Battle of Brandywine vs Liberty Bell!
Brandywine was a top tier 5/8 mile Harness track near Wilmington
Delaware that formed a racing circuit with Liberty Bell Track in nearby
Philadelphia. This arrangement worked for a while, till they turned on
each other and ran conflicting meets which eventually led to both of
their demises.
On September 7, 1953 Head Pin wins the first ever race contested at
Brandywine Raceway a Class C pace for a purse of $900 before 13,500
fans.
Today the site of Brandywine Raceway is a housing development named Brandywine Hunt. In the development is a street named Clubhouse Lane bordering the lane is what appears to be the outline of the racing surface at Brandywine.
When Brandywine Raceway first opened it was your traditional half mile oval, and drivers were still wearing those floppy soft hats, but in 1970 as part of a four million dollar makeover, the racing surface was expanded to five eights of a mile. When Brandywine ended it's run, it had a grandstand capacity of 12,000 with parking for 10,500 cars. Over the years many top drivers and horses raced over the Brandywine surface, Billy Haughton and Stanley Dancer were regulars and a young Herve Filion started out there.
I was lucky enough to make it to Brandywine, back in 1968. Having only been to a couple of small half mile tracks, walking into Brandywine was quite a shock. The first thing that caught my eye was the width of the turns, you would think you were going to see thoroughbreds run. The facility itself was huge for a harness track, at least to me, it was a weeknight and a large crowd was on hand, but it was the sixties and horse racing was still the only game in town. It's too bad that this classy track couldn't have lasted a few more years, till the racino era.