TracksideTopics.com

Welcome to Trackside Topics. Dick Lee, the person behind this website has committed most of his life to uncover the past history of auto racing in the state of Michigan. He attended his first auto race in 1950, at the age of fourteen, when the new Grand Rapids Speedrome was built. The following year, 1951, he began attending races at Berlin Raceway, which opened that year.  Lee drove a 1934 Ford coupe stock car beginning in 1957 on both Berlin’s fifth-mile and half-mile dirt tracks. He also raced at the Grand Rapids Speedrome, the Ionia Fairgrounds, and Capital City Speedway in Lansing, Michigan.

When the 1980’s approached, Lee began realizing that newer racing fans did not have the slightest notion of the history of auto racing. He teamed up with Allen E. Brown as they began publishing, The Michigan Auto Racing Yearbook.

At the same time, Lee founded the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame. For the next eight years, he was the president and then the executive director of the project. He wrote and published the book, The Legends of Auto Racing, covering the history of auto racing in Michigan. Lee is now the executive director emeritus of the project and has been inducted into the Michigan Motor Sports Hall of Fame.

Along the way, Lee also painted dozens of oil paintings of race cars, including three large paintings of actual race cars participating on Berlin Raceway’s dirt fifth-mile, the dirt half-mile tracks, and the paved .438 mile paved track. They are currently hanging in the Depot Restaurant in Marne, Michigan.

In the early 1980’s, Lee founded a weekly auto racing newspaper, covering auto racing, of thirty-six pages, called Track Facts. In addition to covering the then current auto racing news, he also included many historical articles that he wrote along with historical racing photos.

For twenty years Lee published the Berlin Raceway track program for Chet Mysliwiec. In addition, he currently writes columns covering historic racing for Vintage Oval Racing Magazine, Midwest Racing News, the Grand Rapids Press, the Advance Newspaper, Open Wheel Magazine, and various local newspapers around the state.

He is the official Historian for Berlin Raceway and was inducted into the Berlin Raceway Hall of Fame in 2009.

Lee is also a former board member with the Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club and has been the recipient of several plaques from the Fan Club for accomplishments in the sport of auto racing. Currently he is working on a couple of books, one covering the history of Berlin Raceway and another covering the history of auto racing in the state of Michigan.

So tighten your seat belts, get up on the wheel, and go for a ride through the history of Michigan auto racing. The ride may be bumpy at times, so hold on tight.