This weekend’s Hutchinson Grand National Auto Races will be the 67th and final one. The Kansas State Fairgrounds management informed promoter C. Ray Hall of its decision to replace the dirt track with a concert facility.
“For everyone involved — racers, crews, fans — it was like cutting part of your heart out,” Hall said. “All those years, all those fond memories. Today, our goal is to run the race. The indications from the practice days is that it is going to be a good one.”
Hall took over promotion of the race in 1975. A year earlier, the race made national news when supermodifieds crashed, piled up, and a fire ensued.
One of those cars that burned was driven by Jack Petty. His grandson Jeremy Petty entered the NCRA late model race this weekend at Hutchinson.
“The race holds special significance for me and my family,” said Petty, of Smolan, Kansas. “They put my grandfather in a body bag filled with ice and flew him to the The University of Kansas burn center in Lawrence. He had third-degree burns over 75% of his body. When they wheeled him into surgery, the doctors told him he would lose his fingers and toes. He told them to leave a ¾″ gap between his thumb and first finger so he could race again.”
Doctors left a slot between the nubs where Jack’s fingers were so he could continue to drive. This weekend, Jeremy continues the family’s racing tradition.
“It is really disappointing that this is the last Hutchinson,” Petty said. “The old photos of my grandpa are flooding my social media pages. The race was always one of the premier dirt races in the country.”
As word spread of the end of the Hutchinson Grand National Auto Races, racers and fans made plans to attend. Hall is mulling moving the race to another facility.
“We will have to see if it makes sense to try to run it somewhere else or just let it die,” said Hall. “If they gave us one more season to run, I would do it absolutely. I didn’t make the decision for this to be the last race — the Fair did — and they did it with a call to me.”
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.
