FLEMINGTON, N.J. — It’s amazing the things one can find if one looks hard enough.

That is particularly the case for Dennis Tretter, who recently uncovered a piece of racing history in the back a 53-foot shipping container on a New Jersey farm.

The item he discovered was a vintage sportsman small-block coupe that was raced by the late Barry Adler, a regional competitor in the Northeast who campaigned the car at two New Jersey tracks — Flemington Speedway and East Windsor Speedway — during the 1970s.

Tretter is the president of the Flemington Speedway Historical Society, a non-profit, 501(c)(3) that is focused on preserving, protecting and documenting the faces, names, actions and events that make up the history of the Flemington Fairgrounds and Speedway.

Flemington Speedway was located on the Flemington (N.J.) Fairgrounds and hosted auto racing from 1915 until it closed in 2002. Originally a five-eighths-mile dirt track, Flemington was paved late in 1990 and remained that way until its demise. It’s widely considered one of the region’s most influential race tracks and even hosted the NASCAR Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series from 1995 to ’98.

Every August the Flemington Speedway Historical Society hosts a car show during the Hunterdon County (N.J.) 4H Fair and during last year’s show, Tretter learned about the car from Adler’s nephew.

“Barry just passed last year and one of our board members introduced me to Barry’s nephew, who was there selling sheds,” Tretter explained. “We started to talk and he actually said, ‘Well, my Aunt Joan might want to get rid of the car.’”

Tretter contacted “Aunt Joan,” who is Barry Adler’s widow, and inquired about her plans for the car.

“After several phone calls last summer with Joan we came to an agreement,” Tretter said.

The original plan was for Tretter to take possession of the car last year, but as the weeks went by it became difficult for that to happen due to the changing of the season in New Jersey.

“It was on her nephew’s farm and we started to head into winter and he was harvesting corn and one thing led to another where our timeframes didn’t match up,” Tretter explained. “Last week he called me one day and said, ‘Hey, it’s getting warm. Let’s get this car out.’”

So on April 29, Tretter watched as the coupe slowly emerged from the back of the container, where it had been for an unknown amount of time. Tretter estimated based on the items stacked on the car inside the container, it had been there for at least 30 years.

“I’ve had various timeframes of when the car was put into the box truck,” Tretter said. “I’ve heard 20 years ago, and I’ve heard 40 years ago. I’m going to lean more toward 30 or 40 (years) because there was so much stuff. I was actually the one that pulled the car out and there was stuff that hadn’t been moved in a very, very long time.”

Tretter said his research shows that prior to Adler acquiring the car, it belonged to a Flemington Speedway racer named Red Walker, who was a competitor in the modified division at Flemington during the early 1970s.

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