WEEDSPORT, N.Y. — Three-time Mr. DIRT series champion Tim Fuller, second-generation Canadian champion Danny O’Brien and Bob Cameron, the post-war pioneer driver out of Western New York, will be inducted into the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame in July.
These three racing legends add their names to a stellar list of modified standouts that was started in 1992 when the hall of fame was established on the Cayuga County Fairgrounds.
Also being honored at the induction ceremonies are Glenn Hyneman, Randy Williamson, Paul Kuhl, Patrick Donnelly and Laurie Fallis, who will all receive special awards.
The 31st annual induction ceremonies honoring the class of 2023 will take place on July 13 at 7 pm in the Northeast Dirt Modified Museum and Hall of Fame, on the grounds of the state-of-the-art Weedsport Speedway.
Tim Fuller
The middle son of a North Country racing family, Fuller learned the game at two tracks that couldn’t have been more different: Can-Am, one of the biggest, fastest joints in the region, and the tighter, more technical Evans Mills. That’s where the Watertown, New Yorker acquired the skills to get the job done. He put in two years in pure stocks prior to building a sportsman car in 1990, then moving up to 358s the following season. Fielding his own equipment, despite racing on a shoestring, Fuller became a victory-lane steady at Brewerton, Cornwall, Weedsport, Frogtown, Fulton and Brockville, in addition to Can-Am and Evans Mills, taking titles at Evans Mills in 1992 and 1993 and the 1993 Mr. DIRT 358 Series championship.
Fuller’s big break came at the tail end of 1999, when Bob Faust tapped him to drive his well-funded M1 Modified. By 2002, the win records were solidly in the double digits—and it was all uphill from there. Together, Fuller and Faust were good for 61 victories, including a Rolling Wheels 200, back-to-back Fulton 200s, DIRT Series races in N.Y., N.J., Pa. and Canada, and the ’04 Syracuse big-block classic.
Wins brought titles: the 2003 Mr. DIRT 358 Series and 2005 Mr. DIRT overall Modified crowns, the 2004 Empire DIRT Series championship, four titles at Fulton and two at Weedsport.
Fuller’s career record currently stands at 260 wins at an impressive 45 tracks in 14 states, two Canadian provinces and Australia.
Danny O’Brien
O’Brien’s father Pat raced before brother Pat picked up the reins. Now, Danny O’Brien will follow his older sibling into the Hall of Fame. The middle O’Brien son had been helping out on his brother Pat’s team when he decided to take the wheel himself, making his debut in the headlining 358 Mod class in 1987.
“The Pocket Rocket,” as he’s called, went out and won three times in his rookie year—once at Brockville and two in a row at Cornwall. By the early 1990s, O’Brien was full in, racing Edelweiss on Thursday nights, Brockville Friday, Can-Am on Saturdays and Cornwall on Sundays—all while holding down a full-time job at the family business, Pat’s Radiator.
More aggressive than his even-keeled brother Pat, O’Brien willed himself into the winner’s circle. Currently credited with 225 career wins at 11 tracks in two countries, O’Brien was the 1994 DIRT big-block champion at Cornwall, where he also won four 358 titles; a four-timer in Brockville’s Ogilvie’s 358 Modified Triple Crown Series; a two-time winner of both the Doiron Engineering Cup at Cornwall and Mohawk’s Memorial Cup Series; and the 2005 Lucas Oil Canadian Dirt Series champ.
At Brockville, he’s been close to unbeatable, banking 14 track titles and 99 victories, the all-time record. But much of that almost never happened. At Can-Am on Labor Day weekend in 1996, O’Brien was involved in a freak and heart-stopping wreck that ripped the cage right off his car and sent his helmet flying down the track. O’Brien miraculously survived the accident and subsequent surgeries to save his eyesight and reconstruct his face. The following April, he was back in the driver’s seat. Within a month, he was back in the winner’s circle.
Calling it quits at the end of 2018, O’Brien was coaxed to come back in late August of 2021, to sub for Dalton Slack. Fresh out of retirement, he won the Applefest Shootout at Brighton Speedway. This year, running a limited schedule with Steve Polite, O’Brien is hell-bent to put one more feather in his cap: his 100th win at Brockville.
Bob Cameron
Post-war era wunderkind Bob Cameron was a pioneer in the formative years of the sport in more ways than one. As a driver, Cameron was nothing short of spectacular at Buffalo’s Civic Stadium where SRO crowds topping 20,000 went wild as he willfully racked ’em up—21 checkered flags in 24 starts, one season, always starting far back in the field and bulling his way through wreck-infested features.
That hard-nosed command wasn’t confined to Buffalo: racing under his own name, Bobby Mack or Bob Carran, Cameron won on the dirt at county fairgrounds in Monroe, Chautauqua, Livingston, Cortland, Genesee, Vernon, Afton, Naples and Jamestown; on both dirt and asphalt at Brewerton; and on the blacktop at Spencer and Oswego.
He wrapped up the 1949 NASCAR New York State championship—his crowning achievement—with a decisive 50-lap rout at Vernon. He won the 1950 track title at Brewerton, and was the inaugural victor at Spencer’s 1955 opener. Even a stint with the U.S. Army didn’t stop him: while stationed in Baltimore in 1951, Cameron managed to race four nights a week, winning Westport Stadium’s season championship.
As a mover-and-shaker outside the seat, Cameron was in the core group aiming to unionize area NASCAR drivers in the early 1950s, earning promoter Ed Otto’s sworn wrath; in his push to make the sport safer, Bob cut back his schedule in 1956 to become a NASCAR Safety Inspector. Cameron lost his life in a wreck during warmups at Lancaster Speedway on June 4, 1960. He was 36 years old.