Fred Lorenzen was an 18-year-old, Elmhurst, Ill., resident when he got involved in stock car racing at Chicago’s Soldier Field in 1953.
Lorenzen, who went on to a star-studded career in NASCAR racing, died Wednesday at the age of 89.
The racing newcomer was among the top “amateur” drivers in action at the huge arena, known for being the site of everything from music concerts to the annual college All Star football game with auto racing being a big part of the stadium’s summer schedule year after year.
Born on Dec. 30, 1934, Lorenzen was the winner of an eight-lap “amateur” race at Soldier Field on Sept. 2, 1953 while a couple of his future Chicago area late model stock car foes Tom Pistone and Gene Marmor were winners of twin 20-lap main events that night.
It seemed like it was only a few years before that Lorenzen was scooting around the streets of his hometown in a lawnmower engine-powered race car that he had built with the help of some friends.
The story is that police warned his parents to keep young Freddy off the streets as passing motorists could hardly see that small, low-slung, primitive racer.
Some street and drag racing and a demolition derby or two followed with Lorenzen, a graduate of York High School, finally trying his luck in the “amateur” stock car races at Soldier Field.
A few years later – 1956 to be exact, Lorenzen was competing in the late model action at Soldier Field as well as trying his luck in both NASCAR and Untied States Auto Club stock car competition. He had purchased a Chevy from Pistone and raced it both on area short tracks and also on the bigger tracks of the NASCAR and USAC circuits.
He made seven starts in NASCAR competition in 1956 and won a whopping $235 for the year. He also competed in three USAC races at the famed Milwaukee Mile at State Fair Park in West Allis, Wis.
In 1956, Lorenzen’s ’56 Chevy carried him to the overall season track championship at Soldier Field and two feature wins at O’Hare Stadium, which was located just southwest of the intersection of Irving Park and Manheim Road in Schiller Park, close to his Elmhurst home.
Lorenzen garnered the Soldier File title with two feature wins.
In 1957, Lorenzen and mechanic Jack Sullivan had a ’57 Oldsmobile “Golden Rocket” 88 two-door sedan ready for competition. The Oldsmobile, carrying the No. 50 on its doors, was used in both USAC and short-track competition.
Putting his NASCAR career on the “back burner,” Lorenzen raced the Oldsmobile in USAC competition, destroying it in a wreck at Trenton, N.J., on Labor Day.
Lorenzen captured seven features at O’Hare in 1957. He won his first feature of the year on June 23, wheeling his Oldsmobile to the victory. He capped off the season by winning the track’s 100-lap season title race in Jake and Joe Talarico’s ‘57 Chevy on Aug. 25. Lorenzen’s Chevy carried the unique sponsorship of Peter Troost Monuments.
1958 was Lorenzen’s year to shine both on the local and national levels as he won the O’Hare Stadium late model championship and the USAC stock car title. The 23-year-old Lorenzen, a carpenter by trade, won 50 O’Hare events during the year, 17 of them being features. He piloted the Talarico 1957 Chevy No. 28, winning nine of the first 11 features held that season at the high-banked, quarter-mile, paved oval.
Highlighting Lorenzen’s feature was the 100-lap O’Hare Stadium “leg” of the special “Chicago City Series” which pitted top drivers from O’Hare, Soldier Field and Raceway Park near Blue Island in three special races, one at each track. Lorenzen also won the “City Series” feature at Soldier Field, but finished second in the overall standings to “City Champion” Bill Lutz.
Competing in a fresh 1958 Ford, Lorenzen surprised a lot of people by capturing the USAC stock car crown in 1958, winning five races out of the seven races he entered.
With financial help from Lou Miller of Lou and Ev’s County Line Pizza, he won at Milwaukee on July 13 to score his first ever USAC victory. He defeated Pistone and Marshall Teague in the 150-mile event after setting fast time during time trials the day before. Lorenzen’s payday was a “hefty” $4,920.
Driving his Ford No. 28, Lorenzen duplicated his winning performance at Milwaukee on Aug. 17, pretty much never running worse than third all day in a 150 lapper. Lorenzen then won a 100-miler on the one-mile dirt oval at DuQuoin, Ill. on Aug. 30 and traveled to the one-mile paved oval at Trenton, N.J., the next day to score another on Labor Day.
Lorenzen wrapped up the USAC title with a $4,100 victory on the Meadowdale Int’l Raceways road course in Carpentersville, Ill., on Oct. 19, besting ‘58 Indy 500 winner Jimmy Bryan in the 70-lap/222-mile event over the 3.3-mile road course, noted for its high-banked “Monza Wall.”
Lorenzen repeated his USAC laurels in 1959, winning the organization’s “national” stock car title for the second straight year. Competing in his “trusty” ’58 Ford, Lorenzen entered 13 USAC races and won six.
Back home in 1959, Lorenzen finished third in the points at O’Hare behind champion Lutz, winning four feature races in his Nickey Chevrolet-sponsored “Purple People Eater” ’56 Chevrolet. One of the wins was the 100-lap Chicago City Championship race.
1960 and 1961 saw Lorenzen compete at O’Hare Stadium, making some of his last Chicago area racing appearances. He ended up with 40 feature wins at his “home track.”
Lorenzen returned to NASCAR in 1960, making his first start since 1956. Lorenzen put together a new Ford in the shops of Holman-Moody. Wheeling his 1960 Ford No. 28, Lorenzen, making his first Daytona 500 race, raced to an eighth-place finish after starting fifth in the 68-car field.
Campaigning his car in 10 races, Lorenzen posted three top-five finishes in NASCAR Grand National action with a third at Daytona during the Firecracker 250 on July 4 being his best effort.
Lorenzen saw his career change when he was offered a ride with Holman-Moody on Christmas Eve 1960.
Lorenzen’s Holman-Moody entry was not ready for the 1961 Daytona 500 so a deal was made with Tubby Gonzales to drive Gonzales’ 1961 Ford No. 80 in the 500. Starting 45th, Lorenzen marched up through the field and finished fourth, two laps behind the leaders. He made his first start in a Holman-Moody Ford in the March 26, 1961 Atlanta 500. Lorenzen qualified third and took the lead on lap 34. He set the pace until the 106th lap when a tire blew, sending Lorenzen’s No. 28 into the wall.
In his next start, on April 9, he won what was scheduled to be the Virginia 500 at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. Rain washed out the race after 149 laps. Lorenzen had taken the led from Rex White on lap 119 and was leading when the race was halted. Instead of restarting the race at that point the following week, NASCAR officials paid the field according to a 100-mile race. Lorenzen had his first NASCAR victory with the Virginia 500 rescheduled for later that month.
On May 6, Lorenzen took home top honors in the Rebel 300 convertible race at the Darlington (S.C.) Raceway after a late-race, side-by-side, paint-swapping, battle with Curtis Turner.
“That race was extra special because the track is so very, very special and because I was able to beat Curtis Turner,” said Lorenzen after the race. “You’ve got to remember that for a kid like me, names like Curtis Turner, Joe Weatherly and Fireball Roberts were hero stuff.”
Lorenzen scored his third and final victory of 1961 at Georgia’s Atlanta Int’l Raceway, winning the Festival 250 on July 9. Lorenzen made 15 starts in NASCAR action in 1961 and finished 19th in the points with more than $30,000 in winnings. He was seventh in the final standings in 1962, winning two races in 19 starts and winning just over $46,000, a small sum compared to what he would win the following year.
In 1963, Lorenzen became the talk of NASCAR as the “Golden Boy” won nearly $123,000 in NASCAR Grand National competition, wheeling his Herb Nab-prepared, Lafayette Ford-sponsored, 1963 Holman-Moody Ford to six wins in 29 starts. As a comparison, ’63 NASCAR champion Joe Weatherly took home just shy of $75,000.
In 1964, Lorenzen rang the NASCAR victory bell eight times in just 16 starts, including five consecutive victories during a stretch. The season was marred by the deaths of Weatherly, Jimmy Pardue and Lorenzen’s teammate, Glenn “Fireball” Roberts and his own serious injury accident during a qualifying race for the Firecracker 400 at Daytona.
Teaming with old friend and mechanic Jack Sullivan, Lorenzen won the rain-shortened Daytona 500 in 1965, driving his familiar white and blue-trimmed Holman-Moody Ford No. 28.
Lorenzen scored a total of four victories in 17 starts in 1965. The next season (1966) – it was two wins in 11 races started.
In 1966, Lorenzen toyed with the idea of racing in the Indianapolis 500 even putting in some practice laps in November of 1965. He decided against it.
1967 saw Lorenzen finish second in the Daytona 500 after winning one of the two 100-mile qualifying races a few days earlier. It was Lorenzen’s final NASCAR victory. In April of that year, Lorenzen, suffering from ulcers, announced that he was retiring from stock car racing.
Making no starts in either 1968 or 1969, Lorenzen returned to NASCAR racing in 1970 and competed in seven races and 14 in 1971. He was set to drive the Wood Brothers Mercury in the Darlington 500 on Labor Day, 1971.
During a practice run, Lorenzen crashed exiting turn four and suffered several broken bones and a concussion.
Lorenzen’s final year in NASCAR Cup Seies racing was 1972 as he made eight starts with three third-place finishes. The final race of his NASCAR career was Sept. 24, 1972 at Martinsville with Lorenzen starting fifth and finishing 27th in a Hoss Ellington-owned 1972 Chevrolet Monte Carlo No. 28.
After racing, Lorenzen became a successful real estate broker, working out of his office near his home in Elmhurst. In all, Lorenzen made 158 NASCAR races and won 26 with 33 pole awards.
“I quit way too early,” said Lorenzen in 1985. “I was good for another five or six years. I was at my prime, but I’d won about everything there was to win and I had plenty of money. I was sick with stomach ulcers, and I was tired of traveling and living out of a suitcase. Most of all, the spark was gone; the candle was out; the king (Fireball Roberts) was dead. His death had a great influence and impact on me. I always wanted to be better than he was, so he pushed and drove me to excel.”
Lorenzen was named one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers in 1998 and was elected to the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015.
