BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. — It’s easy to know when you’ve been involved with racing for a long time. People start asking you to compare today’s drivers to stars of the past or to tell them who was the best you’ve seen over the years.
That might sound easy, but we’ve seen scores of great talents since the 1950s and there are a lot of variables, most notably the quality of a particular driver’s equipment through his career. And some drivers who were great on asphalt or dirt really struggled when they switched surfaces, while others, like Lou Lazzaro and Dutch Hoag, were terrific from the ancient fairgrounds dirt ovals to asphalt short tracks and on to Langhorne Speedway and Daytona Int’l Speedway.
Naming a “top 100” would be easy. Narrowing the list to 20 would be difficult and picking the GOAT impossible. But here, in no particular order, are some Northeastern drivers we think would have been stars anywhere. While they were from different eras, they all shared one trait: they were masters in traffic and won consistently from deep in the field. No fast time/start on the pole/lead every lap format around here.
The aforementioned Lazzaro and Hoag were similar but different, with Lazzaro a NASCAR modified stalwart, known for weekend sweeps at Albany-Saratoga Friday, Fonda’s dirt on Saturday and back to asphalt at Utica-Rome on Sunday in a car that sometimes looked like a refugee from the crusher but was mechanically sound.
Hoag performed further west and was the man to beat at Spencer, Lancaster, Shangri-La and Fulton, but early in his career he was also a noted dirt racer, claiming titles at both Monroe County in Rochester and Canandaigua.
Hoag would be near the top of anyone’s list for his record at just one speedway, the treacherous Langhorne mile outside Philadelphia. He won the National Open/Race of Champions on dirt in 1956, ’60 and ’63 and again in 1967 and ’68 after the mile circle was paved. Amazingly, three of those wins came in one-off pick-up rides, the first in Hal Kempeny’s car and two more for Dave McCredy in Bill Wimble’s backup car.
Wimble also goes on the list. Proficient on both dirt and asphalt, he was a two-time NASCAR National Sportsman champion and a winner everywhere he competed. Like the others on the list, he knew what every driver on the track would do in every corner and went through traffic like the seas were parting ahead of him.
Unfortunately, a head injury sustained in a vicious crash at Lebanon Valley prematurely ended a career that took Wimble from a rustic dairy farm on the Canadian border to the 1962 Daytona 500, where he finished 11th in a former Jack Smith dirt car on a single set of tires.
Another two-surface winner was Rene Charland. A four-time NASCAR National Sportsman champion, Charland is often remembered for passing under yellow, jumping starts and his “outgoing manner.”
But along with another New Englander, Eddie Flemke, he schooled New Yorkers with their big, heavy cars in asphalt racing in the 1960s and forced everyone to build lighter cars and get better. He then went back to his dirt roots and was a big winner there as well.
Flemke was the undisputed asphalt master for many seasons, wheeling a variety of somewhat crusty but very light cars to victory lane against all comers. A noted innovator whose “Flemke front-end” spring set-up was the standard on both asphalt and dirt for years, Eddie was also a mentor to a generation of driving stars, most notably Richie Evans, who would surpass Flemke in accomplishments and even provide “Steady Eddie” with a quality ride for a while.
Evan’s 400-plus wins and nine NASCAR National Modified titles put him in elite company automatically, but in a division chock full of talent, he often made winning look easy. His cars were never flashy but they worked, night after night after night, from Canada to the deep South. His reputation as a party animal was substantial, though sometimes exaggerated, but putting him with Dick Trickle, Bugsy Stevens or others of that ilk usually produced notable hijinks.
Two things often overlooked regarding Evans was the way he took to superspeedways like he’d raced there all his life and the fact that for many years he was the highly respected conscience of the modified division, quietly telling those who were out of control to calm down and race, not push and shove.
Another notable talent of the Evans era was Geoff Bodine, who won as many or more races as Evans over a short span before moving south. They staged some epic battles and photos of the duo crashing each other coming to the checkers at Martinsville are classics.
Bodine’s No. 99 Valiant bodied modified was well ahead of the times and a big winner, but cars he later built or rebuilt for Lee Allard and other New Englanders were even faster, with Geoff hitting the 40-plus season win mark with apparent ease.
We’re only part way through our list and recalling one superstar triggers memories of others in the same league, expanding the roster again and again. We’ll look at some other great drivers of the past in our next go around.
