Editors Note: In a nod to our 90 years of history, each week SPEED SPORT will look back at the top stories from 15, 30 and 60 years ago as told in the pages of National Speed Sport News.

15 Years Ago 2010

News: Americas oldest active open-wheel racing sanctioning organization and the longest continuously running weekly midget auto racing program will both have a new look this season.

Recently Angell Park Speedway announced it would run Sunday-night midget racing under the sanction of the newly formed Angell Park Speedway Auto Racing Assn, ending a 63-year relationship with the Badger Midget Auto Racing Assn.

Ten years after beginning as a racing organization BMARA made its first appearance at the track June 2, 1946. The half-mile track, which previously featured trotter and tin lizzie races, was shortened to a third-mile before the season began. Three additional events were held during the season and another dozen features during 1947-48.

For the 1949 season, lights were installed so events could be held on Sunday nights. On May 29, 1949, Kelly

The Flying Irishman Peters set fast time, won his heat and topped the feature. From that point forward, weekly Sunday night racing has been held at the facility except for a few shortened seasons for minor contract disputes in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

APS and Badger were engaged in negotiations for nearly four months. Neither party was able to come to an agreement for a contract for 2010 season.

We were informed by the APS Park Board President Les McBurney that he would be doing his own deal for the 2010 season. We basically were invited back to run at the track. APS has been a very important part of Badgers history, but we must now look to the future. The future for right now doesnt include racing there, said BMARA President Harlan Kittleson.

Badger will contest 10 Saturday night events 35 miles southeast of Sun Prairie at the third-mile dirt Beaver Dam (Wis.) Raceway (formerly Charter/ PowerCom). Wilmot (Wis.) Speedway, Dodge County Fairgrounds (Beaver Dam), Belle-Clair Raceway (Belleville, ill.) and several dates yet to be announced will comprise a 16-20 race schedule for the season.

Winners: Jason Sides won a thrilling battle with Tim Kaeding to claim his first World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series triumph of the season Saturday night at Houston Raceway Park.

While there were only two official lead changes at the Iine, Sides and Kaeding swapped the

top spot countless times over the course of the 40-lapper, sometimes multiple times on the

same lap as they weaved in and out of traffic in an event that had just one caution on the third lap and went the remaining 37 circuits of the quarter-mile oval under the green flag.

Sides took the checkered flag just .160 second ahead of Kaeding for his fifth career WoO victory.

It was a great race, said Sides. Tim (Kaeding) was there the whole time and the track really

got good and wide where you could run the bottom, and the top made for a great race as well

running up there. I felt like it was our race to lose and we kept plugging away and plugging

away and came out on top. I am so proud of this team and everything that helps us.

30 Years Ago 1995

News: National Speed Sport News has learned owners of teams which campaign Fords on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit are taking a low-key approach to the performance handicap presented by the so-far all conquering Chevrolet Monte Carlo bodies.

According to reliable sources, initial tests of the Monte Carlo in production trim were disappointing, which resulted in a petition by General Motors Motorsports Technology Group on behalf of Chevrolet to NASCAR for aerodynamic bodywork relief.

NASCAR obliged, allowing widening of the rear deck area by 6 inches and other sheet-metal alterations which substantially increased the downforce generated by the Monte Carlo at speed.

Dave Hederich, speaking for MTG says, however, it was a case of necessity which brought the Monte Carlos skirts out about from their underpinnings.

When we took the Monte Carlo to NASCAR, we said we put the NASCAR-mandated spoiler on it and it didnt fit, Hederich told NSSN on Monday. The rear deck of the car in production trim is somewhere around 51 or 52 inches wide, and the NASCAR-mandated spolier, which is on there for safety, is 57 inches wide.

In the four races so far this season, all won by Chevrolet Monte Carlos, the best Ford finish has been one third place, by Mark Martin in the season-opening Daytona 500.

The most recent race, the Purolator 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, saw Chevrolet sweep the top four places and Ford drivers unable to lead a single lap.

Whereas the Ford team owners have kept their concerns over the matter private, the same cannot be said of their drivers, several of whom have publicly cited racing the rules.

Hederich, however, was not swayed by that argument.

Our teams put up with a car (the Lumina) that was basically a sedan design, Hederich said. I think they did a pretty good job of keeping their mouths shut about it. We came up with the Monte Carlo, which is a whole lot different than the Lumina. Its a sports coupe, like the Thunderbird, not a two door sedan like the Lumina.

Our guys felt they lived with a car and kept their mouths shut, Hederich continued. Ford put out all this press about leading laps and stuff, and now that were doing it, all of a sudden its not right.

Ford is currently gathering data to bolster its case for a return to a production-bodied series. In the past, NASCARs inspection templates were profiled from production bodies.

Were trying to do in a very short time what Chevrolet spent 2 years doing, said Fords Wayne Estes. What theyre killing us on right now Is the fact that the Winston Cup model is 70 percent Monte Carlo and 30 percent Thunderbird. They (the Chevrolet teams) have a very good frontal

area, but the trouble was they had a very narrow tall.

Winners: After a weekend of frustration, Paul Tracy put it all behind him in Sundays Australian Indy Car Carnival to register his first victory for the Newman/Haas team in dramatic come-from-behind fashion before a record crowd of over 90,000 fans.

Tracy, who moved from Penske Racing to the Chicago-based team in the offseason, drove his Kmart/Budweiser Lola-Ford past teammate Michael Andretti on the 58th and final lap and recorded his ninth career Indy car victory and fifth on a temporary circuit.

Tracy, who came from his ninth starting position to move into the top five after 10 laps, led runner-up and new PPG point leader Bobby Rahal across the finish line by 6.983 seconds with Scott Pruett, Mauricio Gugelmin and Danny Sullivan rounding out the top five.

After his early misfortune in the Miami event two weeks ago, Tracy was first to thank his crew for giving him a strong mount Sunday.

There are always going to be critics, said Tracy about his early Miami exit when he hit the barrier on the second lap. But I have to thank the team for believing in me. The guys worked 48 straight hours to repair the cars and get ready for Surfers. The car ran great all day. I ran my quickest on the last two laps of the race.

I made a fool of myself in Miami, Tracy continued. I felt I had a lot to prove to the team, the

sponsors and the team owners, said the driver who has failed to finish in three previous races here.

60 Years Ago 1965

News: The first of the two 1965 Chevrolet racing stock cars to be raced under the sponsorship of the Southeast Chevrolet Dealers, went into production this week.

Jim Rathmann, a former Indianapolis winner and now a Chevrolet-Cadillac dealer in Melbourne, Fla., advised this writer that veteran racing mechanic Ray Fox, would prepare the cars.

Fox was a member of the Dodge factory team through the 1964 season and only recently built up a 1965 Dodge fitted with a GM supercharger that turned the Daytona Intl Speedway at 181.818 mph., with Leroy Yarbrough of Jacksonville the driver.

Rathmann reported that only one car would be built at first and this run in a few races as a test car. Then the second machine would be put together.

He reported that power would come from the new Chevrolet 396-inch engine opened up to 427

cubic inches. Weight will be right on the minimum, the balding Indy winner stated.

Well be ready with the first car for the May 8th race at Darlington, he reported.

When asked what his opinion of the cars performance against current Grand National cars would be, he snapped, the only reason Fords are winning races is that they wont run fast

enough to blow up. He added, We wouldnt be getting into this business if we couldnt run

faster than the Fords.

Rathmann would not reveal who he and Fox have lined up as drivers, however, he did say their men would be top notch drivers.

Winners: Neither Snow nor a whistling Texas norther could heat Jack Bowsher during his appointed round Sunday.

Parlaying quick pit stops with a super-swift 1965 Ford, the twice-straight ARCA national champion from Springfield, Ohio, beat back the challenge of Les Snow and won the championship 250-lap new stock car race at J. F. Meyer Speedway.

Bowsher won in 1:51.08.6 when his gleaming blue-and-white car took the checkered flag. Snow, who had spent a frustrating day as the No. 1 contender, was only a half-lap behind the winner.

Bowsher made the 125-mile trip with two pit stops for gas which totaled less than 20 seconds, and he made his last one with seven laps left merely as a precautionary measure.

His lips and face chapped by the biting cold wind which sliced across the half-mile track, Bowsher grinned wryly when somebody asked him if hed been beaten this year. I wouldnt

say I was beaten, he said softly. I ran out or gas at Daytona and I was leading the race at the time.