The Vault
JIM ZIMA – OLD SCHOOL BEAT WRITER FOR THE DE PERE RACES
Posted on: Wednesday September 14, 2022
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The following is an excerpt from the 2015 release “Life In The Past Lane.” Jim Zima covered the weekly racing at the long defunct Brown County Fairgrounds in De Pere, Wisconsin throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s.
The earliest records of stock car racing at the Brown County Fairgrounds in De Pere, just a minute or two away from Green Bay, date back to 1949. According the reports in the Green Bay Press Gazette midget races were held during the Brown County Fair. On the fairgrounds was a paved third-mile with a half-mile dirt oval which was primarily used for horse racing, as was the case at most county fairgrounds scattered around the Midwest.
Among those who had a true birdseye view to the racing scene in the 1960’s and early 1970’s at De Pere was Green Bay Press Gazette sportswriter Jim Zima. Zima was a regular sportswriter for the paper who also “moonlighted” for track promoters John Marquis and Jack Peters during the respective tenures promoting the shows at the fairgrounds. In addition to filing the official race reports for the next day’s daily edition of the paper, Zima sold ads and wrote the material for the weekly souvenir program that was hawked on race day. “I even remember the day I started working for John (Marquis),” recalled Zima, who as this book went to print was still a part time writer of the weekly bowling column for the PG. “It was July 4, 1962. There was a big special that night. I kept myself real busy because at that time the Press only had three full time sports people. I had been attending races at De Pere since I was kid, so it was only natural for them to assign me that beat.”
Before today’s high-tech era of iphones and instantly being able to send information to the world out at ones fingertips, hammering out a racing story could often be a laborious chore. “Back then you did everything on a typewriter,” recalled Zima. “The races were on Saturday nights for a while. Then there was no real tight deadline because there wasn’t a Sunday paper early on. Then, when the races were run on Friday nights, getting the story in was no trouble because Saturdays paper was an afternoon paper. There weren’t true deadlines like they have now.”
John Marquis’ business partner in the early going was Herb Van Dreel. Both were in the used car business locally. “John was a pretty good guy to work for,” said Zima. “Herb owned an auto repair shop across the street. Both of their kids raced. Tom Van Dreel was Herb’s kid while Bobby Marquis was John’s son. Marquis was into the midget racing early on but the coupes were pretty much the thing in the 1950’s and into the ‘60’s too.” Marquis managed all of the on-track affairs while Van Dreel tended to the concession end of things.
The cars were relatively cheap to build back then. Racing was, like it is today, pretty much a family affair. While the husbands and their crews worked on the cars on the pit area, the drivers wives would fill the stands, many of them nervously chain-smoking with scarves covering their heads, cheering on their men.
The 50’s and 60’s saw many top drivers hone their craft on the paved 1/3 mile. Drivers like Green Bay’s Earl Ness, Jerry Muenster, Jack Peters himself was a top driver before he began promoting. “I remember the Zellner brothers and the DeGroot brothers all raced back then too in the coupe days,” said Zima. “Tiny VanderMause, Dick Jerovetz, the Krouses. Red Maurer. It was a lot of fun.”
“Back then you’d see 2,000 at De Pere on an average which was about half a grandstand and sometimes you’d get more,” said Zima. “For the bigger shows you’d fill the place. There weren’t as many things for people to do back then. It was a real big deal.”
During the coupe era, men were men. The cars were tough, as were the drivers. No quarter was asked, and none given. “There were a lot of wrecks then, and rollovers too,” said Zima.
Some of the biggest drawing shows in the late 60s and early 70s were the USAC stock cars. At the time, USAC was almost equal the Nationwide Series today, with many of their drivers racing for a living. “Johnny (Marquis) would bring that series in a few times and it was huge – the stands were packed,” recalled Zima. “AJ Foyt even raced here once. There were a bunch of guys from Iowa who came up like Ramo Stott and Sal Tovella. They had Norm Nelson and Roger McCluskey. Those were pretty big deals, especially for local guys like JJ Smith, Roger Regeth and John Schultz who’d race with basically the traveling pros.”
A story. During one of the USAC shows it poured at the racetrack. “There was no way they could have raced, there was that much rain,” said Zima. “Johnny (Marquis) had an insurance policy and it stated you had to have at least .10 of an inch of rain for the show to be canceled. But at the Austin Straubel Airport, where the “official” rain totals were taken, it barely rained. So, the insurance wouldn’t pay John and I remember he lost a bundle on that one.”
By the late 1960’s the coupe racing began dying a slow death. “I think it was harder and harder for the guys to find the coupes in the junkyard and the parts to go with them,” recalled Zima. “So that’s when the transformation to the late model scene came on with the full-sized race cars. We saw guys like Roger Regeth, Roger Paul, JJ Smith and Jerry Smith. It sort of revitalized racing at De Pere, because it car counts and crowds were really dying off.”
For a short time, coupe races were held on the paved, inner third-mile while the high-horsepower, full-fledged late models roared around the big half-mile. “That really spiced up racing at that time,“ said Zima. Eventually any racing on the third-mile was abandoned as the late model racing took off with full fields eventually by the early 1970’s. It didn’t take long for fans to either “like” or “dislike” certain drivers. “Without question I’d have to say Roger Regeth was definitely the villain,” said Zima. “He had a rougher driving style. If you really got to know him he’s actually a pretty good guy. He just didn’t always come across that way is all. The fans seemed to like JJ and Jerry Smith. Roger Paul was the “Flyin’ Farmer and they really seemed to like him too.”
While the cars were built sturdy, still there were some bad crashes. “I remember when Roger Rosek crashed and the car actually fell down on him and he lost his leg,” said Zima. “That was in the early 70’s. That was probably the worst wreck I remember on the half mile.” While the coupes seldom hit 50 mph on the third-mile the speeds nearly doubled that on the bigger half-mile.
Zima had a front row seat to the good, the bad and the ugly during the racing at De Pere. “It did always seem that no matter who was promoting that place whether it was John Marquis, Jack Peters, Red BeDell or Paul Kaczrowski, there was always some sort of bickering with the county officials and the promoters. I don’t think many of those decision makers always wanted the races there in all honesty.”
The promoters all had their individual quirks. Jack Peters was real decent, as was (John) Marquis,” said Zima. “John would sometimes be a tougher bird on me. He’d give me some heat once in a while but overall not too bad. In the early days especially they were adamant about getting those racing results in the paper. “
Zima also worked for Jack Peters after Peters promoted the racing program at the Kewaunee County Fairgrounds in Luxemburg in the late 1970’s. “Red (BeDell) was a true promoter,” said Zima. “For whatever reason it just didn’t work out for him. But he really tried.”
The eventual closing of the races at De Pere in 1979 was mainly driven by noise complaints. “People in Allouez and across the Fox River could hear those loud cars especially if the wind was blowing in the right direction,” recalled Zima. “Late models were a lot noisier than the old coupes. In De Pere it was a biggest factor, and it always seemed to be.”