the former Peggie Kyle, children Carole Weitzel, Thomas, David, and Kelly, sister Eleanor, and three grandchildren.

He was a resident of Huntingdon County since 1931, and he operated Eriksen Well Drilling and the Pit Stop Inn along with the original Hesston Speedway. He built his first race car in about 1957, and Hal Eppley of Alexandria was his first driver. He had several different drivers through the years including Eddie Norris of Williamsburg and Bruce Walters of Mount Union who drove the most races, according to son David who now operates Eriksen Well Drilling. Lynn Paxton drove Eriksen cars in some early’60s races at Williams Grove as the old coupes developed into early Sprint Cars. By 1965-66 Paxton drove a full-blown fuel injected sprint car for Eriksen.

When the Huntingdon County Fairgrounds renovated the track to better accommodate horse racing and eliminated stock car races, the local Juniata Valley Racing Association (JVRA) needed a place to race. The nearest tracks were at Port Royal and Bedford.

Eriksen had an ideal location in a natural amphitheater on his property in Penn Township, and he had the basic equipment to start building a track. The D-7 bulldozer and drag pan earthmover he used are still in the immediate area. JVRA members donated their labor to help build the Hesston Speedway.

Among Eriksen’s helpers, but not all of them by any means, were George Watson who returned to race at Hesston three seasons ago, Chet Spencer who donated electrical work, and Butch Griffith of the Griffith Oil Company family who was associated with opening and operating the track in its first few seasons.

The first race at Hesston was won by Donald “Meatball” Miller of Saxton, who was most notable then for using a milk can for a gas tank instead of the traditional small beer keg.

In about 1967 Eriksen enlarged the track from the original 3/8-mile circle to the present 1/2-mile oval. The front stretch was moved back toward the present grandstand and the backstretch drive in ramp was built as shale was removed to fill the steeply banked turns. The present turn three and four area was then a wheat field and the current amphitheater like bowl the track nestles in required extensive filling. Turns one and two were filled in and built up from a dip in the field, and all of turns three and four were built up from scratch.

The only fatality at the track, and the greatest tragedy to the Eriksen family, was the death of Bob Brenneman Sr. on Easter Sunday of that year as he helped to enlarge the track. Brenneman was the father of famous driver Dale "Spike” Brenneman and grandfather of present Hesston driver Dustin Brenneman. That day he was removing shale with the pan from the backstretch hillside with son Spike riding on the right, uphill, side of the pan. When it started to slide down hill, the older Brenneman pushed his son off the uphill side and tried to jump clear on the downhill side. The heavy piece of equipment rolled downhill to the left, crushing Brenneman underneath.

Sonny Eriksen also planned in the late ‘60s for a drag strip, and he built a solid base that started in the area of the present four-cylinder pits. At that time Don and Dallas Speck in Hartslog had a small drag strip until “Gee” Galloway was killed in an accident. They closed their drag track and Eriksen had the idea of a collateral attraction at Hesston to fill the void, so he built the strip’s foundation as long as possible. The cost of blacktopping and the energy crisis of the early ‘70s killed that plan. It eventually became an airstrip after Eriksen got an airplane in about 1972.

In the beginning the track raced the coupes and the hooligans. As racing grew the stock class became the novices and they developed into today’s Semi-Lates. The Late Models, which developed from the hooligans and in 1963 became the Pure Stocks, were the top division after the old coupes evolved into the big money Sprint and Super-Sprint cars. The hooligan, novice, Street Stock, Late Model evolution took about 15 years.

In the Late Models, the winningest drivers were Larry Wright, Turk Burket and Larry Kauffman, but no records were kept from the old days. Gary Martz left racing to build chassis, Gus Frear was a favorite and Paul “Red” Vaughn and Marv Kauffman won allot of races. Jim Nave was in there but not as often as Wright and Kauffman.

In the Sprints at Hesston, Gerald Chamberlain was the star in the Don Rice Ford, and he drove the first winged car Hesston saw. In 1976 John Grum drove a late Model at Hesston for Tom Clise, and he’s still a top notch driver at Hesston at perhaps 73 years of age, but Eriksen’s best recollection was a season when Tom Eriksen finished second behind him three consecutive weeks at Bedford. That year Grum dominated both the Bedford and Hesston tracks.

Dale Brenneman would almost have to have been the top novice or semi-late winner at the old Hesston, Dave Eriksen estimated. Larry Mitchell, who now drives the number 31 semi-late, was track champion for a couple years in the novice class, and Brenneman was the top gun in those cars. Yogi Holsinger won a lot of races in a Ford, and Marlin Watkins of New Grenada dominated some years. George Brechbeil won with a Mopar, which was an oddball, and Mel Mellott also won a lot of novice races in a Mopar.

Current Hesston flagman John Replogle was one of Hesston’s regular drivers in the old days, and a lot of the regulars quit racing when Hesston closed. Many, like Mitchell, Grum, Bob Briggs and Terry Sheffield, are back at the wheel. Others, like Dale Brenneman, are back with their Sons at the wheel.

During the previous hey-day of stock car racing, through the 1960’s and early 70’s, Hesston was nationally known as a top racing facility. Much of the track’s success, according to Dave Eriksen, was because of the capable and dedicated people Sonny Eriksen attracted.

Ed Bradley of Marklesburg was a state highway foreman and the best grader man ever on the track, operating the grader weekly until about 1971. Then George Walters of Lewistown, who worked for Eriksen on road construction, operated the grader until about 1973 and Bob Householder Sr. graded for the final three years.

The flagman in the early 60’s was named Taylor, Red or Fuzz, and he brought a Great Dane with him that he usually left in his panel wagon and a pet skunk that he showed off to the crowd. Richard Lego took tickets on the hill ramp for many years. Ira Harris and Hobart Smith were faithful Scorers.

Walt Martin was always the announcer, and much of the track’s success was thanks to his talent and distinctive voice. Martin is now back on the microphone as color announcer and relief for Gary Garner. The operation was a family oriented weekend business because the money has never been enough in small track stock car racing to hire a big staff, Dave Eriksen explained. His Aunt Joanne took tickets at the main gate and helped pay the drivers after each race. Sister Kay ran the number two-food stand and mother Peggy ran the number one kitchen. Aunt Mae, married to Sonny Eriksen’s brother Arthur, ran the pits concession and her sister Carole ran the one on the hill with help from her girlfriends like current Hesston regular fans Pat McKinney and Sandy Mitchell both of whom are married to notable race car drivers.

So many at the track today have years of experience helping operate it, Eriksen said. Uncle Arthur “Boo” Eriksen was pit steward and tech man. “A brother in the infield helped dad to keep control of the track and the racing,” Eriksen said. “Promoting a racetrack is a tough job it’s always a handful dealing with a couple thousand people and it’s hard to keep everybody happy,” he said. “I remember two regular drivers who developed into very prominent drivers. One night their wives were chasing each other around the front stretch clubbing away with their pocket books. I won’t embarrass them because we were all young bucks then, but the drivers became very prominent and everyone knows of them.”

Many suggest that racing runs in cycles, and the down turn for Hesston and the east coast short tracks started in the late ‘60s when the Vietnam War draft took the young drivers. The general world situation, and especially’ the fuel shortages and price increases created by such as the OPEC oil embargo of the early ‘70s, contributed to a general racing decline.

But even in the rough years Eriksen’s Hesston Speedway offered good dirt track racing. Sonny Eriksen was a believer, and he chose to race on Sunday night for the good competition. Sunday is a poor race night for big crowds and track profits because racing fans must work the next day. But at Hesston it was a great night for quality competition because he could attract the cars from all of the Saturday night tracks like Clearfield Mountain, Bedford and Port Royal.

For two years, 1970 and ‘71, Eriksen leased the South Penn Speedway, late of Everett and operated it against Bedford Speedway on Friday nights. After his lease ended in 1972 at the clay track where the Everett Elementary school now stands, Eriksen tried racing Friday and Sunday nights at Hesston, just to try it. Crowds were dropping at that time, and he wanted to see how that would work.

He also tried racing motorcycles on the steep Hesston oval during 1974 and ‘75 on the same night with the stock cars, and he considered building a hill climb for the two-wheelers. The cycles started in the middle of ‘74 and were back the next year for six shows in the 20-week season. Four different classes of cycles raced. They ran at intermission, starting from a dead stop at the drop of the flag. Among the notable motorcycle racers at Hesston were moto-cross stars Ed Price and Danny Wertz.

A special promotion at Hesston was the parachute drops onto the racetrack, and Dave Eriksen recalls one parachutist who landed outside turns one and two and broke a leg.

For three consecutive years, in an effort to increase attendance, Eriksen promoted the Richard Cobb’s Thrill Show at the speedway on a special night. Cobb was the stunt driver who filled in for Steve McQueen in the movie Bullitt. He also staged many demolition derbies at the track at the end of the regular racing show so the debris could he removed in plenty of time for the next week’s racing.

“In the 60’s all the young folks did was work on racecars. We never had time to get in trouble,” Dave Eriksen said. He learned himself to be an “excellent” welder before he was sixteen, and still is, working on the number H2O car his brother Tom drove and helping set up other Hesston cars from his racing parts shop at the Eriksen Well Drilling garages near the track. “When you build a racecar, it’s your signature and you can take pride in it. We all learned good mechanical skills in those days from building our own cars from scratch. Now there is more involvement from sponsors, business’s that see the value in advertising on racecars, so the cars are more professional today.”

From the age of 12 until he was 2l, Dave Eriksen watered the track and ran it in for his father. In his spare time he took care of the racecar for his older brother Tom, who worked away on construction during the week, It was a very good year the summer of 1974 as Dave graduated from high school. He got ten percent of his brother’s racecar winnings for working on the car, and Tom Eriksen is still a top driver, along with $50 a week for his work on the track.

After the track was abandoned, it grew up to brush and small trees, and the local race car drivers went to Port Royal or Bedford or they turned to drag racing and boating on nearby lake Raystown. Then Butch and Linda Grubb bought the property and began restoring it with work on the track, new grandstands and operations buildings and a new office and scoring tower on top a modern kitchen area.

They reopened the new Hesston Speedway for a brief six-show season in the fall of 1993 and have been staging full seasons successfully since.

Butch Grubb operated Grubco Lumber just up the hill from the track, and he had the heavy equipment and know-how to complete the restoration as finances allowed, and Linda Grubb had the business acumen to make Hesston viable from operating a convenience store and a contract school bus business.

More importantly, they had a love of the old-fashioned dirt track racing they knew as youngsters when Butch took Linda to the Hesston Speedway on their first date. He raced there himself in the number 73 stock car class.

Today, Hesston is continually growing. The cars and fans come from miles around every Saturday, usually filling the pits and grandstands.