Many of us reading this will know Doug Auld as the founder and of Sprint Car & Midget magazine, after his run with Open Wheel magazine concluded.
Many of us reading this will know Doug Auld as the founder and of Sprint Car & Midget magazine, after his run with Open Wheel magazine concluded.
His editorials on the state of sprint car and midget racing in his column every month, were looked forward to with the same anticipation that many of us had as we waited for the weekly arrival of National Speed Sport News and Chris Economaki‘s Editor‘s Notebook.
Doug was not only a friend to many of us, but he was true friend to our sport. He had the ability to talk with just about anybody at — or away from — a race track, making those individuals feel at ease.
Doug knew just about everyone in sprint car and midget racing, whether it be the drivers, team owners, track owners and promoters — or the track workers, officials, manufacturers, vendors and race fans that he encountered along the way.
Doug had the ability to communicate with everyone, and his friendly nature made his conversations something all of us all looked forward to.
The friendships that Doug Auld created during his lifetime allowed him to connect the people in sprint car and midget racing like no one else in the business was able to do. Doug was a “go-to” guy for so many people in open-wheel racing. It really is difficult to think about our industry without him.
We as an industry could always rely on Doug to return our calls, have answers for our questions and generally lead us in the right direction to get questions answered correctly. And he advised many of us on exactly how exactly he would handle just about any situation. It was his way of helping get problems solved.
Yes, Doug Auld was on the board of directors here at the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum back in 2008 when my tenure began here.
Not very many people knew all of the different things that Doug Auld did behind the scenes to help make our sport better for us all. He was always an encouraging person to me and our board members, desiring to keep our museum moving forward and not become complacent with our past achievements.
Doug was passionate about wanting to leave our sport and the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum in a better place than where he found it. He cared and it showed.
Behind the scenes in racing, Doug was constantly working to bring new people into our sport and guiding them along the way to make our racing world a better place. He did all of this, while managing to keep Sprint Car & Midget Racing magazine in operation and contributing historical articles, editorials, stories and the best racing pictures he could find into each issue from his many photojournalist friends.
The collection of contributing writers that he assembled for Sprint Car & Midget magazine is second to none.
If you‘ve read this far, you probably realize that Doug Auld‘s ability to connect his many friends in racing with each other was one of his many talents.
But his friendly way of making friends with everyone, wherever he went, and his contributions through both this magazine and the friendships he created along the way, are the things we will remember for many years to come.
RIP, my friend.