BOURCIER: Rooting For The Good Story

INDIANAPOLIS – There is no cheering in the press box, some old sportswriter decreed, and the phrase went into the language. Of course, it was dubious from the start.

Certainly, no one holding media credentials to a sporting event ought to cheer out loud; it’s just bad form. But anytime you carry a notepad into a press box — or a pit area, or a race shop — you find yourself rooting for the good story.

Here was Brayden Fox on the afternoon of Saturday, June 1, seated in a function room at Iowa’s Knoxville Raceway. With him were his dad, Brad, and his uncle, Steve. They were there to see Jon Stanbrough, whose career included a magnificent stint aboard the Fox family No. 53 car, inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.

Brayden checked a weather app to see what was happening in Putnamville, Ind., some 425 highway miles to the east. Cloudy, temps in the 60s. Saturday nights in Putnamville mean sprint car racing at Lincoln Park Speedway, where at that moment Brayden was atop the point standings.

Track championships are hard to come by, and Brayden Fox has never won one. Most folks would have expected him to stick close to home and look after that points lead. But most folks don’t know enough about these Foxes.

They race out of a two-car garage beside the Pittsboro home shared by Steve and Brad. Down a couple of stairs, a laundry room doubles as Steve’s engine-building space; washing machine over here, pistons over there. Brayden and his fiancé, Amanda Eltzeroth, live nearby, so he’s always around. The other night, a fierce summer rain drummed on the roof as the three of them discussed the Hall of Fame situation.

“When it was announced (in December) that Jon was getting inducted,” Brad recalled, “we said, ‘We’re not going to miss that.’ He was such a big part of our racing.”

Brayden said, “Then we won the first race of the season at Putnamville. As the (induction) date was coming, we were leading the points, and I didn’t want to miss a race. But we were all thinking: We have to go. It’s important.”

Steve Fox remembered another Indiana sprint car hero reinforcing what he was already thinking. “Kevin Thomas told me, ‘You and Brad need to be there.’ And Jon deserved that respect from us,” Steve Fox said. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

That is how this Fox family operates. They do the right thing and race the right way. It all goes back to the late Galen Fox, dad to Steve and Brad, granddad to Brayden and a 2002 National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductee.

Galen laid his wrenches on sprints and Silver Crown cars that won for Sheldon Kinser, Tom Bigelow, Kenny Jacobs, Danny Smith, Rick Hood, Steve Chassey, Chuck Gurney and Dave Darland. With Kinser, Galen won the 1977 USAC sprint car title; with Darland, he got the 1997 Silver Crown championship.

Galen, who died in 2023, was modest and self-effacing, traits he passed to his sons. Brad was a fine driver; he earned a pair of USAC sprint car victories and was the ’97 track champ at both Putnamville and Bloomington Speedway.

But he and Steve found their niche as car owners, and their understated approach was perfect for Stanbrough, whose Silent Gasser nickname was no accident.

Stanbrough and the Fox car won 20 times in 2006, then 28 in ’07 and kept on rolling. In just over six full seasons, they captured 96 features. On a typical night at the track, said Brad, “we didn’t talk a whole lot about the car. But you could hear in Jon’s voice and see in his eyes how good or bad it was, and we’d just go from there.”

Brayden, 24 now, was a pup in those glory days. He said, “I’d hang around and scrape mud, or whatever they’d let me do.”

These days, dad and uncle Steve let him do a bit more. Generally, Steve tends to the engines, and Brad to the rest of the car.

Brayden, who works weekdays for Garrett Andrews at Competition Suspension Inc., focuses on shocks, looking for the feel he wants. In addition to Lincoln Park, he has won at Bloomington — “my favorite place,” he said — and twice set fast time against 50-car fields at Indiana Sprint Week events.

“The wins have been great,” said Brad. “But as a dad, I’m proud of him no matter how he does. I’m lucky. A lot of kids get to a certain age, and all they want is to go off and do their own thing. Brayden wants to be around me and Steve, working on the car.”

Which brings us back to that June 1 conflict. Since driver, dad and uncle are each capable people, couldn’t they have split for that weekend, with one brother going to Iowa and the other going to Lincoln Park?

“Without both of them,” said Brayden, “I don’t think I’d have wanted to race.”

Steve said, “We do this together.” Case closed.

At Knoxville, they visited the museum to see the plaque marking Galen Fox’s Hall of Fame induction 22 years ago. In the small theater, they watched a 1990 episode of TNN’s “Hidden Heroes” spotlighting Galen’s stewardship of Gohr Racing, which for years fielded Indy cars, Silver Crown entries and sprint cars. It showed Brayden another side of the old-timer who would come to Bloomington Speedway to quietly support his sons and his grandson.

“I could see how important he was to a lot of people,” said Brayden.

At the conclusion of the Hall of Fame luncheon, the youngest Fox gave his phone another look, and he smiled. It was raining back in Putnamville, and the evening’s races had been canceled. He was still leading the points. Doing the right thing hadn’t hurt them a bit.

And there it is, the good story you were rooting for.

THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE July 24 EDITION OF <a href=”https://speedsportinsider.com”>SPEED SPORT INSIDER</a>
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