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Remembering The Rockpile:
Buffalo's Civic Stadium launched many racing careers

I can honestly say I attended a race at Buffalo's old Civic Stadium – although I don't recall it.  The year was 1957 and I was six months old.  Mom and Dad tell me I slept through the feature.  And so, because I slept through it all, I am forced to rely on the kindness of strangers to bring you this tale.

Many an hour was spent at the main branch of the Erie County Public Library, sorting through roll after roll of microfilm.  The Buffalo Evening News and Buffalo Courier Express presented race reports in the huckster-like style of the day.  You almost had to read the story twice to make sure you weren't perusing the wrestling results by mistake.

These are the facts: Buffalo's Civic Stadium originally was named War Memorial Stadium and was a depression-era WPA project.  The 40,000-seat, open-air stadium was located at the corner of Jefferson and Best Streets (an urban neighborhood that should be avoided at all costs these days) and was officially presented to the City of Buffalo on September 30, 1938 – although it was used for the Colgate-Tulane football game in October 1937.  No one seems to know how it got the Civic Stadium moniker.

A paved quarter-mile track circled the football field.  The straights were short and the turns were tight.  The high outside walls were unforgiving and the stadium's groundskeepers laid railroad ties perpendicular to the inside edges of the track to keep the cars off the football field.  If you lost control and bounced over one of those babies, you were destined to take The Big Ride.

Three different promoters – Dewey Michaels, Dan Russo and Ed Otto -- presented Midget auto races at the stadium from 1938 to the early 1950s.  In 1949, a new phenomenon – stock cars (or jalopies) – took hold and the Midgets eventually were shown the door.  Fans could relate to the stock cars and these pre-war coupes and sedans were within the budget of just about any blue collar Joe.  You simply went to the used car lot or junkyard, towed your heap home, kicked out the windshield, strapped the doors shut and painted numbers on both doors.  For about $50, you too could be a stock-car driver.  These jalopies evolved into what we know as Modifieds.

Hal Lawrence has been on the Western New York racing scene for over 50 years.  Lawrence recalls that the stadium drew so many cars from '50 to '52 that the excess entries had to be pitted up the street at the Masten Avenue Armory.  "They'd drive the cars right up the street when they were ready to run," Lawrence recalled, "and even in '53 they were pitting the cars on the sidewalk outside the stadium.  They had, in their heyday, 70 or 80 cars, two nights a week (Wednesdays and Saturdays).  In 1955, they switched to Sportsman and Jalopies.  I loved that place!"

It was a dangerous place to race.  The starter did not use the caution flag.  If you spun in the middle of the turn and sat looking down the business end of oncoming traffic, you'd better hope the local parish priest wasn't busy that night.  (I have home movies to back this up.)  There were no firesuits in those days.  Crude helmets, known as Cromwells, made you look snappy but provided little, if any, shelter for your noggin.  Men got hurt.  And Frank Wagner got burned.  On Sept. 13, 1956, Frank was involved in a wreck that piled cars on top of each other, their sloping trunk lids acting as launch ramps.  A gas tank split open and fuel ignited.  To make matters worse, an electric fuel pump on one of the cars kept pouring gasoline into the inferno.  The local firehouse was called and a pumper finally showed up.  Wagner, badly burned, was taken to the hospital, where he stayed for nine painful months.  His arms were badly scarred and his fingers were reduced to gnarled stubs.  He never raced again.

David Heintz loved the track for many reasons.  His father's gas station was located at Jefferson and Carlton Streets, only a few blocks from the stadium.  He could see all the race cars go by as they were towed to the track.  He started going to the races with his father when he was five years old.

"I think part of the (attraction) of Civic Stadium was the physical plant," said Dave.  "You'd go out to a short track (perhaps Ransomville or North Collins or Cuba Lake) and you sat on the front straightaway.  At Civic, with 40,000 seats, well, you could sit anywhere.  They had a rule that you couldn't sit in the first five rows.  We'd sit about halfway up, and there was this constant roar.

"It was the cars that attracted me," Heintz continued.  "Most of the cars you saw there were '37 Fords.  In '37, Ford went to all-steel wheels and they were stronger.  And all the Fords ran flathead engines.  The paint jobs and numbers were neat.  Ben Lalomia had the 8-Ball '40 Ford.  Gordie Reed drove The Piston-Poppin' Special and Tony Occhino's car was polka-dotted."

Civic Stadium's promoters were just that: promoters.  To tease prospective customers, a local TV station would show a few of the heat races – live!  Then they'd stop and announce, "There's plenty of good seats available and there's still time to see the main event!"  And that's how Ransomville (N.Y.) Speedway was born.  Ed Ortiz watched those televised heats and said, "We can do that too," but didn't want to drive all the way in to Buffalo from Niagara County.  Ortiz and his pals grabbed a grader and cut an oval in his dad's farm and staged their own stock car races.

Buffalo's Dick Hurd was one of Civic's biggest stars.  After his release from the military in 1953, he began racing at West Seneca Speedway and at Cuba Lake, N.Y.  No matter where he ran – Pinecrest, CNE Stadium in Toronto, Rochester, Ransomville – he always reserved Saturday nights for the pavement at Civic Stadium.  He competed in a '37 Ford coupe, numbered 117, and won Civic's '57 and '58 Langhorne Qualifiers.  His car was the first at Civic Stadium to use a quick-change rear end, made by Halibrand in California.  His biggest victory came just three days after Wagner's fire (a crash he was involved in), on Sept. 16, 1956.  It was billed as a 400-lap tag-team race.  Two-car teams alternated every 100 laps.  The first car would run 100 laps, pull into the pits, and tap ("tag") his teammate's car, which would then run the next 100 laps.  At least that was the plan.  Hurd was teamed with Larry Marx.  At the 300-lap mark, Hurd pitted to tap Marx but Larry's car refused to start.  Hurd returned to the race, ran the final 100 laps and won.  Tragically, a crewman was killed during the event.  On lap 293, a man pushed past stadium police and attempted to cross the track with a bucket of water for his car.  He ran out in front of the pack just as the race was restarting following a caution period.  Hurd also won on the night of the stadium's biggest stock-car crowd – 33,000 fans – on Buffalo Police Fun-O-Rama Night in '58.

By 1958, rumors of stock-car racing's demise at the stadium began to spread.  The Sept. 21, 1959 edition of The Buffalo Evening News turned rumors to fact.  The headline of the front page article declared, "Work Will Start Soon On Diamond In Civic Stadium."  What followed was painful to many fans and drivers.  "Within two weeks, earth will start flying in Civic Stadium and application will be made for preliminary order of condemnation to acquire Offerman Stadium."  Aging Offerman Stadium, home of the triple-A Buffalo Bisons, was to become the site of a much-needed high school.  The ball club would move to Civic Stadium.  The stock cars would be told to hit the highway.  "The present asphalt track," the article continued, "used for stock car races, will be removed and portions of the infield will be sodded to have the field ready for baseball in April."

The stock cars left the joint in fine style.  "Torrisi, Orazi Set Records In Stadium Races," proclaimed the final headline.  Bill Torrisi of North Tonawanda – who celebrated his 50^th year of driving Modifieds in 2002 – won the final stock car race at Civic Stadium before 5,253 fans.  Torrisi's '36 Ford, powered by a '58 Chevy V-8, set a 25-lap record of seven minutes, 29 seconds, to top the three-year-old mark set by Frank Wagner.  Men who won heats that night included Chuck Boos, John Pennell, Irv "Flip" Johnson and Don Wylie.  All went on to fame and glory at other tracks after Civic ended its stock-car races.

The NFL Buffalo Bills left Civic Stadium, now known as The Rockpile for its decrepit condition.  The Buffalo Bisons, who had ousted the stock cars in '59, left the field for new digs in '88.  Civic Stadium was torn down in 1989.  Only the facade of the Jefferson-Best entrance was left standing.  The site became a high school sports arena, which offered only a fraction of the original seating.  A black chain link fence surrounds the property to shelter it from the decaying urban neighborhood.  The roar of stock cars has been replaced by the sound of car stereos and the occasional handgun.