Book Review: “Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick”

“Arnie “The Farmer” Beswick” by Author Dean Fait

by Paul Gohde

In the early1960’s drag racers were often known by nicknames designed to put fear into the hearts of their opponents. The “Snake”, “Dyno Don” and “The Judge” were also part of racing entertainment (somewhat like wrestling…think, “The Crusher”). But Arnie Beswick, a mild-mannered Pontiac racer from Morrison, Illinois, and a third-generation farmer, adopted a less imposing moniker becoming “The Farmer” throughout his 65-year quarter-mile career; a name that he dreaded at first.

Beswick’s early driving career moved from farm tractors to Oldsmobile and Dodge before switching to Pontiac in 1958; a brand that stayed with him and his team even today, though production-based models have now ceased production.

Author Dean Fait was born the grandson of a South Dakota Chevrolet/Pontiac dealer and later moved to Illinois where he met Beswick at a local Pontiac club. That fateful meeting, (no pun intended), led to Fait producing a two-and-a-half-hour documentary about “The Farmer” and later wrote various articles about him; becoming as Arnie noted, his “Historian”.

The book takes a 184–page, six-chapter trip through Beswick’s career, moving from his early days in the 50’s with Dodge to his switch to Pontiac; a move that was given impetus by Pontiac’s success in NASCAR 500-mile races.

Fait notes that Beswick’s new racer was ordered through a local Illinois dealership and was partially paid for by trading in his daily-driver 1950 Oldsmobile, and from helping neighbors bale hay. How times have changed!

From those early days of racing on Sunday at Illinois tracks like Cordova, Beswick eventually branched out, taking his Chieftain to Florida in 1960 for the Winter Nationals that were the one and only joint venture to that point with the NHRA and NASCAR.

The book follows Beswick and his beloved Pontiacs through the Super Stock era, his A/FX years and the popular wheel-standing Funny Cars of the later 1960’s and 70’s. Match races along the way often exposed drag racing to an entirely different audience, one that came to the track as much for entertainment as for the racing.

Fait also touches on some unhappy times, too. There were fires in Arnie’s shop, crashes on the dragstrip, and creeping old age that finally allowed “The Farmer” to turn over the driving chores to Anthony Layne in 2018.

The 184–page book, published in 2020, is filled with 450 photos that show how drag racing has changed radically from those early 1950’s to today’s business of racing on tracks shortened to less than a quarter–mile due to ever-climbing speeds.

Fait chooses to follow Beswick’s career in great detail which, for true drag racing enthusiasts, is what they will enjoy most about the book. For the casual fan, the photos will help to move through the remarkable 65–year career of that once–young farmer from Illinois who wound up in many drag racing halls of fame and brought with him legions of loyal fans.

The book is now available through Car Tech Auto Books and Manuals…www.cartechbooks.com/CT664…1-800-551-4754.

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

racingnation.com

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