Ivanhoe Smith

Courtesy of John Nelson's Research
An ad for Smitty's track from the Burlington Free Press.

Local Winooski used car dealer Ivanhoe Smith was a familiar figure around early racing in the Chittenden County area. Besides fielding a number of stock cars at various tracks in his time, he made a game attempt at running a race track. This was located to the Essex side of what now is Canyon Estates, outside of Colchester. Smitty had a pretty good track, by the standards of the day, and his operation survived a bout with Vermont Blue Laws, as well as at least one bad accident involving spectators.

Courtesy of Jodie Trayah, via Steve Jangraw
The rough and ready bunch is supposedly posing at Colchester Raceway in front of this lovely
example of modern race technology. From left: Carl Trayah, Ed Charbonneau, flagger Ira Farnsworth, and Herb Trayah.

Courtesy of the Dooley Family
Harlan "Red" Dooley bulldozes one of the Trayah boys in that same car as above.

Courtesy of Jack Anderson A race lineup at Smitty's	Courtesy of the Owen Family Gordy Owen [31] paces a heat field at Colchester Raceway around 1951.	Courtesy of Jack Anderson Carl Trayah at the track. Steve J says the barn in the background is the Purvis'.	Courtesy of Jack Anderson A pit gathering at the track. I'm looking for help naming some of these guys.
Courtesy of Jack Anderson Jack Anderson says this is at "Smitty's" and that he was only 16 in this shot.	Courtesy of Bob Bushey Family via Jack Anderson Gordy Owen gets pushed into the pit area by Rex Shattuck. The only way to tell is the unique announcer's stand.	Courtesy of Owen Family Gordy Owen gets pushed off in the pit area at Smitty's .	Jackie Peterson Collection Jackie Peterson, the car at left in background, at speed at what could likely be Colchester Raceway. Peterson was one of Smitty's most loyal drivers.

Courtesy of Walt Perkins
An apparent ticket stub from the Colchester Raceway. It looks almost identical to one used by Walter Barcomb's
Colchester - Bayview track, but the price is higher. The disclaimer is particularly significant on this stub in view
of the controversial spectator accidents that Smitty endured in 1951.

The Vermont Sunday News gave Colchester Raceway a good spread on October 22, 1950.

Burlington Free Press Ronnie Farnsworth's car after the September 25, 1950 that hit spectators standing by the fence. It didn't look much better before the race.	Burlington Free Press Frank Hart's car after the September 25, 1950 that hit spectators standing by the fence. It advertised Anchor Light Restaurant of Alburgh.	Vermont Sunday News Bud Poirier, originally from Buffalo, was driving an Ivanhoe Smith car here. He also had his own "LIttle 5" at times. This is October 22, 1950.	Vermont Sunday News Cars would collect mud on the front of the radiator and overheat. This is October 22, 1950.
Vermont Sunday News Ira Farnsworth was twin brother to Rollover Ronnie, shown in the photo above. This is October 22, 1950.	Vermont Sunday News Faithful fans attended - even after the efforts of States Attorney Lawrence Deshaw to stop racing at the track. This is October 22, 1950.	Vermont Sunday News Unlucky Lou Modica apparently earned his nickname the hard way. This is October 22, 1950.	Burlington Free Press Thhis meVermont Sunday News This 1950's newspaper ad for excavating offers the only photo I have ever seen of Ivanhoe Smith, aka "Cash", "Ivan", and "Smitty". He is at right.

Courtesy of John Nelson
The track was about in the dead center of this aerial shot from 1961. It had 10 years to start fading out.

Burlington Free Press First mention of the track publicly, although it was mostly already built. Smith was very secretive about it. September 13, 1950.	Burlington Free Press September 14, 1950.This came out along with the stock announcement. The "Anchor Light 8" was actually Frank Hart. He and Farnsworth would be in that fateful fence crash a week or so later.	Burlington Free Press September 14, 1950. It starts becoming official.	Vermont Sunday News Part of this column complains about how hard it was to get any info on a track that was already built.
Burlington Free Press Bud Poirier was often a "house" driver for Ivanhoe Smith.	Burlington Daily News This commentary from Burlington's more racing - unfriendly paper might have partly been a poke at how hard it was to get info about the track. Track announcer and local radioi personality Carter was later roasted by sports writers in the area for his criticism of them.	Burlington Free Press September 22, 1950.A little over a week after the last driver list - this one has some changes. Thhis group would race when the disastrous wreck happened.	Burlington Free Press September 24, 1950.This article [which actually was much longer] came out in almost every paper in the entire region. Despite constant requests to stay off the fence, these people were up against it when Hart and Farnsworth hit. The incident sparked the State of Vermont to crack down on racing on Sundays.
Newport Daily Express September 25, 1950.It took one day for Deshaw to wield the ancient Sunday Blue Laws to get after the very defiant Ivanhoe Smith.	Burlington Free Press September 26, 1950.Smith begins what would be a long and public defiance of Deshaw.	Barre Daily Times September 28, 1950.This ad trumpets the fact that Colchester Raceway would race despite the accident and Deshaw.	Vermont Sunday News September 30, 1950. More about the big next race program.
Burlington Daily News October 1. Ivanhoe Smith blinked this one time. They were working on the frontstretch catch fence, among other things.	Burlington Daily News This came out on October 2. It was in papers all over the nation. I imagine the DailyNews couldn't wait to get it out there - it was a very anti-racing paper. The article was much longer.	Burlington Free Press A day after the day in court - Farnsworth is back on the track. Peterson and Frank Hart are not mentioned. Note the reference to increased spectator protection. I think he added sunken RR ties to the frontstretch fencing.	Burlington Free Press October 7. Tracks all over were looking at Friday night races or Saturdays.
Burlington Free Press October 8. Tracks all over were looking at Friday night races or Saturdays. Smith was full speed ahead with special attractions.	Burlington Free Press October 10. With Saturdays working all right, I am not sure why Smith wanted to race at night in chilly October.	Burlington Free Press October 11. Almost same ad, but with "Streamlined races" added. They must have figured the crowd would be cold.	Burlington Free Press October 14. This very business - like and somewhat mysterious ad showed up in the Free Press.
Vermont Sunday News October 15. This article [much larger than what is shown here] outlined a new race group that would work on racing safety.	Burlington Free Press October 20. The new group was apparently interested in more than just safety.	Burlington Free Press November 9. As was often the way in those early years, tracks would go on until the weather made it absolutely impossible.	Burlington Free Press November 10. Last race of the year.

Burlington Free Press First mention of the track in 1951. May 15, 1951. Smith went with this flamboyant "Indianapolis of Colchester" bit for quite some time.	Burlington Free Press May 18, 1951. Ray Cooley [a future founder of Thunder Road] looks to be the first winner of the year.There is a lot of mention of the track in June or July in the papers.	Burlington Free Press May 31,1951. Gordy Owen wins one in the midst of a busy season for him all over the region.	Burlington Free Press July 14. It's a wwonder the fans could keep track of his scheduling. Mere weeks ago, he was running on Wednesday.
Montpelier Evening Argus July 16, 1951. This happened at Col. Raceway on the same day Bob Bushey was winning at Bayview Speedway, with which Col. Raceway would merge in 1952.	Burlington Free Press July 31,1951. Back to running on Wednesday.	Burlington Free Press August 4,1951. Good 'ol Cash Smith.	Burlington Free Press August 6,1951. The term "unmodified" is important here. The Southern New England cutdown mods came up to the fair, a few years later, and wiped out the few locals who ran.
Burlington Free Press September,1951. Very little ink was devoted to race results at Smith's programs throughout the Summer. Even this single item in September is about his upcoming big championship race, which was in October. This is typical, Papers were happy to print paid - for ads and brief promos, but didn't like taking up space on the sports page for results.	Barre Daily Times October 7,1951. Sometimes the Barre and Montpelier papers were better about covering Colchester races than the Free Press was.	Burlington Free Press October,1951. This was the Free Press' effort.	Burlington Free Press October 4,1951. This was the Free Press would do, if paid. The Burlington Daily News wouldn't even do that.
Bradford United Opinion October 5,1951. Stub Piper, fresh out of Bradford Academy High School, had been George Barber's first driver and had quite dominated a lot of the early 1950's jalopy racing in northern Vermont. PART 1	Bradford United Opinion October 5,1951. Stub Piper would go onm to win this big race and then disappear as Barber's driver. The article mentions the race at West Lebanon, NH - the track's last year. Pop Goodwin would occasionally opppose Colchester area drivers at Northfield in 1951. PART 2	Burlington Free Press October 6,1951. Smith flooded the local paper with ads before his big race. This one is such an important list of 1951 drivers, I'll put a larger version below.	Newport Daily Express October 6,1951. Even the racing - friendly Newport paper got in on ythe action. Wright's dice might not have been so lucky in this race; I think he was injured. PART 1
Newport Daily Express October 6,1951. Even the racing - friendly Newport paper got in on ythe action. PART 2	Burlington Free Press October 10,1951. Ah, the days of the variable winning purse. With the winning car owner being the savvy George Barber, I doubt Smith could pull much mischief.	Burlington Free Press October 15,1951. Piper's #46 Bradford Auto Supply car looked like a rattletrap, but it was scary fast.	Burlington Free Press October 15,1951. Leo Nadeau's Rocket 88 car was out of Schuylerville, NY and ran at over a dozen tracks in 1951.

Burlington Free Press
January 11,1952. The phrase "if it was in operation" speaks volumes. The track closed after the 1951 season. Smith would play a key role
at Colchester - Bayview Speedway and would again find controversy when the new track hosted stock car races at the Champlain
Valley Expo in the Fall and a person was killed. The fallout went on for two years; Ivanhoe Smith had had enough of racing.