- My name is Lyle Hoidal, drove stock cars for many years, about 30 years.

You get deeper into it the longer you're at it.

Some good years, some bad years.

Spent quite a bit of time upside down.

Hey, that's all part of it.

And you're out there to win, you're not to make friends.

My brother, Bernie, he raced too down here and we built our cars in this, the building on the south end of Main Street of Holloway.

That's where it all started.

My brother, Bernie was kind of a father to me because Dad got killed in that junction going to Morris, Highway 12 and 59 junction.

I never knew him so Bernie was kind of a, a dad to me and he liked racing too.

When I got mine built and he watched me go around a couple times, he says I gotta have one.

And he had that old Mercury sittin' there, chopped it up, made a race car out of it.

Done quite well with it.

He bought old cars and scrapped 'em out and sold parts off of 'em.

We just picked one out of the pile that ran and went racing, I guess.

We went in that old gravel pit that they made into our first racetrack.

They graded it up right on the gravel almost, put some black dirt over the top of it and then bladed it down, watered it.

Yeah, it wasn't the best track but it got us going.

That's me right there.

I was in third place.

- They were fun days.

They were more about, about competition and stuff.

And not all the fancy equipment.

My gosh, we had those little cans and that little tiny, you know, the tire and, and like Ron had at one of the reunions, he said, most of our tires had no hunting on them.

(laughing) But it was fun racing.

People enjoyed it.

It was really fun.

And we knew all the drivers and you know, they were relatives and friends and everybody went to the races.

- But see then if you started out with an old '39 Ford, it wasn't worth nothin'.

It probably would be today.

But you could pick one up in the junkyard easy for just a few dollars.

And that's what you'd start puttin' roll bars in 'em and make a racer out of it.

We made our own stuff.

- Here's the picture of Jimmy Ryman, giving Lyle the checkered flag and he's in 1/2 and 1/2.

- 1/2 and 1/2 was one that I never owned that car.

I just drove it.

Both Bernie and I drove 1/2 and 1/2 at times.

Maynard Shellstad owned it but he never drove a race car in his life.

He just wanted to own that car.

And it was quite a history of 1/2 and 1/2.

That was well used before it come to this area.

It was built up in Morris, Minnesota.

At the very first, we had standing start.

We didn't go around and then they dropped the flag and then start racing.

You lined up, flag man was in between the two lanes of cars.

He told us when to go.

That wasn't the safest place to be really.

There was no mishaps I don't think.

I got my son Scott involved in it when he was 15 years old, didn't even have a driver's license yet.

I think back and I couldn't believe it how quick he caught on.

And he was a very good driver.

He'd done better than his old man.

He kept it.

I don't think he ever had a rollover.

He drove different.

He was actually a better driver.

I would still like to get in one and try it.