The Minuteman 400 sports-men-modified stock car race scheduled for Labor Day evening at Norwood Arena is developing into a challenge race between Norwood regulars and Metropolitan New York and New Jersey drivers.
The race, 400 laps covering 100 miles over the quarter-mile paved and high-banked Norwood oval, will be for a purse of $8,000. The winner will receive $2,000, the runnerup $1500 and the third-place finisher $1000,
Norwood stars like Ed Flemke of New Britain, Conn., Fats Caruso of Shrewsbury, Rene Charland of Holyoke, Ernie Gahan of Dover, N. H. and Gene Bergin of East Hartford, Conn., in recent weeks have raced with considerable success at Old Bridge, N. J. on Sunday nights after running at Norwood on Saturday nights.
They’ve run with such success, in fact, that the regular Old Bridge Stadium drivers have announced they’ll be competing in the Minuteman 400 in an effort to take away some prize money from the Norwood stars.
“The competition is becoming intense,” Norwood racing director Carl Merrill smiled.
Merrill pointed out the 10 NASCAR point leaders as of Aug. 27 will qualify automatically for the 100-miIe Grand National Championship. Other drivers will have to qualify through time trials in order to secure spots in the race.
Establishing himself as a chief threat in the 400-lap race is Ralph (Hop) Harrington of Pawtucket, R. I.
Harrington finally seems to have tuned up the new car owned by Mrs- Bertha Small of Seekonk. Hop won last week’s 30-lap Longy Bloomberg Memorial race, edging out Red Foote of Southington, Conn., and Fats Caruso of Shrewsbury.
(All articles originally appeared in the Norwood Messenger unless otherwise noted)