Similar employment situation for me Dave, only it ended up working out... I had a retail job at Bambergers/Macys in East Brunswick NJ ('78 - '79) that was tied in with a course (job was mandatory) that I was taking at school, and there were only two shifts available for part timers that had to work the evenings during the week..... Either you worked M, W, & F 6pm to store closing (10pm), plus Saturday store opening to 6pm. or T & Thurs 6pm to to store closing, and Saturdays 3pm to store closing (10pm). Doing the math... you can see that neither shift above would allow for a full night at Flemington....  I have no idea how I talked my way into it, but I was the only part time employee in a store that probably had well over 100 - employees, that had a "custom shift" which was M, W, & F 6pm to store closing, and Saturday store opening to 6pm store opening to 3pm! That left me just enough time to go home, change, pick up my date (if I had one for that night! ), and head up over Neshanic to get to Flemington before the Rookie Feature took the green! A few more things I remember about Flemington, especially in the early/mid 70's when I was still a teenager: - Staring up at the top 10 in points boards (wooden) that were posted up high, behind the stands, across from the concession area.
- Checking out Ace Lane's photo booth to see if he had any new pictures of the #292
- Walking the skinny road between turn 4 to turn 3, just outside the fence, and hoping that the cars would stay on their side....
- Running back up to my seat in time to catch the next heat race before it went green... Something about the Flemington pea gravel/stone that made you feel like you were able to run faster than you ever had before.
- Scavenging for discarded parts of racecars when the races were over that the wrecker crew had tossed over the wooden fence when cleaning up an accident from hours earlier...
Good memories....
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3-Wide 5/17/2024 11:00:38 AM