Remembering Allan Brown
Remembering Allan Brown
Allan Brown, whose love for motorsports grew into a career as editor and publisher for the National Speedway Directory for over 30 years, passed away Thursday, April 13, at his home in Comstock Park Michigan. He had waged a 12-year battle with cancer with his wife Nancy at his side throughout and was under hospice care. He was 75 years old.
Brown’s father took him to his first race in 1952 at the age of 5, at Berlin Fairgrounds Raceway some 6 miles from his childhood home. Thus began a career unparalleled in terms of attending and documenting auto racing tracks throughout the United States, landing him in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame and Michigan Motorsports Hall of Fame. Brown attended races at over 2,000 different tracks.
Over the years, Brown, often accompanied by Nancy, attended a race at two or more tracks in each of the 50 United States—likely the only person to have done so. His travels and fascination with speedways, road courses, dragstrips and indoor venues of all types and surfaces led him in 1975 to partner with Larry Yard to publish the first National Speedway Directory. The Directory, which he meticulously updated for accuracy annually, was a compilation of every track in the US and Canada, including location, contact information, description of the track and type of racing. In the pre-internet years, the book was considered indispensable to race teams, fans and those in the business of motorsports in their travels. The soft cover, hip-pocket size of the National Speedway Directory was perfect for race-chasers. Brown hawked the book in the grandstands at most races he attended, with promoters gladly allowing him to do so in exchange for a quantity of Directories they shared with employees and sold to fans after Brown’s visit. Brown also published the National Late Model Annual, Michigan Auto Racing Guide and the National Sprint Car Annual. Brown’s consummate work is the 883-page, hard cover “The History Of America’s Speedways Past & Present” which he compiled, edited and published with co-editors Nancy Brown and industry veteran Tim Frost, to whom he sold the National Speedway Directory franchise in 2009.
Brown’s childhood was filled with trips to local Michigan tracks like Berlin, Kalamazoo, Butler, Whiskey Ridge and the Grand Rapids Speedrome. He attended his first Indianapolis 500 time trials in 1955, and his first Indycar race at the Milwaukee Mile in 1963. After graduation from high school, the US Army stationed him at New Jersey’s Fort Dix, where in the mid-late 1960s he attended races at Trenton, Langhorne, Reading, Nazareth, Fonda and Thompson while also following the All-Star Racing League modified tour. By the 1970s, he was averaging visits to 75 tracks per year.
Brown served for three decades as Secretary-Treasurer of the Michigan Speedway Promoters Association (MSPA). Founded in 1973, it is the longest-running organization of its kind, with bi-annual meetings bringing together those involved in the sport in Michigan as a collaborative forum for the betterment of the sport. It was at Brown’s suggestion that the MSPA developed a mid-week touring series for late models that ran at many Michigan short tracks, paved and dirt, in the 1970s and 1980s, crowning a champion.
Allan Brown is survived by his wife of 37 years, Nancy (Feist) Brown; sisters Monica Zahm and Ann (Gerald) Wesolowski; sisters-in-law Judie Brown, Joyce Brown and Sue Luurtsema; and brother-in-law Larry (Mary Ann) Feist.
Visitation is Monday April 17 from 2-4 and 6-8pm at Bueschel Funeral Home, 5018 Alpine Ave., Comstock Park MI. Mass of the Christian burial is Tuesday, April 18, 11:00 am at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Belmont. Interment St. Joseph's Cemetery, Wright Township.