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Owner David Eriksen talks of Hesston Speedway History
 

 
This 1963 picture shows (from left to right) Robert "Sonny" Eriksen,
 Bruce Walters, Arthur "Boo" Eriksen and Richard Staylor

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.

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. His wife was  Peggie Kyle, children Carole Thomas, David, and Kelly,

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 Al Epley,Eddie Norris & Bruce Walters Drove.

When the Huntingdon County Fairgrounds renovated the track to better accommodate horseracing 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.

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 4/10-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.

Sonny Eriksen also planned in the late ‘60s for a drag strip, and he built a solid base for 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.

He also planned a small amusement park for the kids in the area between the drag strip and the circle track, which was then a cultivated field Hesston had its greatest moments.

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  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 ‘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 be 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 taught 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 21, 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.

The younger racing Eriksen summed it up; “Dad enjoyed racing as a car owner, and he promoted the track for almost 18 years. He made some money in the 1960’s and early 70’s and then lost it as racing declined.

Jay Grubb reopened Hesston Speedway  in the fall of 1993 and sold the track to Ryan Lyan in 2002.   In 2009, Dave Eriksen repurchased the track.  After leasing it out for 1 year to Rick Jones, Eriksen took over promotion efforts in 2010.