Services for Earl Baltes
The family will receive friends from 2-8 p.m. on Friday, March 27, at the Oliver-Floyd Funeral Home, 1000 N. Broadway St., in Greenville, Ohio.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, March 28, at St. Bernard Catholic Church in Burkettsville, Ohio. Father Tom Hemm will lead the celebration. Baltes, who was a United States Army Solider during World War II, will be buried with full military honors in the St. Bernard Catholic Church Cemetery following Mass.
In lieu of flowers, the Baltes family requests that memorial contributions be given to the American Heart Association.
Earl Baltes, who turned a Darke County cornfield into one of the greatest dirt tracks in the country, died Monday. He was 93.
Baltes opened Eldora Speedway in 1954 and sold the famous half-mile, high-banked dirt oval to three-time NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart following the 2004 racing season.
Known as much for his demanding work ethic as his wisecracks — and wearing a hat with the bill always turned up so he could “see all the pretty girls” — Baltes carved out the historic track after stumbling on a race at New Bremen Speedway. Against the advice of friends and family to start his own track, Baltes became one of dirt car racing’s greatest promoters.
And he never finished the sixth grade. The can-do attitude Baltes persevered with got him through the Great Depression, his service in World War II, a tornado that wiped out a chicken-hatching business and one of his ballrooms, a fire that severely damaged Eldora’s ballroom and his twice going broke.
His greatest accomplishments — in addition to getting 20,000 spectators to routinely navigate their way to a race track nestled among cornfields and little else in northern Darke County — include dirt racing’s most famous events.
Baltes started the World 100 in 1971, still considered the most coveted victory (and trophy) among dirt late model drivers. The Dirt Late Model Dream first turned laps in 1994 as dirt late model racing’s richest event to win at $100,000.
The United States Auto Club (USAC) made its Eldora debut in 1962 and has raced every year since, including a crown jewel 4-Crown Nationals event. As for the winged sprints, the Kings Royal — and all the pomp that goes with it like the oversized throne, red cape, scepter and proclamation declaring the winner king of sprints — is one of the country’s most popular events.
Baltes also awarded race winner Donnie Moran $1 million, the richest payout in short-track racing history, for winning a 100-lap late model race in 2001.
And through it all, Baltes would offer his most famous quote: “If we’d just sold one more hot dog we’d broke even.”
Racing legends Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt, Al and Bobby Unser, Parnelli Jones, Gary Bettenhausen, Johnny Rutherford, Tim Bigelow, Pancho Carter, Jack Hewitt, Jeff Gordon and Steve Kinser all kicked up the dirt around Eldora.
And so did Baltes. Once.
Baltes was racing at Eldora after the track expanded to a half mile. He was running third when the two cars ahead of him touched and rolled. Baltes made it through the wreck, pulled into the pits and sold his car on the spot. He vowed to never race again.
Still, Baltes turned thousands of laps at Eldora. He was a common sight on his beloved grader prepping Eldora’s surface for racing and in the water truck keeping the dust down.
Baltes’ first love was music. He was the dance band leader of Earl and the Melody Makers and also played saxophone. Baltes and his brother, Jimmy, played halls in the Darke County and Auglaize County areas and got so popular they didn’t even have to carry their own instruments.
“The girls who followed us did,” Baltes once told the Dayton Daily News.
It was at the St. Henry Night Club, a long-time supporter of Eldora Speedway, where Baltes met Berneice when she was 17-years old. They married on April 26, 1947.
A dance hall is also how Baltes ended up with Eldora Speedway, according to his autobiography, “Earl!” He inquired several times about purchasing the ballroom from Fort Recovery’s Mrs. Shoe, whose business was shut down by for being a nuisance.
After persistence Mrs. Shoe — who had been a bootlegger during Prohibition — finally agreed to sell the property. Baltes renamed the ballroom “Eldora” after finding an old wooden board in the back of the building with that name written on it. It once served as the name of Mrs. Shoe’s dance hall in Germany, according to his autobiography.
Baltes was visiting a dance hall in St. Marys when he saw a large crowd at New Bremen Speedway. Baltes decided to check out the action. Racing was never the same again.
Baltes opened Eldora in 1954 as a quarter-mile track. It expanded to 3/8th-mile in 1956 and its current half mile in 1958.
Though he traded the music business for racing, Baltes was treated like a rock star at Eldora. Fans pressed against the windows of the tower press box to get a glimpse of Earl and Berneice or to snap a photo. He was met with standing ovations when he took the victory lane stage.
Baltes sold the track in the fall of 2004 to Stewart, who honed his skills racing at Eldora Speedway.
Baltes is survived by Berneice, his wife of 67 years; daughter, Starr, and her husband, Joe Schmitmeyer; son, Terry, and his wife, Dee; sister, Susie Barga, and six grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.
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