Each winter, gray-haired men from throughout Northeast Ohio with a mutual love of speed and the smell of exhaust fumes assemble to share a few beers and recount stories of their drag-racing days.
The Geezer Gathering, they call it.
It was at such an event after the 2014 death of Coventry’s Otis Smith that several old-timers found themselves discussing the need to make sure the world remembered “Otie,” a hero in their circle, though largely unknown to the general population.
As a matter of fact, they agreed, why not remind everyone of Akron’s significant contributions to drag racing. Like Art and Walt Arfons, whose record-breaking feats and brotherly rivalry once dominated the national race scene. Like hot rod legend Arlen Vanke. Like the fact that Akron Municipal Airport, now Akron Fulton International Airport, was the first sanctioned drag-race track east of the Mississippi.
Two years later, that conversation has led to the installation of a new Ohio Historical Marker off the Triplett Boulevard circle on the north side of the airport where Otie, Art, Walt and Arlen started burning rubber more than half a century ago.
The cast-aluminum plaque will be unveiled at 7 p.m. Sunday as part of a Father’s Day event that includes a free car show, music and food from 4 to 8 p.m.
Dedication ceremony
Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor is slated to speak at the dedication. Vanke, the only surviving honoree, is expected to fly in from his retirement home in New Mexico. Children of all four hot rodders are also expected to be in attendance, including Tim Arfons and Dusty Arfons-Spraggins (son and daughter of Art Arfons), Terry Arfons (son of Walt Arfons), Billy Smith (son of Otis Smith), and Craig Vanke (son of Arlen Vanke).
Car buff Randy Lipscomb, who spearheaded the effort, said he’s been told it is the first such marker to recognize any kind of motor sport in Ohio.
“This is the spot where these local heroes became drag-racing innovators back in the ’50s and ’60s,” he said, “and we believe that honoring these racing pioneers is long overdue.”
Tim Arfons said his dad is in four halls of fame, but the airport marker “would have meant more to him than all the others. He loved that airport.”
Art was an “unassuming” man, his son said, but his fame was unquestioned. In the 1960s at the height of his popularity, people around the world would address mail to “Art Arfons, USA” and it would find its way to his Springfield Township home.
Tim and his sister Dusty still own the Pickle Road building — a former feed mill and hardware store — where Art built his cars. A sign outside reads “Home of the Green Monster,” and “to this day, every couple of weeks, people will stop to get their picture taken with the sign,” he said.
More about honorees
Here’s more on the honorees:
• Art and Walt Arfons, half-brothers, taught themselves how to turn surplus jet engines into race cars and quickly propelled themselves to the top of their field at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats.
In 1964, a car called the Wingfoot Express, designed by Walt Arfons and driven by Tom Green, set the world land speed record of 413 miles per hour.
Three days later, Art’s Green Monster — his car’s nickname a nod to the John Deere tractor paint he used — took the title back with a speed of 434 miles per hour.
In 1965, during a period one reporter called “The Bonneville Jet Wars” because so many drivers were competing for the title, Art set another world land-speed record of 576.553 miles per hour.
Art died in 2007 and was buried with wrenches in his hands and a jar of salt from Bonneville. Walt died in 2013.
• Otis “Otie” Smith raced throughout the country, competing in about 100 National Hot Rod Association events in his 13-year career. In a 2008 interview with the Beacon Journal, he said he set a national record — 147 miles per hour for a standing start for a quarter-mile — in a 1959 Detroit title race.
He also began running regional NHRA races at the airport before the nationals were even established. Lipscomb said Smith and airport director Shorty Fulton saw a fundraising opportunity in letting the small road along Derby Downs to be used for local racing. Later, they opened a runway for sanctioned hot rod meets.
• “Akron” Arlen Vanke won several races in Stock, Super Stock and Pro Stock classes over the course of his career, and was hired by Chrysler while still racing to help test their performance technology. In 1971, he became a member of the United States Racing Team, an organization consisting of the top names in Pro Stock racing that exhibited across the country.
Lipscomb — who owns and shows a collection of old cars with his wife, Nancy — said it wasn’t easy getting recognition for the drag-racing legends, but he was determined.
He said he first tried to get the city to post a sign along an airport road, but was told it would take an “act of God” and he might have better luck with a historical society.
A “lot of hoops” and $3,000 later, the Ohio Historical Society’s board agreed he’d identified a worthy historical site.
The plaque will be placed in a garden area where two other historical markers exist: One honoring Karl Arnstein as a pioneer of lighter-than-air technology and another recognizing the Akron Airdock as a “colossus of engineering.”
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.