Not too many years after the Great Compression, when I first started racing, there was nothing that could make me miss a race.
Not too many years after the Great Compression, when I first started racing, there was nothing that could make me miss a race. I thought that if there was a race anywhere or anytime and I had a ride, I was going to be there no matter what else was happening…such as a job, a concussion, lack of money, tow vehicle, or parental or spousal approval. Nothing could keep me from heading out to run this important $125-to-win race. I must admit, I may have missed quite a few important events, some that I never got a chance to do over again. But nothing seemed more important than racing.
Fast forward 52 seasons from my first year of racing (I am not sure how you could do that without a computer, calculator, or smart phone) you would find me still trying to make that big win and retire from midget racing a wealthy man. But, finally, after all these years, last month I broke my mindset of having to be at that important $125-to-win (it‘s still the same amount today if you figure in all the costs of living and travel expenses) and do the unthinkable — I skipped a couple of races to head to Idaho for something I thought was more important than going after that big racing money. I went to Idaho for an “Old Racing Friends Reunion.”
I was invited up to Jeff Heywood‘s house in Careywood, Idaho to spend the week at his beautiful mountain home and hang out with two other old friends, Sleepy Tripp and Nick Gojmeric. For almost 45 years, these three guys have been some of my closest friends on and off the race track. I have shared so many good times and memories with them, including all of us being members of the Broken Neck Club. Each of us has broken our necks at least once, and some even more. So, this invitation was the one invitation I wasn‘t going miss, even if I had to walk to Idaho. As it turned out, I started doing just that when I missed my flight, but only made it three and a quarter miles before returning to the airport.
Back when we were racing together, we saw each other regularly at races all over the country almost weekly and spent a lot of time together off the race track throughout the year, spreading good will to everyone we met. But as the years kept rolling by and the smart ones quit racing around in a circle trying to be the first one to complete the laps ahead of the others, it left me as the last one still standing. And, probably not the smartest one according to some people! And as I wake up now 52 racing seasons later, in 2021, I find that I do not see or talk with these close old buddies nearly as often as I used to, along with so many of my other friends I have known most of my life. So, with this in mind, I knew that this was at the top of my list of things to do.
We all got to Jeff‘s house early in the week and the first order of business was to take out our piece of a hundred dollar bill. Years ago, we met and took a hundred dollar bill and ripped it into four equal pieces. We each took a piece and made the deal that in 40 years we would meet again. Thankfully, 40 years later we were all standing on Jeff‘s deck matching up our pieces of the bill to make that $100 bill whole again. We extended the cashing in date again for another five years, and hopefully all will be able to make it. With that important piece of business out of the way, we spent the next five days doing pretty much nonstop storytelling (all of them 100 percent true and accurate) about all of our years together racing and our “after race” experiences.
Between the bench racing, beautiful views, and Erin Tripp‘s cooking, it seemed like our week was over too quickly and we still had stories to tell, as the beer and whiskey flowed freely.
I first met up with Jeff and Sleepy in the mid-‘70s running USAC midgets around the country. Just a couple of years later, I met Nick when he was still racing USAC and the St. Louis club races. Jeff was driving for his dad, Sleepy and his brother Bobby were driving for their dad, and Nick drove a car he owned with his dad down in Belleville, Illinois. Like myself, they all went on to drive for many other car owners in some of the best rides in the country. All were multi-time champions in various clubs and together won a ton of races.
I remember once when Jeff was driving for his dad indoors and he and Tracey Potter decided to paint whitewalls on their indoor tires with white shoe polish. That lasted just until USAC asked them to take them off! Jeff‘s dad wasn‘t there that day, but back in California, where Jeff grew up, he saw a picture of his car in the National Speed Sport News with the new whitewall look and immediately called Jeff in Indianapolis. He was not too happy and suggested that Jeff not change the appearance again.
Jeff told us the story of growing up in the San Fernando Valley near Hollywood, where his best friend‘s dad was a big movie producer. Jeff said that his friend‘s dad would send a car to pick up Jeff to spend the day at the Paramount Studios with his friend and they would run all over the movie sets for shows like Bonanza and Andy Griffith while the filming was going on. One day he said they sent a car to pick up Jeff to go to “Uncle Groucho‘s” house to spend the day and when he got there, he found out it was Groucho Marx. Jeff was too young to appreciate who Groucho was and was more interested in riding minibikes around the yard and through the house with Groucho‘s nephew.
When Jeff came back to California permanently from running the full USAC schedule and just ran out at Ascot and CRA sprint races, he became a fulltime employee as a fabricator for Dan Gurney‘s All American Eagle Racing shop. He told the story of Dan taking a real interest in his sprint car racing, and how he would come out to Ascot to watch him race on Saturday nights. Then on Monday morning Dan would come out to Jeff‘s work bench for a racing debriefing of everything that went on the previous weekend. Dan being a real technical man, asked Jeff how many RPM‘s he was turning his sprint car at the end of each straightaway and Jeff told him, “How would I know, I was too busy trying to save my life on each corner to look at the tach!”
Sleepy had a million great stories from his great career winning close to 200 USAC National and West Coast races along with a couple of National championships. I can‘t begin to tell all the stories we all had over the years, but one of my favorites was when Ted Tracey, the many-time New Zealand midget champion, decided to come to America one year and needed to rent a race car to run for the summer. He called Sleepy and made a deal to run his car for the season and was to bring it back the way he got it. One night in Erie, Colorado, a big and fast half-mile dirt track, Sleepy and Ted were in the main event and were battling for the lead. Erie had no fences around the high banks then, and Sleepy and Ted made contact which sent Ted barrel-rolling Sleepy‘s rental car over the bank and getting his ticket punched to the Erie Hospital with a broken arm. Sleepy and Ted remained friends after that, but Ted still had to bring the car back the way he got it.
My old friend Nick Gojmeric and I also have many tales that I will have to do more on later, but we became close friends in the mid- to late-‘70s, with Nick racing his car and constantly helping me at the track. Nick was one of the smartest car owners and drivers I ever met, and when he retired from racing midgets in the early ‘80s he became the USAC National midget owner champion in 1982, the same year I won the USAC driver championship. The irony to me was that without Nick‘s help when I needed it, even though we were competitors, I probably wouldn‘t have won the driver title.
We were so close as friends that when it was time for my USAC car owner, Lee Carey, and Nick, who battled all year for the USAC midget title, to go to season-ending races in California, Lee towed Nick‘s car behind our cube van with our car to the coast. Nick won the USAC car owner title and Lee ended up second. Nick was also the St. Louis Midget Auto Racing midget championship as a driver and owner back in the late ‘70s and went on to win many big USAC races with a variety of big name drivers, including Doug Wolfgang, Ronnie Shuman, Kenny Schrader, Sleepy Tripp, and Dean Shirley.
As the week drew to a close and we had relived 45 years of memories we all shared, we felt young again. The sad part is that it all had to end and we all headed back to four corners of the country — back to our homes and daily lives. However, the three smart ones still had no desire to add to their existing win totals in racing.
As I sat back on the airplane on the long ride back to Wisconsin via a stop in Minneapolis, I thought about how age has a way of changing your thinking. It seems like the older you get the more you think about those good old days and how much you miss seeing your true friends. Oftentimes we put off calling or seeing these friends, wrongly believing you have something more important going on or just don‘t have the time to do it. But our trip to Idaho gave me a bit of a wakeup call. To paraphrase Clint Eastwood, that the old man is still knocking at our door and we are still desperately trying to resist that temptation to open the door and let him in.
The famous country singer from Austin, Texas and best friend of the late Waylon Jennings, Bill Nelson, sings a song called “Old Friends. “I listened to that song for 24 hours straight when I got back home, thinking about the week I had just spent. In the song, Bill talks about his close old friends and I like to believe that it is about
their racing experiences. He ends the song with a verse that says, “Lord when my work is done, bless my life with at least one old friend.” Well Bill, I don‘t know about you, but I have been blessed. Because I, for sure, have at least three old friends. What a lucky man I am! KO
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