开云体育

For Auld Lang Syne, by Chris Romano

?For my racing friends, as the year winds down, let’s not forget those we lost in the sport this year.? As ever, this is a labor of love and not so much journalism, so forgive any omissions.

Open Wheel

?Rick Ferkel, 84, was a member of the Sprint Car Hall of Fame and lived up to his nickname of the Ohio Traveler routinely running over 70 races per year, mainly with the World of Outlaws. “Doc” Simpson was the track physician at midget and Sprint Car tracks in Colorado and eventually at IRP and Belleville, among others.? He was a member of the Colorado Motorsports Hall of Fame.? Jeff Nuckles, 66, raced midgets in the Midwest until a 1984 crash at Eldora left him paralyzed from the chest down.? He went to work at his family’s Columbus Motor Speedway proving that a wheelchair was no handicap to a race director.? Sean Vardell was a regular at Millbridge Speedway in NC and started the Carolina 305 Sprint Car tour. Mark Schuck was a long time USAC Silver Crown owner.? Dean Billings, 68, raced with the Badger Midget Auto Racing Association for much of his career before suffering a traumatic brain injury 25 years ago.? He was a two time Dairyland Midget Ass’n champion and track champion at Wilmot. Rocky Moran, 74, got a chance to drive at Indy with his hero Dan Gurney and then got two more shots with A.J. Foyt.? Out of money and opportunity with Indy Cars he turned to a successful sports car career running for Gurney’s Toyota team with his day of days coming in 1993 with a win in the Daytona 24 Hours.? Rick Baty founded the United Rebel Sprint Series and this year was inducted into the Belleville High Banks Hall of Fame.? Wild Willie Stutzman, 92, was a supermodified legend.? Gary Irvin, 81, raced in the three major USAC divisions from 1968 to 1999.

?Central Pennsylvania Sprint Cars lost owner Joe Harz, who scored 169 wins along with Williams Grove championships with Lance Dewease and Fred Rahmer.? Walt Dyer, 90, fielded the #461 “brick mobile” for over 30 years and was a member of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.? Lynn Paxton, 80 was a Hall of Famer who amassed over 200 Sprint Car feature wins mostly in Central Pennsylvania in addition to numerous track championships.? Clyde Swartz raced Sprint Cars in the Mid-Atlantic states.

?Parnelli Jones, 90, won in everything he ever drove, including an Indy 500 win in 1963.? He had the good sense to retire from open wheel racing after almost winning the 500 again in 1967 but turned his attention to winning a Trans Am championship in 1970 and raced the Baja before he stopped for good.? He wasn’t a stranger to Indy wins, however, as with partner Vel Miletich he won the 500 twice in a row with Al Unser, Sr.?

?Paul Goldsmith began his career on bikes, winning on the beach at Daytona.? He raced six times at Indy with a best finish of third in 1960.? He turned his attention to stock cars and won a USAC championship and nine NASCAR events, including the very last race on the beach, before retiring in 1969.? He was 98 years old.

?Emily Vogler, 93, lost a husband and son the sport.? She also founded the Rich Vogler Memorial Scholarship Foundation, raising over $400,000.? A profile in grace and courage.

Lost Speedways

?This year we lost I-64 Motorplex drag strip in Kentucky, East Bay Raceway Park in Florida, and Battlefield Dragstrip in Mississippi.? South Bend Motor Speedway in Indiana closed after almost 78 years. ?State Park Speedway in Wisconsin closed after 71 years. Humberstone Speedway in Ontario lost their lease, ending a 50 year run.? Star crossed Irwindale Speedway and dragstrip closed after a difficult 20 year history.? Eastside Speedway drag strip in Waynesboro, VA closed its doors and will be taken over by a solar farm.

?Northeast

?Lloyd D. Hutchins, Jr., 86, helped build Thunder Road in Vermont and was involved with the track for much of his life.? John Petty was a long time supporter of Supermodifieds at Oswego, serving as crew chief and track crew after a brief driving career.? Ralph Clark was an Oswego regular in Supermodifieds and 350 Supermodifieds.? Vinnie “Who” Annarummo, 74, was a six time Pro Stock champion at Seekonk Speedway, where he raced Modifieds as well.? Art Bennett, 92 won the Oswego Classic in 1961 and the track championship in 1962.? Paul Aldrich was a member of the New England Racing Museum’s Board of Directors and a restorer of early drag racing cars.? Anthony “Jap” Membrino, 90, was a Plainville Speedway legend and plied his trade in a Modified throughout southern New England.? Gil Coraine was a board member of the New England Racing Museum, a former head of public relations for New England Dragway and the owner of a Lifetime Achievement award by the NHRA.? Big Mike Daignault was a Daredevil division champion in 1973 and a fixture at the Speedbowl in the early 70’s.? Don Collins, 93, was a five time Waterford Speedbowl Champion, winning 23 features alone in 1960.? Fred Luchesi, 93, won championships at Waterford, Seekonk, Lonsdale, Westboro and Norwood between 1954 and 1956 and was a NEAR Hall of Famer.? John Cook drove the Osetek supermodified at Oswego and was a long time member of Joe Gosek’s crew.? Barefoot Bob McCreadie, 74, was Mr. Dirt, winning multiple track championships, DIRT championships, and Super Dirt Week. George Speck, 98, was the 1955 Willams Grove track champion.? Fast Eddie Freeland, 78, was a fixture at Hudson Speedway. Jon Manafort raced at Plainville Stadium and was a long time supporter of racing in the Northeast.? Howard “Jiggs” Beetham was a long time racer at Waterford and the successful car owner for Bob Potter at Stafford.

?Dave Simard, 70, was a Super Modified fixture in New Hampshire and a two time winner of the Star Classic and one of the nicest guys in racing.? Dennis Krupski,53, raced Modifieds at Riverhead. Joe Liquori, Jr, 60, passed away suddenly after suffering a medical event at New Egypt Speedway, where he was general manager for ten years.? Rich Vasseur, 60, was a regular at Riverside Park.? Dale Planck was an accomplished Dirt Modified racer in New York.? Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Famer Bobby Botcher was 85.? Jim Liccardi, 71, co-founded the Eagles Fan Club and was a member of the Oswego Speedway Hall of Fame. Joe Bowen, 93, raced with NEMA, was their PR man and helped create the first NEMA yearbooks.

?Bugs Stevens, 90, was, quite simply, a redwood in Modified racing taking numerous track championships and three NASCAR championships on the trot from 1967 to 1969.? After winding down his Modified career he took a Pro Stock championship at Seekonk.? Legend is not too strong a word.

?Across the Pond

?Rene Metge, 82, was a three time Dakar Rally Champion.? Alberto Colombo, 77, was an Italian Formula Three champion and after several years in Formula Two and three brief attempts at Formula One retired to run the San Remo Formula Two Team.? ?John Webb, 92, ran Brands Hatch for decades when it hosted the British Grand Prix, eventually branching out to run several other British circuits during his career.? Jan de Rooy won the Dakar Rally in 1987 in the Truck division and went on to contest the event for several more years.? Pietro Corradini, 77, joined Ferrari in 1970 and served as a mechanic to the stars for the next thirty years.? Wilson Fittipaldi, 80, followed his brother Emerson to Formula One in Europe but never had the opportunities his younger brother enjoyed.? Undeterred he formed Copersucar in 1975, Brazil’s only Formula One Team, and convinced Emerson to join the following year.? His day of days came when Emmo finished second at the Brazilian Grand Prix in 1978.? Hugh Chamberlain, 82, was a perennial British entrant in national events and a 26 time entrant at Le Mans.? Kenjiro Shinozuka, 75,? won the Dakar rally in 1997.? Ted Toleman, 86, founded his eponymous Formula One Team after winning a Formula Two Championship with Brian Henton.? In 1984 Ayrton Senna made his Formula One debut with the team.? John Walker, 79, won the Australian Driver’s Championship for Formula 5000 cars in 1979. Indu Chandhok, 93, was the godfather of motorsports in India, leading several organizations.? Tommy Robb was a five time winner of the North West 200 bike race.? Dave Brodie raced touring cars in Great Britain and Europe for ages and had a stint as director at Williams Grand Prix.

?Dave Walker won the Monaco Formula 3 support race along with a British F3 championship which led to a number two seat with the Lotus F1 team in 1971, but it wasn’t easy being number two to Emerson Fittipaldi.? He did eleven Grands Prix with Lotus before returning to F2 and F5000.

?Peter Procter started racing bicycles but switched to cars in the 50’s racing on the British club circuit. He brought the Ford Mustang a class win at the Tour de France in 1964, and ran the Monte Carlo rally eight times and Le Mans on four occasions, along with Formula Two, usually racing for Alan Mann Racing.? In 1965 a horrendous accident at Goodwood left him with burns over 65% of his body, but he managed to survive and become a tireless advocate for fireproof driving suits in an era where drivers still raced in cotton uniforms.? He remained a member of the British Racing Driver’s Club for decades, and left us this year at age 94.

?Alan Rees, 86, raced in the lower formulas in the 1960’s achieving some wins in Formula Two, but will be best remembered as one of the founders of March cars in 1969, a company that manufactured everything from Formula 1 to Indy Cars, to sports cars and a host of lower formula cars.

?Rupert Keegan, 69, was billed as the next James Hunt, and he certainly lived up to expectations off the track.? On track Rupert was the 1976 British Formula Three champion but never quite could get a decent ride in Formula One.? He did well in the Aurora FX F1 series in Britain, claiming the 1979 championship.?

?Stock Car

?Tim Steele, 55, was a three time ARCA champion.? Johnny Bryant, 82, was a southern Modified legend and won the ill-fated race at Martinsville in 1985 when Richie Evans was killed in practice.? Ryan Pemberton, 54, was a fixture in the NASCAR garages as a crew chief and most recently as competition for JR Motorsports Xfinity team.? Greg Moore, 67, son of Bud Moore managed the Moore family NASCAR team for a number of years.? Zach Brewer, 44, won in the Goody’s Dash Series and in Modifieds? at Bowman Gray.? Blackie Wangerin, 89, was a part time ARCA and NASCAR driver who concentrated mainly on making Daytona and Talladega from the late 70’s until the early 90’s.? Bob Labonte, 90, was patriarch of the family that produced two NASCAR Cup champions.? Duke Bare was a fixture at Wythe Raceway on the dirt in western Virginia.? Scott Gafforni, 57, was the winningest driver at the Bullring at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, a seven time Super Pro/Late Model champion.? Big Jim Massengill was the tech man at County Line Speedway in NC for many years.? Philip Walker won Late Model championships at Orange County and Wake County Speedways in NC over a 20 year career.? Bob Jeffrey, 65, was a spotter for Dale Jarrett and Tony Stewart in their NASCAR championship years before moving to IndyCar to work with Danica Patrick and Pato O’Ward, among others.? Roy Hendrick carried on his dad’s legacy in the short tracks of Virginia, and was just as an accomplished racer.? Dink Widenhouse, 92, raced successfully on dirt tracks throughout the south in the early days of NASCAR. ?Jason Shephard was a long time crew chief on the Whelen Modified Tour. Les Westerfield, 67, won the 1984 All American 400 and went on to help guide the series through it’s NASCAR transition to the K&N Series.

?Bobby Gill, 65, won four Hooters Cup championships, two Snowball Derby’s and The All American 400 at Nashville in a long Late Model career.?

?Scott Bloomquist won pretty much everything there was to win in Dirt Late Models, and was a helluva car builder as well.? He marched to his own drum, might show up on any given night, might not.? Lost all too soon at age 60 in a plane crash.

?Bobby Allison, 86, once said the sport gave him everything, and then took it away.? A NASCAR champion and three time winner of the Daytona 500, Allison suffered through the loss of sons Clifford and Davey, respectively in racing related accidents, and his own devastating crash at Pocono in 1988.

?Fast Freddy Lorenzen, 89, was a member of the NASCAR Hall of Fame and a winner at Daytona in 1965.? He finished second at Daytona in 1967 to teammate Mario Andretti and retired a few months later.? He always said he retired too soon, and resumed racing in 1970, hanging it up for good in 1972.

?US sports cars/road racing.

?Ramin Abdolvahabi, 58, a nationally renowned neurosurgeon and racer in the IMSA Pilot Challenge? died of pancreatic cancer.? Billy Dingman, 78, found success in IMSA with the Dingman Brothers Racing Team, winning at Miami twice.? He later fielded cars in NASCAR and drag racing.? Bob Riley, 93, started out designing winning Indy Cars for A.J. Foyt and Pat Patrick, but it was in IMSA sports cars that his talent shown brightest, designing multiple winners.

?Fatalities.

?Andrew Kessel 37, was killed in the crash of his Rush SR car at Willow Springs Raceway in CA.? Drag racing veteran William Janke was killed in the crash of his Top Sportsman car at Lebanon Valley Dragway.? James Belay, 67, was killed at Roebling Road in Georgia during an SCCA Formula Continental race.? James Fox, 33, suffered a medical emergency while on track at Southern Raceway in Florida and died in the subsequent crash of his dirt car.? Gordon Welch died of a medical event after completing the Pro Truck race at Toccoa Raceway in Georgia.? Per Lunn, 15, died in a karting crash in Norway’s Andebu circuit. Lisandro Boxler, 37, died in the crash of his Ford Escort at a touring race at Autodromo Los Toboganes in Argentina.? ?Ond?ej Chytil, 32, lost control of his Martini-BMW Formula 2 car and crashed into a tree at high speed at a historic hillclimb event in Czechoslovaka.? Chris Gee, 47, suffered a medical incident resulting in a crash at Mid-Michigan Motorplex drag strip. ?Alfredo Picardi, 48, died in the crash of his Fiat at the La Plata autodrome in Argentina.? Ralph Willhite, 65, was struck in the infield by an out of control Sprint Car at Jacksonville Raceway in Illinois.? Jean-Pierre Gaillard, 74, died in the crash of his Porsche 996 at a historics event at Nogaro in France.? Andrew Rhodes-Anderson, 61, was killed in a touring car crash at Phillip Island in Australia.? Alvaro Guerreros, 39, was killed in the crash of his kart at the Kartodromo Luis Pedro Serra in Uruguay.? Tony Hucks, 74, suffered a heart attack while racing in the Riverland Championship at the Loxton Kart Club track in South Australia.

?Seventeen drivers, co-drivers and spectators were killed in regional rallying accidents while bike fatalities numbered twelve.? Eight marshals and spectators were killed in an accident at the Fox Hill Supercross Track in Sri Lanka.

?Drag Racing

?Nathan Garrett VanBeek, 34, co-founder of the Carolina Xtreme Pro Mod Series, was killed in a work accident.? Joe Bucci was a veteran drag racer who won his class at the Streetcar Takeover a week before he died.? George Burch was a long time drag racer at Coastal Plains.? Larry Clayton, 77, was the long time owner of Maryland International Raceway.? Harold Denton, 85, was a veteran drag racer who set a Pro Stock record on 198mph at the US Nationals in 1991.? Chris Miller was from a drag racing family in Maryland that owned Maryland International Raceway and co-owned Extreme Dragbike Association and the World Cup Finals.? Larry Dixon Sr., 84, was a Southern California drag racing legend from the 1960s to the 1980s.? John Bowser, 81, was president of the Famoso Dragstrip.? Chris “Big Crusher” Jones was a fixture in Carolina drag racing.? Ron Hope, 80, was the driver of the famous AA Fuel Altered “Rat Trap.? George Poteet, 75, set many SCTA land speed records at Bonneville.? Between 1988 and 2014. ?Scott Richardson, 54, tallied 39 NHRA national event titles across six eliminators categories, and went on to win in the IHRA and in big money bracket racing.? Pro Mod Racer Terry Coyle, 61, died in a traffic accident.? Gary McKee raced Corvettes with the IHRA and later the CCRA.? “General” Lee Edwards was a pioneer in Mountain Motor Pro Stock.? Michael Franks, 61, built and operated US 36 Raceway in Missouri.

?Rosalee Noble, 82, founded DRAW, Drag Racing Ass’n of Women to provide financial support for those competitors suffering injuries on track.? She and her husband were members of the Int’l Drag Racing Hall of Fame.? She was also a three time champion at Coles County Dragway in Illinois.

?Lizzy Musi wasn’t just the daughter of her famous engine builder father Pat, she was a badass fast Pro Mod driver who became a reality TV Star on Street Outlaws who proved time and time again she could run with and beat anyone. She lost a valiant fight with breast cancer at just 33.

?Fourth Estate

?Maude Sammons, 95, was the first lady of Area Auto Racing News helping to found the legendary racing paper with her husband Lenny.? Lloyd Collins, 66, was an accomplished mid-West dirt track photographer.? Becky White, 80, founded Quick Times Racing News to report on her local track, Farmington Dragway and was a board member at the North Carolina Drag Racing Hall of fame.? Duane Cory was a long time videographer at Oswego.? Roger Richards was the Director of Photography for Competition Plus and a legend among drag racing photographers.? Evan Canfield, 29, an EMPA award winning photographer left us far too early.? Bill York, 91, managed the media center at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for fifty years.? Ken Simon, 79 was a long time photographer for Speed Sport News concentrating mainly on Midwest Sprint Cars.? Chuck Lynn, 71, sold the Indianapolis Star at the Speedway in May for decades.? He never let his cerebral palsy hinder him and quite likely was the most beloved man in the paddock.? Jim Viviano carved out a stellar career shooting Sprint Cars.? Phil Rider, 82, shot midgets at Grundy County Speedway among many, many other sites in the Midwest.

?Other notable passings

?Eddie Gossage, 65, made his bones at Charlotte Motor Speedway before becoming the GM at Texas Motor Speedway.? He learned his promoting craft from Humpy Wheeler and spent 32 years with Speedway Motorsports, planting TMS firmly as one of the crown jewels of the company. Jerry Gappens, 63, spent 23 years with Speedway Motorsports, including a stint as GM of NHMS, and was the GM of Eldora Speedway at the time of his death.? ?Juanita “Lightnin” Epton, 103, worked the ticket booth for every Daytona 500.? Eloy Gutierrez, 75, co-created a timing and scoring system for the World of Outlaws in the late 90’s.? Chad McQueen, 63, followed his movie star dad Steve’s passion for racing, participating in sports car events until a crash in practice for the 2006 Daytona 24 Hours left him in a coma for almost a month.? He retired from driving but not from his love of cars, forming a company that built classic replicas and worked with many Hollywood studios.? Maurice Schnitter was a track commissioner for many years at the Circuit Anneau du Rhin, just north of my beloved Colmar in France.? Malcolm Smith, 83, won the Baja 1000 six times on his motorcycle.? “Motorcycle Mary” McGee, 87 was the first woman to compete in the Baja 1000 and the only woman to finish the Baja 500 solo.? She was a member of the AMA Hall of Fame.

?And what will we do without Brian Cleveland and Chuck Welling?? A friend to all in the Northeast Midget Ass’n pits, Brian drove midgets and could always be found helping brother Doug in his midget efforts.? It was impossible not to find Brian with that Hollywood smile and positive attitude.? At 63, he left us far too soon.? Chuck left us too soon as well, at age 60.? A fixture in the NEMA pits Chuck was another one with a quick smile for everyone, and a talented fabricator and driver.? Both good guys.

?As ever, while we shed a tear over their passing, let us not forget that oh, how they lived, and raise a glass to them all for Auld Lang Syne.

?Bon Annee, Joyeux Noel.

?Chris Romano

?