In the late summer of 1951 there was great news spreading through York County.  All the talk was about a new speedway being built in Southern York County, to be built outside a little town called Neimans on Shaffers Church Road.  As you leave Neimans going toward Brodbecks about a 1/2 mile on the right side is where they built the speedway.

As the news spread, every evening and weekend people and racers-to-be would go down to watch the men work.  Anybody who's ever seen Bowling Green knows it was a track built with high-banked turns which means they had to move a lot of dirt around; and move it they did.

One of our club members, Wayne Dill, lived on a farm down over the 3rd & 4th turns.  He was a young guy; carried water all day for the workers and did little odds and ends.  A couple years ago Wayne asked me "Do you know how many boxes of dynamite was used to build the track?"  Of course I didn't know - 26 boxes !!!

As the work progressed, every night and on weekends lots of the guys hung out there.  Sooner or later everyone met and came to know Clyde Bolen.  He would talk to everybody about how things were going and was always after the guys to build race cars.

During one of our many talks he asked me "Do you think we are going to bring out the local people?"  "Clyde," I said, "I don't think so.  You are in a very conservative part of York County and people around here don't waste money."  Boy was I wrong.  Opening day, people turned out in droves.

There are a lot of different versions of how the new speedway was named Bowling Green.  Every time a group would get together the game of naming the track came up.  Clyde's was the simple way; his last name was Bolen and he loved horse racing so Bowling Green it was.  Just like the town in Kentucky.  Another problem came up - what kind of cars to race, what type of engines - stock, modified or sportsman.  At the time, Lincoln, Lancaster and Oxford, under the Pen-Mar banner, were running the sportsman class.  After much discussion, Clyde decided we would run the strictly stock class and early model coupes and sedans.

To build and run a race track there are a lot of things to overcome.  One was car count.  Clyde worried about getting race cars.  He was always talking to guys and small gas stations about having a car.  Before the track was completed he had talked to a lot of people around the area and parts of Northern Maryland.  For opening day he promised a lot of cars.  On Grand Opening Day there were about 60 to 65 cars in the pit area.  During the peak years there were 150 cars signed up to race.  Of course, there were not that many cars every week.  Most nights we would run 4 heats with 20 to 25 cars, 2 consolations, and a feature with 35 cars.  We were not the fastest cars around but when you started back in the pack you sure had to do some slamming and banging to make it to the front.

Bowling Green, for its short life, turned out lots of drivers that went on to compete at speedways all around the area.  Johnny Mackison, Buddy Goodling, Bobby Hersh, Dizzy Dean, Bobby Wolfe, Mike Wilhelm, Dick Kinard, Calvin Calp, Dick Miller, Paul Miller, Frank Thompson, Bud Folkenroth, Bernie Adams, Bobby Abel, George Kessler, Gary Wolford and Scotty Smith just to name a few.  Quite an impressive list !!!