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Update to what I posted regarding Second Creek, based on some additional information I discovered. It was originally a drag strip called Rocky Mountain Dragway and was in existence sometime in the early 60s, if not the late 50s. After that it was Dragway Denver (75-77), Thunder Road or Thunder Road Race/Dragway, and finally for its last two years as a drag strip Mile High Raceway (79-80). Then it was cut in half – on the north half Rocky Mountain Speedway, a dirt oval was built, and the southern half was converted into Second Creek Raceway. You can actually see the very northern part of the old dragstrip in an expanded photo from what I posted before. The southern part of the dragstrip became the front straight, also know as the Buckley Straight, of Second Creek.
It turns out that there is a connection to karting all the way back to the Rocky Mountain Dragway days. I found a post on vintagekarts.com with a caption regarding kart races at the dragstrip (parking lot?) in May 1966. So karting at this site actually goes all the way back to the 60s. Photo below.
Today I was going through some old files, and came across one labeled “Karting”, and in it I found this plaque. Not sure what they were racing there in 1955, given that the first kart was invented in 1956. It was a fun track to drive. Still hoping for some pictures of that track.
Another piece of Colorado karting history. This is from the April 1961 edition of KART magazine, as a letter to the editor. Note the varied karting organizations listed. I also find it interesting that she refers to “tracks”, as in multiple ones. I’ll have some more info on this in the future.
Thanks to Josh Ferguson, I have some pics taken at the old Boulder track (aka Curley’s). Josh’s dad also drew a nice diagram of the track, complete with names for the turns. For the first year I lived in Boulder I didn’t even know the track was there – I guess I never drove by at the right time to see a race going on. Then I met the guy that I bought my first Hutless kart from, and learned about the track. Visited a few races at Boulder and Second Creek, and then bought his kart. The first time I sat in a kart after 25 years was at a race at Boulder.
Another piece of Colorado karting history – a track built in the early 60’s called Karting Downs. If you look up Welby, CO on Google Maps, you will find the approximate location. Looked like a really nice track, but apparently didn’t last very long. It was listed as the track for a regional qualifying race in 1961 for the GKCA (Go Kart Club of America, predecessor to the IKF).
Thought I’d check in to see if this Forum was still alive, and am pleased it is… but especially happy to see this thread!
First, a warm Hello to JB and Mike Edwards!
I raced in Colorado from 1981 to ’83, and once in ’86 to sell my kart, at Curly’s, Longmont, Woody Creek, and a dirt race in the Denver Coliseum — and those were great times that Brad (Linkus) and I, and fellow Back in the Dayers Rick Schmidt, Bob Lazier (Jaques raced there), David Donner, Nils Holten, Wynn Vaughan (who was disabled and used hand controls), Darryl Lawrence, and I still regularly discuss with big smiles! Not to mention my tuner-wife!
Curly was a trucker who lived onsite and was a great host. The track was wonderful, a few hills and short straights meant tall gearing had even a KT100 Yamaha feeling pretty quick. One of the Unser kids showed up but couldn’t find the speed and went home — yet my call from Roger never came. 😉
Longmont was a half-mile and much faster. In 1982 we had a big regional series — Championship of the Americas — visit there and well over 100 karts. The track was a blast, and in our top class of Super Stock Light were many tough competitors. I qualified on Pole but Nils hit me right before the Heat 1 Green and broke my pipe mount. Brad had to black flag me and was bummed as I was the newbie and had limited mechanical skills.
Woody Creek Raceway was also a blast, the only SCCA track we ran in those years and it was awesome to see what even a Yamaha could turn on the top end.
In the winter of ’82-83, the regular driver fell out with Valley Kart for a while and I was invited to fill in at the Coliseum race. It was an aged Bug kart with an Open 125cc Mac on alcohol, and geared like 14:1 with maybe 30 hp so a real handful! But that soft chassis was perfect and we had a great race in front of a fair crowd.
I have a ton of photos from Curly’s, Longmont, and Woody Creek, but unfortunately they’re all un-scanned slides and we live full-time on the road now. It’ll be years before I ever scan them.
I made a brief return to karting for three Yamaha races in 2001 at IMI and CRE for the State championships, then Brad sponsored us to introduce/try to break the Biland all through 2002, including Rock Island, Second Creek, and over 3,000 miles at IMI. That motor loved SCR, we ran 1:15 there which was like an 82 mph average. The best shifter there was in the 1:10s, the overall track record then was a F-Atlantic car which IIRC ran a 1:04.
Glad to see this Forum is still up, we attended the SuperNats this year to support Sabré and Stacey, my first attendance there since 2002 after shooting the race for RACER magazine in ’01 and getting a double-spread published of one of Colorado’s own, the epically-good Brandon Scarberry.
We need to come say Hi to you, JB, when we come through Denver this May. Hope you all are doing well.
Eric,
Thank you for posting about your memories of karting in the region from the 80’s. The Championship Series of the Americas series sounds pretty cool. Was that a national traveling series?
Shame you don’t have time to post some of the scanned photos. Hopefully sometime!
-Eric
Eric – Regarding your photos, if they really are on slides, Costco can put them all on digital discs. If you would trust them to FedEx, I would be happy to get that done, and then send them all back to you. They would add a lot to the historical record. Woody Creek was interesting – what I remember most is the long front straight that was so bumpy that it bounced by glasses up and down and blurred my vision. Regarding Longmont, I’ve become friends on Facebook with an Australian guy who is sort of an old track historian for both the US and Australia, and he came up with this aerial photo of Longmont from 1971 that shows the track.
Very cool thread. I love to hear the history of motorsports. Does anyone know why CKT doesn’t run at the Aspen Sports Car Club track? From the satellite it looks like parking may be an issue. Otherwise, that looks like it would be a fun track!
Daniel – We actually did run there back when I was racing in the late 80s. My best recollection was my vision getting blurred down the long straight (which was incredible for drafting) due to how rough it was. I wear glasses, and they were bouncing up and down on my nose.
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