Tuesday, July 12, 2016

There Was Another Auto Racing Track Near Indianapolis-- Part 2: Bloody Jungle Park Speedway

In places, you can still find remnants of the track, a combination of gravel and oil.  The grandstands, still standing as already mentioned, were built in 1947 and the track opened in 1927.

Jungle Park was bloody almost since the beginning.  In the track's second season, race official Earl Parker was mowed down by a speeding racer as he repaired the track.  The following July, a spectator was killed..  Two months later its first driver was lost and the next year another spectator was knocked unconscious when a race car flew into a fence post causing it to hit him.

Three more drivers were killed at Jungle Park the next two years.  At the time, seatbelts were nonexistent and emergency medical care rudimentary, but that was racing back then.  Even the Indianapolis Motor Speeedway, a sophisticated, well-funded racing operation, had 22 fatalities in the 1930s, three of them spectators.

--DaCooy

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