The home of the Raintree 100, Mt. Lawn Speedway, lived up to the name of its premier event a tad too much. Track owner Rick Sweigart said the track took on 14 inches of rain in a relatively short period of time, flooding the track, which then forced the paved oval to postpone the race. While the waters have receded, it could use your help.
“We never had rain like we have had in this past year,” Rick said. “The track is 92 years old and this is only the third time it has been flooded.”
Rick’s grandfather, Dr. George W. Sweigart, a dentist, built the track in 1934. When he opened the track, it had a dance hall, cabins and a swimming pool (which wasn’t the oval itself).
The race’s name comes from “Raintree County,” a 1948 novel by Ross Lockridge Jr. The fictional county is based on Henry County, Indiana, where Mt. Lawn Speedway is located. The book’s name comes from quest to find the Golden Raintree, which supposedly Johnny Appleseed planted. The book later became a film in 1957, starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Eva Marie Saint.
The Raintree 100 consists of a modified 100-lapper, with Crown Vics and sport compacts filling the remainder of the card. The track has now postponed it, with no word on a new date as of yet. In the meantime, Mt. Lawn Speedway could use your help.
“Over the past few days, Henry County experienced record-breaking rainfall that has caused destruction across New Castle [Indiana],” Mt. Lawn Speedway told its Facebook followers. “Our short turn and pits still have standing water. While water levels have receded around Mt. Lawn, the track experienced asphalt damage and there is debris everywhere. We are starting to clean up but there is much more to be done. If anyone is free on Saturday and wants to volunteer to help clean the track up, we could use all the manpower we can get. Please message the page and we will connect with you!”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
