Trickle’s first car had a rake wheel welded in it for a roll bar and a grader blade on the driver’s side for his own protection. Since tat time, his cars have gotten progressively quicker, enabling him to win a record sixty-seven races in one season.By: Father Dale Grubba
“From the beginning of time we have been able to run with the best of them. It is like Koekuk, IA, with Ernie Derr, Ramo Stott, and Don White,” Jere O’Day says as he pulls his right leg up on the back ar at his pub and reflects on three generations of Wisconsin Rapids area racers and the legacy they helped fashion.

Gray-bearded Don Ruder agrees, “In those days, we had some skilled drivers. Rapids drivers made some good showing wherever they went, and it is still the same. The racing people around here are good, fierce competitors.”

For men like O’Day, the Second World War had just ended, but it didn’t take long for another cause to surface, a passion that would last twenty-eight years. It was the era of dirt tracks, hundred dollar cars, and a case of beer for a rollover. “I wasn’t trying to prove anything. The pay wasn’t great. I just loved doing it.” Then O’Day tries to explain what can’t be explained, “It is like a sickness. I once saw a pregnant wife with a little boy in tow walk up to her husband and give him an ultimatum. The guy had just smashed his car twice, and he wasn’t going to make it no matter what, but he till told her he would give her up before the car. Barnstorming. You have to be a good gypsy to do it. Race. Drive all night. Race the next day.”

Many of the area drivers got their start at Crown’s Speedway, a high-banked quarter-mile just out of Wisconsin Rapids on Highway 54. It was there that Red Nichols, Jerry Dredl, Don Ruder, Augie Winkleman, and fifty or sixty others tested each others’ skills on a regular basis.

Of all those drivers, Augie Winkleman stands out. “Augie didn’t know what he was going to do from one lap to the next, so how was anyone else supposed to know?” asks O’Day. “At Wausau he pushed his own son over the back bank. If he would do that to his own son, you can imagine what his thoughts were about the rest of us. He wiped me out once, and I waited three years to get even. I looked in the rearview mirror and here comes Augie. I just decided, ‘Augie, today is your day.’ ” Even Dick Trickle who raced against Augie in the twilight of his career, has vivid memories. “He was crazy, just furious. He drove like he was in a rage, banging, and bumping everyone. It was as if everytime he buckled his helmet, he was already going 100 mph plus.”
To read more about The First Gypsies in Dream Chasing in Central Wisconsin by Father Dale Grubba visit his website at http://www.dwgracepix.com/