Leo Caldwell, who hailed from Perrysburg, Ohio, won the very first feature event at Fremont Speedway in 1951. He would go on to record five feature wins and the track championships in 1951 and 52. Known as “The Gobbler” because he “gobbled up the competition,” Caldwell won the Motor City Speedway championships in 1949 and 1950; the Fort Miami Championship in 1951 and 1953; the Michigan State Championship (sportsman division of NASCAR) in 1952; the Raceway Park Championship in 1954 and 1955; the Sandusky Speedway title in 1957; and was winner of the Atlanta Peach State 200 in 1964.

Caldwell also campaigned the first cage and roll bar on a modified to run as a sprint car in 1957. He ran championship cars from 1960-68. Throughout his career, Caldwell scored 400 feature wins