Inside creepy abandoned speedway track dubbed 'notoriously deadly' that has been retaken by the forest

May 30, 2023

JUNGLE Park Speedway has lived up to its name in recent years.

Since 1960, the half-mile oval in Bloomingdale, Indiana, has slowly decayed as the forest reclaims the former haven for thrill-seekers.

Opened in 1926, the banked circuit was a bare-bones operation from the very beginning.

Lacking a wall around much of the dirt track, it was a rudimentary setup, featuring only a restaurant, a small hotel - which has since burned down, and five stands - only one of which remains, per the Washington Times.

Merle Bettenhausen, whose dad raced at the track during its heyday, told the Tribune-Star that "My mom said, 'Oh, oh, that Jungle Park, that was quite a place.'

"I know that cars would go out and practice in hot laps and they would come in and there was weeds wrapped around the rear axle.'"

Bettenhausen added: "That's because they would get so high and get right next to where the guard rail would be and there were weeds up there and [drivers] would get into the weeds and would wrap around the rear axle."

Former stock car racer, Bobby Hunter, described Jungle Park as "the worst track I was ever in" when speaking to the Washington Times.

"There were some tracks down in Georgia that were bad, but Jungle Park - it had trees in the way," he added.

Not only was it basic, but it was extremely dangerous.

Granted, this was the case for motor racing as a whole at the time, but, as the Indy Star put it, Jungle Park was "notoriously deadly."

"The injury rate was alarmingly high at Jungle Park. You either hit the trees or went into the creek or both," Indianapolis Motor Speedway historian Donald Davidson told the Tribune-Star.

And it seems all this led to a bad reputation within the racing community.

According to the former publicity director for the United States Auto Club, Dick Jordan, he told the Washington Times that, "Jungle Park got a reputation for being a very treacherous place."

But in another sign of the times, he explained how when he was just six years old in 1952, he could remember seeing Ralph Scott's fatal crash, saying: "That was part of the spectacle of auto racing, to try and cheat death, and to a certain extent it still is.

"I hate to think that’s the case, but there’s something to that."

Eventually closed in 1955, the track briefly came back to life in 1960 when a midget car race took place in October.

Unfortunately, yet another tragedy during the race well and truly marked the end of this track's story.

During the race, a spectator, 37-year-old Annabelle Sigafoose, was killed after being struck by a car after it careered off the track after hitting a rut in the surface, according to Motorsport Memorial.

Fast forward 63 years, and barring a handful of reunions, racers have never returned to the rural track.

Today, all that remains are a single wooden grandstand, the former restaurant, and the faint outlines of what was once a banked oval swarming with racers.

But its mark on the sport won't soon be forgotten.

Of the drivers to have won at Jungle Park, eight later won the Indianapolis 500, per the Tribune-Star.

And in 2020, former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. did his part to document the site's history, dedicating an episode of his Peacock series Lost Speedways to Jungle Park.