FLEMINGTON My twin and I would walk down the railroad tracks that are now Foran Boulevard to the back fence. We would scope out who was on duty and do some recon before we picked the spot to hop the fence. We were teenagers with no money and it became a game to get in without getting caught. Our neighbor worked the gate and we knew, given that we were twins, that it was easy to determine if we paid to come through the gate. We were caught only once; the guards celebrated. The sergeant brought us to the fourth turn gate and asked us to pay. We had a few dollars between the two of us and they took what we had and told us to go in. In the following weeks, we continued having success with the game and never got caught again. At times, when we passed a security guard during the night, they would nod and look at us like 'we will get you next week'. We did this for a number of weeks for one season in the early 80s. After that season we both got a job at the All-American Hero (now Dunkin Donuts on Route 31) and we had money to pay. We paid from that point forward.
When we became squad members, we became friends with the security guards at the track. I remember having a conversation with one the guards that lived off of Route 604 in Ringoes (don't recall his name), about our antics. He disclosed that we were their weekly benchmark test to see if the changes in their patrol strategy and fence repairs were solving the problem they had with people jumping the back fence. He shared that it was part of why they didn't hassle us about what we were doing.
NAZARETH I know that we (the twins) went in once in the trunk of a car in the very early 70s We also snuck through the fence in turn 4 to go into the pits one night in 1977. We found a hole in the fence, and during intermission snuck down the hill, across the track, and slunk into the pits. Our father was supremely unhappy to see us and commanded us to sit in the back of the truck and not get down. We were 11 years old and in the pits at NAZARETH - friggin' cool. That night, Joey went into the hole off turn 2 and had a railroad tie stick through the side of the frame. The car was skewered through the side and stood up like a pole vault. The roof was facing us when the car was at its highest point. The track crew struggled to dislodge the tie from the frame and towed him in. The car was drivable but my father wouldn't let him drive it because the safety bars in the side of the frame were compromised. All the commotion got us off the hook for what we did and we were simply told not to do it again.
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