By Dakota Antelman, Managing Editor
(Photo/Dakota Antelman)
MARLBOROUGH – Roughly 100 local car owners gathered on the grounds of the Marlborough Fish & Game Association, Sept. 26, to catch up and reminisce about times spent on what was unofficially known as the A&M drag strip in town.
Vintage vehicles lined up across the grass at the Fish & Game Association as reunion attendees mingled. A number of drivers then hopped in their cars shortly before 12 p.m. for a cruise around the area.
“Nobody does anything stupid,” event organizer Steve Bush said of the cruise in particular. “It’s just a nice cruise.”
For decades, parts of Hayes Memorial Drive in Marlborough roared with the sounds of racing engines. The A&M there was not an official race track. The races drivers held were technically illegal. But, Bush said, police rarely took action, only arriving to break up gatherings in the late afternoon.
Bush, himself, started coming to the A&M at the age of 12 when his sister brought him.
“It was incredible,” he said.
In the mid-to-late 1980’s though, he said, things began to change. Some new drivers arrived on the scene.
“They would have wrecks and stuff,” he said. “It just wasn’t good.”
Police began to crack down, and the tradition largely died out.
Years after the fact, this latest reunion marked the fifth such gathering of former A&M racers.
Bush now helps organize a hall of fame for the community, inducting five new fan-favorites each year.
Proceeds, from this event, likewise, go back to the Fish & Game Association. A 50/50 raffle also raised money for a kids Christmas party.
Enjoying a day with friends made on the A&M asphalt less than a mile from the Fish & Game Association property, Bush said that he was glad that earlier bad weather cleared to let the group gather in the first place.
“We have quite a few cars here,” he said. “Considering the rain we had earlier this morning, I was so afraid [there would be less].”
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