The Founding of the Lake Garnett Grand Prix Revival
A tribute to CB Harris, Cheryl Harris, and Denny Hale – and to everyone who believed in this from the start.
The Ghost Track
In the summer of 2013, a flyer made its way into the hands of Darren Traub – an invitation to drive around a ghost track in Garnett, Kansas titled Lake Garnett Grand Prix Revisited. The track, a 2.8-mile road circling Lake Garnett, had once been the site of the nationally recognized Lake Garnett Grand Prix Races, an SCCA premier series that ran from 1959 through 1972. Dan Gurney, Carroll Shelby, and Don Yenko had all brought their teams to compete there. Over 60,000 fans once lined the course. Then in 1972, safety concerns shut it down, and the track went quiet for more than four decades.
Darren had no idea what to expect. He called a good friend, climbed into their vintage Austin Healeys, and joined a small caravan of cars from the MG Club and the Triumph Club of Kansas City making the drive south to Anderson County. Other marques were there too including Jaguars and Mazda Miatas.
What they found when they arrived was a man named CB Harris standing at the shelter house – his wife Cheryl at his side as always – with a simple and extraordinary plan. He had managed to get the gates open across the dam for one hour. Everyone could go out and drive the track. Speed limit? No, as fast as their cars could go. Could you pass? Of course, pass anyone going slower than you are anywhere. Helmets? No helmets needed. CB would wave a white flag to start, and wave it again when the hour was up.
Nobody knew the corners. Nobody knew the lines. Nobody knew what they were getting themselves into. And for the next sixty minutes, nobody cared. By the time the white flag came back out, there wasn’t a single driver on that track who didn’t have a smile that lasted the better part of two weeks.
It was, in the words of more than one participant, the most fun they had ever had in a car. It felt like they had broken every law at once. They hadn’t – but it felt that way, and that was the whole point.
CB and the Harris family had built far more than a track day. After the cars came off the circuit, participants were handed a packet – the starting point for a treasure hunt through the town of Garnett itself. Drivers set off through the streets in their sports cars, hunting clues and answering questions at various locations around the community, getting a proper introduction to a town most of them had never visited before.
The day ended at the Garnett town square, where live music filled the air, a car show spread across the open space with thirty or forty cars gleaming in the October light, and a beer garden took care of the rest. Prizes were awarded. Stories were swapped. It was a complete day – joyful, slightly chaotic, and entirely memorable. But it was the track that had everyone buzzing. Not politely enthusiastic. Buzzing. The kind that doesn’t leave you for weeks.
Participants were so taken with the day that many sought out CB afterward wanting T-shirts like the ones he and his crew had made for themselves – a memento of something they never wanted to forget. Those shirts, printed in small numbers, are rare collectibles today.
Part 2 is coming soon. . . . . Stay Tuned.
