The Speedway Bombings: Fear Forty Years Ago

SPEEDWAY, Ind.–Forty years ago this weeks, a series of bombs went off in Speedway. Police did not know why trash bins, a bowling alley, an off-duty police officer’s patrol car, and a school parking lot were bombed, nor did they know why the bombings stopped on Sept. 6.

“There’s no racial problems. There’s no labor problems,” a confounded Speedway police chief Bob Copeland told WIBC News. “They just went down right after the people came in for the national drags (races. I’m not blaming it on them. If it stops after they leave, we’ll begin to wonder about that.”

LISTEN: WIBC Reports from Sept. 1978

The first bombings, on Sept. 1, were in a shopping center. 

“The only thing I noticed is I was inside my store and my body was physically moved six inches to 12 inches with a blast that took out all my store windows,” said Lynn Wexler. “There was a lot of debris hitting the roof and I told my family to hit the ground.”

Leonard Lutz was inside the bowling alley that was bombed.

“You just had to witness it, be here to see what kind of shock it was,” he said. “There was about 18 people in here. No one got hurt at all. I think it was very foryunate.”

Superintendent Dale Weller and Copeland enforced a curfew, not allowing any young people on the streets at night.

“The police officers have convinced me that darnkness is the chief ally of the bomber,” said Weller. State police, Speedway Police and even federal agents were unsuccessful for several days at establishing a motive or nailing down a suspect.

When veteran Carl DeLong kicked a gym bag in the Speedway High School parking lot, he became the first person to be seriously injured. His leg was blown off and his wife was seriously hurt.

After a man named Brett Kimberlin, 27, tried to get a fake ID and was turned in to the police, they raided his house and found all the material to make bombs, and 1,000 lbs. of pot. Kimberlin was arrested, but he never did give police a clear motive for the bombings.

They believe he may have been trying to throw them off a murder investigation from earlier that summer.

Kimberlin was convicted after a series of trials. He got out of prison in 2001. DeLong’s family sued him and were awarded over a million and a half dollars.

PHOTO: IStock/NazDravie