Wednesday Night Thunder
Johnny Suddeth picked up the first win of the season at the Peach Bowl in 1953.
The Sportsman cars started their season at the Peach Bowl on Fridays in 1953 but switched to Wednesdays in May for the rest of the year.
A new name in the Sportsman class, Johnny Suddeth, won the first race of the year. Others than won that year were Jack Smith (of course), Roscoe Thompson (of course), Billy Carden, Charlie Mincey (in his first year in the class) and Gober Sosebee.
The Amateurs ran in a dual show with the Sportsmen each Wednesday and had their own night of racing on Fridays. The Friday night crowds were almost as big as the ones on Wednesday. Charlie Padgett, Claude Mauldin of Lawrenceville, Georgia, T.C. Hunt, Jack Jackson and Don Fowler were just some of the names that ran up front during the year on Fridays.
Roscoe Thompson returned to his championship throne at the end of 1953 in the Sportsman division, while Jack Jackson repeated as the Amateur champ.
The AAA circuit midgets made a visit to the Peach Bowl while the sportsman cars took a vacation in the summer of 1953. LeRoy Warrimer of Indianapolis, Indiana won the 50-lap feature race for the doodlebugs, the first such race held in over two years. Cal Niday from Fresno, California was second, third going to George Trichenor of Logansports, Indiana and fourth going to Indy 500 driver Jack Turner, of Seattle.
In 1954, racing at the Peach Bowl began on Friday, April 23. They had tried to start the week before, but were rained out. Jack Jackson, the 1952 and 1953 Amateur champ, won the Sportsman race. One week later, Johnny Suddeth recorded the win. Tommy Patton of Marietta, Charlie Mincey, Ralph Stradley, Gober Sosebee and Jack Smith were just some of the feature winners in the Friday night Sportsman events.
In May, the Wednesday night Amateur division ran the asphalt oval. Pete Barfield, Floyd Hunt, Jim Wakefield, Jerry Williams and Runt Griffin were among the winners as Roy Shoemaker switched the nights each division race but the price of admission was still $1.50.
Georgia Racing Hall of Fame member Charlie Bagwell recorded his first win at the Peach Bowl in 1953.
Some special Sportsman races were run that year on the Fourth of July and Labor Day holidays. Jack Smith won the 50-lap midseason championship on Monday night, July 5, while Charlie Mincey won the 50-lapper on Labor Day. In addition, the Congress of Canadian Daredevils put on a two-night stand in April with their Thrill Show, using 1954 Ford automobiles.
Jack Smith defied all sensibilities and drove the 300-lap team race in September without any relief. He probably didn’t want to divide up the winning purse. “Iron Man” Don Fowler was second, also running solo, while Jack Jackson and Pete Barfield teamed for third and Billy Carden soloed for fourth. But, again, Roscoe Thompson won the Peach Bowl championship.
The big news in 1954 was that Charlie Bagwell, who raced up until a few years ago, won his first Sportsman feature at the Peach Bowl. He had started in 1950 at the speedway and had raced on the quarter-mile every year since without a win. Bagwell raced as a hobby and clearly was outrun most nights, but auto racing was a hobby in which he liked to participate, not spectate, kind of like fishing.