| Bill Murphy |
08-12-2010 10:05 AM |
In the process of googling around about this thread, I found that there are many websites and chat rooms around the country where old racers trade pictures, videos, and stories about the old days. One local forum is restricted to Virginia drag racing history. Oddly, although it discusses activities that went on just down the road from me, I hardly recognized any names. We Maryland racers didn't get out much since we had many strips here and in Delaware and only the big money guys who got appearance money spent any time in Virginia. I am surprised how many tracks are still operating. Our local 75-80 Dragaway reopened recently because the land development planned for the property went on the back burner because of the collapse of the real estate market. A group of history buffs on one of the chat rooms made a trip to the closed Aquasco Speedway in Charles County, MD and found that it is now a hunt club, whatever that means. I used to hunt quail around Aquasco in the sixties. It was a depressed area at the time where you could walk across twenty properties in a day and never cross a fence. No one could afford livestock and there was hardly any cultivated ground because there was very little modern planting or harvesting equipment. Tobacco was still cultivated, but in very small tracts. There were deer hanging in every outbuilding, in season and out. There was very little law in Charles and St. Marys Counties, slots were legal and other gambling was tolerated. We would never walk through the same field twice in a day of hunting, raised a covey in almost every field, and found it very hard to find singles that could be shot because of the heavy growth in the woods. This is even with great dogs and young legs. I had always hunted with a 12 gauge before, but switched to my VH 28 gauge after some experience with long days in thick brush in Charles County. My host for those hunts shot a 16 gauge Sterlingworth that had long ago been cut off to about 23 or 24 inches. He was the best quail shot I have ever seen before or since. He was only a couple of years older than I was but had probably shot thousands of quail. Only years later did he give up the setters and become a waterfowler. I remember one covey at which we both shot. His dog brought a bird to him and he claimed it. I protested that I had shot the bird in question. He was so used to success that he stuck to his guns. We sent the dog back out, with us following. We found a second dead bird within a couple of feet of where the pup picked up the first bird.
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