SAN DIEGO — West Coast stock car driver Ron Esau died on Monday. He was 67 years old.
Esau competed in various NASCAR series for more than 25 years and ran his final race in 1998.
Esau made his first ARCA Menards Series West start at Riverside Int’l Raceway in 1975 and ran 55 races in the series through the years.Â
Esau ran only two full-time seasons in 1983 and ’84. He was the series rookie of the year in 1983 and finished fifth in the championship in ’84 with five top-five and eight top-10s in 11 races.Â
He also competed in 17 NASCAR Cup Series events and six NASCAR Camping World Truck Series races.
But his best success came in the NASCAR Southwest Series for late models during the 1980s and ’90s. Esau won the series championship in 1986, while driving for Jack Lee. He won four of his six Southwest Series races that season.