Renovated Building Is among the Last Original Structure from WWII Training Facility
By Mark Robinson
SEBRING, Fla. – Sebring International Raceway continues deepening the link to its storied past as a former military airbase where the racetrack now sits. The latest example came Wednesday night with the formal rededication of the Sebring Officers Club that’s open to hospitality guests who purchased tickets for this weekend’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring Presented by Cadillac.
The freshly renovated Officers Club is housed in the last original building remaining from Hendricks Field, which served as a World War II training base for B-17 bomber crews from 1942-45. Situated near the track’s Midway area and Crosley Valley between Turns 6 and 7, the club includes a bar and indoor seating for 40, patio seating for more than 100 and exclusive trackside deck seating for approximately 40.
Track president Wayne Estes emphasized at the rededication that the club honors the memory of those who trained at Hendricks Field and went on to serve during WWII. By design, the club’s interior motif mimics those of officers’ clubs from back then as well as today.
Estes said an Army staff sergeant recently visited the Sebring club and said, “I’ve been in Army bases all over the country. When you go into the (Sebring) Officers Club, this is what it looks like.”
“It gives you the feeling,” added IMSA President John Doonan as he looked around the club, “that you’re almost back in that era.”
Charcoal drawings from local artist Samantha Zimmerman adorn the walls of the club, depicting images taken from a 1942 Hendricks Field yearbook. One of Zimmerman’s works is of an airbase hangar with the tail of a B-17 protruding out of the hangar door.
“As a kid,” Doonan said after viewing the drawing, “I remember watching the Twelve Hours of Sebring and remember the cars going by that hangar.”
A featured guest at the rededication has direct ties to the airbase. Jan Davis was an astronaut who flew on space shuttle missions in 1992, ’94 and ’97, logging more than 673 hours in space. Her father, Ben Smotherman, was a B-17 pilot who trained at Hendricks Field in late 1942 before being sent to England to fly in the European theater. Smotherman’s B-17 was shot down on just his seventh mission and he spent 21 months in a German prisoner of war camp.
When her father was training at Hendricks, he gave Davis’ mother a necklace from Sebring when she visited to celebrate her 18th birthday. Davis wore that necklace Wednesday evening, furthering her family connection to the airbase turned racetrack.
“It’s heartwarming to me because he was here,” Davis said. “I know he was in this building and I don’t know of any other place where I know he was here. It’s a real legacy for the future and people can remember what Hendricks Field was all about.”
While tickets for this weekend’s Officer Club activities are sold out, it will be available in the future for groups to reserve on race weekends, as well as year around for the Sebring community to use for special events.
“You don’t want to have a building like this and just set it aside,” Estes said. “It’s not a museum piece, it should be used. We’re trying to save the spirit of what it was originally intended for and still keeping the memory alive.
“We want people to come in here, and when they come, it’s not just about the hospitality experience and enjoying the race, it’s also wanting them to remember what happened here 80 years ago.”
The Officers Club renovation follows by a year the ceremony that dedicated the nearby Hendricks Field Memorial Park, a restored greenway centered by a flagpole that was once the literal center of the airbase. IMSA and track officials are collaborating on future projects to further integrate the legacy of Hendricks Field with Sebring International Raceway.
