Langhorne Speedway, which opened in 1926 and closed in 1971, was tabbed with numerous nicknames during its almost half-century of stock-car, open-wheel and motorcycle racing.

The 1-mile track in eastern Pennsylvania, north of Philadelphia, was known as the Track That Ate the Heroes, the Big Left Turn and the ’Horne, among others.

It might as well have been called the Killing Field.

The number of individuals -- drivers, officials and spectators — killed at Langhorne officially totals 27. Many others suffered grievous injuries and burns. The track was very fast. It was very rough (in its dirt-track days). And it was very unforgiving.

Mario Andretti remembers.

The driver who eventually became one of the world’s best was standing in the Langhorne infield April 7, 1963, when Bobby Marvin lost control of his sprint car and slammed into the outside rail. The car rolled side over side into traffic and was T-boned as it burst into flames.

Marvin never had a chance.

“When he flipped, the car landed on its wheels, but it was on fire and he burned to death,” Andretti said. “I watched poor Bobby burn to death.”

Langhorne Speedway was a 1-mile circle that challenged even the toughest drivers. Getty Images

Marvin was one of 18 drivers to die at Langhorne. Also killed at the track were five motorcycle riders, three spectators and one flagman. Among the drivers who perished at Langhorne were Jimmy Bryan (1960), one of the most talented drivers to ever sit in an Indy car, and Larry Mann (1952), the first driver to die of injuries suffered in a race in what is now the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. Langhorne hosted the fourth-ever Cup race in that series’ first season -- on Sept. 11, 1949. Curtis Turner won. Race car drivers are by definition a brave bunch, but Langhorne scared some of the best and ran off some of the uncertain. It was a wild frontier, with blood on the ground. “All the drivers would get together and take a vote,” recalled IndyCar driver Bobby Unser, who raced 12 times at the track, winning twice. “Who wants to go to Langhorne? Nobody raised their hand. “That was the most dangerous track on Earth. I can’t imagine another track being that dangerous. A lot of guys who ran it got killed. That’s because it was totally round with no banking. As much power as we had, you’d run that thing full blast all the way around. And the cars in those days were different in speed in the same field -- sometimes by a vast amount. It was deadly.” Unser won the final two IndyCar races at the track -- in 1969 and 1970. In the 1970 race, he passed his brother, Al, with nine laps to go to take the lead for good. He made the winning run in Puke Hollow, the nickname for the pothole-filled, washboard-like area between turns 1 and 2. Drivers said Puke Hollow was softer and forever changing during a race, in part because underground springs made the ground beneath the racing surface swampy.

The track became famous for it's many ruts and uneven terrain. Phil Harms Collection

“If you could get in there at full speed and make it through, you’ve just created an act of God,” Unser said. “Al gave his car a little breather there, and I kind of closed my eyes and got around him and won the race. That might have been the hardest pass I ever did in all of racing.” Did the ’Horne scare Unser? “I wasn’t smart enough to be scared,” he said. “No track could scare me. I wanted to be a race driver.” Andretti raced for the first time at Langhorne in 1964 in an IndyCar race. He remembers the restless night before. “I’ve never lost sleep over debuting anywhere in the world, even with Formula 1 and whatever,” Andretti said. “The night before Langhorne, I was actually really concerned. I had seen so much happen there. Had seen a couple guys not coming home from there. I worried about that. “That’s Langhorne. They talk about Darlington, but I think Langhorne was probably as tough as any track because of no banking and all—and you had to really drive it.” Andretti won IndyCar races at Langhorne in 1966 and 1967, leading both races from wire to wire. Puke Hollow remains vivid in the minds of those who rode its ruts. “Going through there, you were gritting your teeth,” Andretti said. “That’s where a lot of guys bought it. Those ruts would send you up in the air, and the speed was so high.”

After several deaths and countless wrecks in that part of the track in the late 1950s, officials called in Indianapolis Motor Speedway superintendent Clarence Cagle, who was known far and wide for being able to solve surface and design problems at speedways. “Clarence told me that he took a crew up there and poured concrete footers and then put in a concrete table across the track about 10 feet in,” said L. Spencer Riggs, author of “Langhorne! No Man’s Land,” an extensive history of the speedway. “Then they covered it back up with dirt. They let it settle in over the winter. “The next June, they ran a Champ Car race. He said they expected to get a good report. But there was a lot of trouble. Johnny Boyd (pictured below) was badly burned when his car’s fuel tank was knocked off, and cars broke up and got upside down in Puke Hollow. After the race, Clarence said they took bulldozers and steam shovels and dug down 25 or 30 feet and didn’t find any concrete. That property had swallowed the concrete. The swamp had devoured it.” Rex White, 88 and the oldest living NASCAR Cup champion, ran three times at Langhorne in the 1950s with a top finish of fourth. “They built that racetrack upside down,” White said. “The holes were up and the smooth side was down. Because the track was round, you couldn’t see very far ahead of you. If you suddenly ran up on cars, it was hard to dodge them. You were running pretty fast, so if you hit, there was a lot of impact.”

Johnny Boyd had a bad day at the office in a champ car at Langhorne Speedway when his car's fuel tank was knocked off during a race there in 1958.

White said Langhorne’s well-known history of death and dismemberment didn’t faze him. “It was another racetrack, another day at work,” he said. “If you’re afraid of racing, you best get out of it.” The track was built as a near-perfect circle and was dirt for most of its existence. It was paved in 1965, and in the process, a straightaway of sorts was created on the track’s back side, turning the track into a D shape. “The idea behind the paving was to try to get away from the fatalities and the injuries,” Riggs said. “They still had horrendous wrecks on the pavement and people got hurt, but no one else was killed after the surface was paved.” Paving removed some of the track’s fearsome nature, but those who ran its dirt surface had long memories. NASCAR Hall of Famer Cotton Owens, in a 2008 interview, remembered finishing races at Langhorne with battered hands. “It would get awful rough,” he said. “The blood would start running out of my hands with about 10 laps to go. The track just came apart. It was like jumping a fresh-plowed field.” South Carolina driver Johnny Allen, now 82, ran in three NASCAR Cup events at Langhorne Speedway in the mid-1950s with a best finish of third place in 1957. He was five laps behind race winner Gwyn Staley.

"The track was sort of like Darlington,” Allen said. “You wanted to go there and run good because it was so tough. You had to be really, really on your toes to be competitive. It was a challenge, but if you’re a racer, you want a challenge.

“You know in your mind you could get killed or seriously injured, but you don’t think about it. It was another track to conquer. You wanted to be on the list of guys who had done it.”

Allen said the track had many ruts “and you could get hooked in there and get upside down or fly out of the track. But once you got into a rhythm, it was excellent. You couldn’t go fast enough. You wanted more power.”

The track now is a faded memory. Commercial development eventually made the property too valuable to be used for motorsports, and there were complaints about noise from newly built residential neighborhoods. The speedway was razed.

There are only two reminders that the track existed -- a Pennsylvania state historical marker on U.S. Route 1 and the nearby Langhorne Speedway Diner. And, of course, the graphic memories of those who raced there -- and came out the other side.

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