Enter Augie  the roofer!  Because of his trade, cold and rainy weather allowed  him to "take up residence" at Dunkin, morning, noon and night!  His appearance was a little rough and his voice was loud, but there wasn't anything malicious about him.  He just wanted to talk to someone, and we all hoped it wouldn't be one of us!  When we walked past the front window on our way in and saw him "on duty" we knew to get our coffee, take our seat and burry our head in our newspaper without making the slightest eye contact.  Some topics I recall him expounding upon ranged from picking wild mushroom to the World Wars.  It was evident he read a lot, loved books and knew something about everything!  Of course he wasn't addressing a Mensa meeting!!

One morning one of my buddies sitting next to me asked me a question about Vineland Speedway.  Augie's  Sonar picked up the "Vineland Speedway  beep" and he moved over to the closest stool and our discussion was on!  He asked, "Do you remember when they had Jerry Stevens from WIBG ( Philadelphia's hottest pop radio station) come down and drag race Harvey Miller from local station WWBZ?"  I told him I wasn't there but I had a flier they passed out promoting that show which also included some thrill show acts that night and a "hop"(dance) with an appearance of Danny and the Juniors, a top recording  group of that time.

From that discussion and subsequent ones, I learned Augie "hung around" the speedway and was frequently a "go-for" for Speedway promoter Bill Nocco.  I had heard years before that Bill Nocco had been a boxer and was involved in music somehow.  The boxing connection was apparent when Nocco selected Tony Caccaro as his promoting partner of the speedway.  Caccaro and his wife, from neighboring Millville, N.J., were involved with training fighters and boxing as promoters.  As it turned out, Augie, then in his early twenties, had some training and had fought in some lower level match-ups!

I learned from an interview with Nocco late in his life, that he played the piano and during the 50's and early 60's he had promoted a dance club in Atlantic City.  These clubs were very popular in a pre-casino time and could be very lucrative.   Augie as it turned out worked at the club as a door man at times.  However, a big shock came to me when he told me he had recorded a record.    Bill Nocco had paid to have Augie take vocal lessons and coaching and then financed the recording that appears in the photo. Under the Speedway Record label, Russ August sings "She's Funny That Way" and "There's No You"  By dropping the last letter o from his real name Russo, and reversing the order, he achieved the Russ August name, which he felt had a better "ring" to it.  I asked how did the record make out?  he said, "We were too late in bringing it out.  By that time "yellow polka dot bikini" was hot!"

One morning Augie came in and gave me the 45 record pictured.  He said he found it in the barn at home.  I thanked him an assured him it would go in the Vineland Speedway collection.  I said one thing though; you have to autograph it for me.  With a smile on his face he said what name should I sign?  I said, "Russ August", he's the recording artist!

As a follow up, I took the record and had it transferred to a cassette tape.  With the tape in place I took the recorder to Dunkin Donuts the next day and told the "gang" I had something for them to hear.   You could hear a pin drop when it was over.  They could not believe the beautiful voice and arrangement they heard, was Augie "the roofer".

When I saw the "Modified Call of Wall" recording being discussed on the message board a week or so ago, it brought this memory about.  It's sort of a "back door" relationship to racing, but…. 

Thanks for Listening.