Alley Racing
 Reading, PA
All photo below provided by Jan Garl






















 Click Below For "2012 Alley Racing"Rules
Rules for 2012 "Alley Racing" at the Reading Fairgrounds Mall
Feb 19th - 25th
 For questions regarding the 2012 "Alley Races" to be held at the Reading Fairgrounds Mall - Feb 19th - 25th, email all questions to Mike Feltenberger at:
 STARTERONE@aol.com
 For Alley Racing supplies, give Ott's Hobby Shop a call at 610-373-8735.
Hours:  Thursday, Friday and Sat. from 10 AM til 2 PM. 

 Phone ahead for model inventory at
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Comment:
01.29.12 Mike Feltenberger This was one helluva way to keep kids from 10 to 18 from roaming the streets and getting in trouble.  There were some rivalries that took place every weekend, but once the checkered was thrown, we headed to the corner store grabbed a Mt. Dew and all was forgotten.  My first alley racer was a Phil Gemenden #404, loved that car.
01.29.12 Jack Kromer Looks pretty cool. As kids we raced everything, but I never heard of alley racing. We didn't live that far from Reading, so I guess it stayed heavily local to the that area.
01.30.12 Red Schaeffer Wow, what memories. We raced behind my Grams on Green Street. Problem with that alley was that if the cars/wheels got by the "catchers" they ended up in the sewer drain. We used to go to "Otts" on 10th street for our modeling needs. I lived in Temple, Pa and we raced almost everyday of the summer on an 8 lane ramp with a single handle starter rod that my Dad built out of a 4x8 sheet of plywood. We even ran our version of the "Daniel Boone 200". Took quite a while to run 200 laps down that ramp.

Red Kirsch was my neighbor and Reading track photographer, He came down and took pictures of the race. What great times.

Thanks for the memories... Red Schaeffer PS. I still have my last racing model I built. Weikert Livestock with Kenny Weld. Built it when I was about 12 and I am now 53.
01.30.12 KIRK L. RISSMILLER We used to run on the alley's on the 700 & 800 blocks of Locust street.  Always had 10 to 15 kids w/ cars. Spent many hours chasing them down the alley. Brings back great memories. Good luck with this Mike.
02.02.12 Terry Fick Can't believe it. I did this back in the mid-60s. Wednesday afternoons at a neighbors house we raced Fairgrounds look-a-likes and NASCAR style stock cars (from Wild World of Sports). We could see the Fairgrounds from his house. The neighbor's dad was an HVAC mechanic so he got us big cardboard starting ramps, we ran for distance since the drive was flat. I was jalopy (modified look-a-like) champion two years running. Naturally I was the best financed due to my paper route and like now, money bought speed. When slot cars became the rage I moved on to them, the other guys all quit.

It was sure different back then. I could deliver papers at 5 Sunday mornings and was safe. During the summer days we played ball, went to the pool, and raced these cars, wagons, bicycles. Friday nights two friends and I walked the Reading RR tracks to the Bellevue Ave crossing and then to the front gate. We always got there early (about 6) to get our regular seats and watch the cars come in. After going through the pits after the show, we walked home the way we came. Imagine allowing your kid to do that today. Now, adults deliver the paper and kids sit inside playing video games all day.

Bob Wertz was one of my paper customers. Many times I hung on the 57 as it sat parked on the trailer in front of his house before the Friday shows as I delivered my papers. I studied the engine (fuel injection fascinated me) and wondered what it would be like to drive. Bill Williams (Bill Brown) was the driver. A kid named Brightbill drove the car a few years later. His niece was a classmate of mine at Muhlenberg High.

Were those the good old days? I don't know. We were killing a few hundred each week in a futile effort in SE Asia, they were hosing down demonstrators in Birmingham, and rioting in big cities. One thing is for sure, racing was a lot more fun then and life did seem to be simpler.
09.08.12 Mike Medley

These picture are unbelievable.  Instantly taking me back to a simpler time.  We raced a couple times a week in the northwest part of Reading, between Mcnight and Wiser. 

I was very young and watched my brother and his friends race and new one day I would have my own car..  All the older kids had modifieds and then you had a few that came with sprints.  Every Saturday around 10 or 11 I would go and watch.  Looking down the block to see who would be coming.  You would always know who would be racing even from a distance because they where always carrying a fishing type tackle box.

After years of watching, some of the younger kids myself included built cars.  They we more like street stock cars,, mostly made up of scrap parts from are older brothers and friends ..There was some summer days there would be 20 to 30 kids & men racing..  It was really big in the  early to mid 80s...thanks for sharing the photos..
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

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