“Inductee” trivia tidbit: Jack “Digger” Caldwell

As the old saying goes, “Everyone loves a winner”. This is usually the case until he or she wins too often which was the exact situation that 1995 Inductee Jack “Digger” Caldwell found himself in during Langford Speedway’s 1946 season. Having racked up an impressive number of Big Car race wins which at one point included eight main events in a row, Digger had noticed an increasing number of boos and cat calls from a growing number of unhappy fans who had become tired of his constant wins. Wanting to remedy the situation, he suggested to track officials that they give him a degree of difficulty by putting him at the tail end of the starting lineup of each race he was in. Up to this time, faster qualifiers were put at the front with the slower ones behind according to time trial results. Quick to act, officials put fast time qualifier Digger dead last in the very next main event by reversing the entire starting field which was the first time a “reverse start” was used in local racing. However, as it turned out, this possible solution was only a minor setback for Caldwell as he quickly charged to the front of the pack to handily win his ninth main in a row. He would go on to record a total of fourteen out of the seventeen features that were run that year, coming second twice and third once in the remaining three. In addition, he scored seven clean sweeps (helmet dash, heat race and main event) and also equalled that season’s track record of eighteen seconds, rock solidly assuring his being crowned as the 1946 season’s Big Car Champion.