A few weeks ago Dave Roper sent me this note and set of photos after he and some friends discovered the remains of the old Vineland Speedway. Vineland was one of the early east coast road courses that hosted some of the first AAMRR races. While the track never hosted an AMA National many of the top east coast road racers of the era raced there. Thanks for the note and the photos Dave! — Larry

Larry, I was at the AHRMA at NJMP last weekend, though not racing myself because of a recent street bike accident where a car made a U-Turn in front of me.  I asked Maurice Candy if he thought he could fine the old Vineland Speedway. While he remembered roughly where it was, he wasn’t sure he could find it as he thought there was a housing development on the property.  My friend Aleksey and I worked out on the internet (love the free Wi-Fi at NJMP) and found an image of the track.  Then, knowing roughly where it was, looked at the Google satellite images and found it, 8 mi., from NJMP, between routes 47 and 55, off College Drive.  So Fri., afternoon we drove there with Maurice Candy, who had won a sidecar race on his Manx powered outfit and also raced a Parilla solo there at least fifty years ago.  We pulled off College Dr. onto a dirt road which in a very short way brought us to the oval portion of the track. It’s still there, fairly overgrown, but pavement largely intact.  We didn’t stay too long and just walked around the oval, but could see the main straight, which was a drag strip.

This haunting ruin worked on me, so Sunday morning Aleksey and I went back and walked the whole 1.5 mi. track.  This involved crossing College Dr., which didn’t exist back then and now bisects the circuit.  West of College Dr., Cumberland County College has a baseball diamond with the first base line running along where the old circuit was, but on the East side it’s totally undeveloped and I’d say 85% of the pavement is there and one can see ruins of the old grandstand.

There were five people at the AHRMA race who had raced at Vineland at least 50 years ago. In addition to Maurice was Frank Gianinni, Frank Camaliri, Greg Bonelli, and Eddie Fisher, who said he beat Berliner’s hot shoe on a Ducati with his Triumph Cub by out foxing him.  Eddie, age 89, raced on the weekend.  He fought in the Battle of the Bulge and is still racing.  My hero!

I know you’re busy these days, but you’ve got to check it out when you go to the AMA race at NJMP, and maybe you can add it to your series on abandoned race tracks.  And, anyone of the five guys who raced there are worthy of an Archives profile.