The Vault
BUCKY WAGNER – THE “MAYOR” OF TWO RIVERS
Posted on: Friday January 7, 2022
Bucky Wagner poses with one of his trophies and clippings from his racing career at his home in Two Rivers.
THE MAYOR OF TWO RIVERS
(A chapter pulled from the 2015 release “Life In The Past Lane – a history of stock car racing in northeastern Wisconsin from 1950-1980.”)
Two Rivers’ Bucky Wagner is one of just a few Lakeshore area drivers still around who’ve raced at a handful of Manitowoc-area race tracks that most Wisconsinites never heard of.
Back in the 1950’s it was not uncommon for a farmer to carve out a ¼ mile clay oval on some land, host races for a year and then close the track up. One of those tracks was Simmet’s Speedway on the South side of Manitowoc.
“The track was located at county road LS and Silver Cliff Road,” said Wagner, who started racing at the track in 1951. “The track had a beer bar there, too. I remember that. The owner was George Simmet. The track was more like a 1/5 mile or a real small ¼ mile. The pay wasn’t too good there. I remember that.”
Back then winning a feature paid $2.50. As was the case with most race tracks in the 50’s and 60’s in Wisconsin, if a driver rolled his coupe over he’d receive a case of beer for his showmanship. “Heck, back then a case of beer cost $2.50 so depending on where you finished that day, sometimes you’d be better off with the rollover,” joked Wagner.
The track surface was rough. The barriers around the oval were even tougher. “The retaining wall consisted of railroad ties that were erected upright all the way around the track,” explained Wagner. “It was pretty primitive back then.”
Wagner developed a rivalry with fellow Two Rivers driver Benny Pritzl. Pritzl was known to spend a fair amount of money on his race cars back in the day. “I drove for Porky Holschuh and the car I had was a ’37 Ford coach at the time,” recalled Wagner, who estimates the track remained open for four years. “They’d get close to 30 cars some days and almost everybody was local that ran there.” The beer bar that was located near the property burned down several years after the track closed its doors in 1954. Now all that remains on the land are trees which have overgrown the property.
Wagner recalls a track that operated for one season in Mishicot. “The track was located just off of the bridge in town,” recalled Wagner. “I never raced there but watched a couple of times.” The track, which was open only one season, had a stream that ran across the frontstretch. “The other thing I remember is some of the cars that were running there tried running with those old wooden spoke wheels which on that dirt track didn’t work real well,” said Wagner. “That place didn’t last long at all. It was a one and done.”
Wagner spent two years in the early 50’s living and working in Wagner, South Dakota. Wagner was working on the Missouri River Dam project. While out there, he drove a race car for two brothers who built him a coupe. When he returned to Wisconsin in the mid 1950s he picked up where he left off racing. This time he ventured south to a new track called Sheboygan Speedway. “This wasn’t Plymouth it was a different track located off of old highway 141 at the time,” recalled Wagner. “I remember it had these huge bulk tanks for gas suppliers on the property. It was a small ¼ mile track back then.” The Sheboygan oval was where Bucky scored his first feature win – a 50 lapper. He earned his first ever trophy in that contest.
Bucky and his car owner and sidekick Porky traveled towards Appleton to race at Apple Creek. Their experience there wasn’t the best. “The track was down in a bowl and they’d run daytime races and man did it ever get dusty,” explained Wagner. “That’s what I remember about Apple Creek it was very hot and dusty. In fact it was so bad there me and Porky went to a drugstore before the races and got a can of ether. I accidentally gassed myself. It was pretty bad.”
Soon afterwards track owners would pave a new oval track across the street. In addition to Apple Creek, Bucky and Porky would travel to the Brown County Fairgrounds in De Pere where Bucky would wheel a 37 Coach on the paved ¼ mile track. Holschuh drove his own car for awhile as well, until he got barred from local tracks one season. “He was ten thousandths over on his motor of something so they barred him and I raced his car,” said Wagner. “After I won most of the races wherever we went I’m pretty sure they wished they’d have let Porky still run it.”
Wagner would also race for Bob Wester on occasion and Bucky’s wife Edna would win an occasional powder puff race for the ladies.
Who would have ever thought driving coupes on a dirt road course in the 50’s? It happened – at race track at Hartlap Lake near Manitowoc on the south side of town off of highway 42. “There was a dirt road course they built and they had a race I won,” said Wagner. “That track too, only lasted one year. I remember a guy had a ’38 4 door Chevrolet. We took the shocks off of my race car and I drove his car on that road course race. It was something different at the time but the stands were full. Everybody came out to see it.”
In the 1950’s point standings were not kept at any of the Lakeshore area race tracks. Thus, no track champions were ever crowned. Track champions were not crowned until the 1960’s. Wagner got to rub fenders with the big boys in 1957 when he raced a Jerry Sheriff owned car at the Milwaukee Mile. “I remember Don MacDonald, the old Shawano flagman, had his fingers in that car too somehow,” said Wagner. “The car was a ’57 Chrysler 300. I hit the wall when the right front tire blew out going into turn number one.” With 25,000 people in attendance it was the largest crowd Wagner would ever race in front of in his career.
The first time Wagner ran on a track bigger than a ¼ mile was at the old Manitowoc County Fairgrounds. “It was the old half-mile horse track and they’d race once a year,” said Wagner. “They’d bring in midgets and race them during the fair, too. I remember that race Pete Schlies had a hot rod. Billy Fitzgerald had a hot rod with a model B engine in it. I put an old body on it and ran it during that fair race.” Nowadays a roller skating rink and aquatic center are located where the former fairgrounds were.
Bucky took a liking the half miles, and competed at De Pere when they had an IMCA special on the half mile horse track in the late 50’s. “A guy bought himself a 56 Chevrolet and he crashed it in town,” Wagner recalled. “I bought it junked out. I made that into a stock car. I raced with it was that IMCA race at De Pere on the half mile. There were two hot dogs who came down from Minneapolis. One of ‘em had an Oldsmobile. I was leading with that car and it had an automatic transmission . He took me out and his buddy won. I got second. The crowd was wild. I thought there was going to be a lynching back then. The crowd was cheering for me to win.”
In 1959 the buzz on the Lakeshore racing scene was the brand spanking new, paved ¼ mile track in Francis Creek called 141 Speedway. Built by Dick Grall, it was the first area track to be blacktopped right off the bat. “In ’59 I drove a 33 Plymouth Coupe for a guy named Steve Van Oudenhoven out of the Neenah-Menasha area,” said Wagner, who sported the number 40 on the coupe. “It was a nice track and it drew guys from a wider area when it opened up.”
Wagner’s last year racing on a full time basis was in 1965. “I was running a service station in Francis Creek at the time and it was a deal where I just had to take care of business at home first,” said Wagner. Wagner did come out of retirement to race a Dodge for a one time deal for Sheriff again when WIR was paved in 1968.
A story. Decades later – in 1998, Wagner was looking to restore an old race car. Just any old race car. Wagner placed an ad in the paper looking for a car. “I got a call from Larry Magray up towards Lena,” said Wagner. “He said he had an old coupe that he’d be willing to sell me. So Edna and I hopped in the car and took a ride up north to take a look at it.”
Wagner could not believe his eyes when he caught a glimpse of this old, rusted out coupe. “It was actually my old race car,” said Wagner. “The car had changed hands over the year and Magray got it. I was thrilled and what a coincidence it was.” The car, which Magray acquired from someone in Clintonville, had the car sitting in a shed for 14 years.
Wagner gave him $1,000 and towed it back home. The VANS logo that was welded on the front grill was a dead giveaway.
Wagner restored it to its original paint scheme. He sold it to former racer Greg Hermann in 2015. “The car will be shown more and get more exposure this way,” explained Wagner.
Now retired and 83 years old, Wagner resides in Two Rivers with Edna. “The only regret I had with that 56 Chevy I didn’t have the knowledge or money to be competitive,” said Wagner. “I couldn’t find a sponsor for the life of me.”
(This book is available for purchase on this website. simply click on the tab “books” in the upper left corner).