Years ago, we ran a race in Findlay, Ohio and before the race I saw one of my heroes, Rick Ferkel, talking to a bunch of drivers at the drivers meeting.
Years ago, we ran a race in Findlay, Ohio and before the race I saw one of my heroes, Rick Ferkel, talking to a bunch of drivers at the drivers meeting.
I slowly slid over to the group he was talking with and pretended that I was part of that band of real hardcore racers of the day, listening and nodding my head every time something was said.
Rick was about seven feet tall back in those days, with big arms and shoulders needed to throw those old sprint cars into those rough and heavy race tracks.
Rick was one of those original outlaws, like Steve Kinser, Sammy Swindell, Doug Wolfgang and a bunch of others, who ran all over the country with not a lot of engine and tire rules.
Rick was winning sprint races from the east coast to Ascot Park in California, earning the nickname “The Ohio Traveler” while I, on the other hand, was just starting out in my career and my life was just one tent from being a circus.
I was just happy to be able to put ice in all the real racers‘ drinks and laugh at everything they said.
Anyway, that day in Findlay I heard one of the drivers call Rick a “superstar” and Rick immediately corrected him and said, “There are no superstars, only super cars.” That thought stuck with me throughout the years, and today I think it still carries a lot of merit.
Today, more than ever, it seems like the car is the biggest part of the total package it takes to win races.
I got a call the other day from Spike Gillespie, a famous racer from out east, who is one of my favorite guys to hear from as he always has a lot of great stories from the good old days.
As most people know, Spike was the nephew of the famous band leader Dizzy Gillespie, and as a kid traveled around the east coast with Uncle Diz‘s band. He even filled in playing the harp when they were short musicians. As Spike got older, he decided to give the harp life up and actually started midget racing in 1965.
He only ran three races before his other uncle, Sam, called and he was off for the next three years to serve his country in the Army during a period when Vietnam was raging and the certainty of going there was quite high.
Spike told me he was originally sent to Thailand to be a radio operator. He only knew how to turn the knobs when he first got there, but soon learned how to get all the rock and roll stations without any help.
I considered myself a radio operator back in that time period of 1966-69 also, but I only had to know what a couple of knobs did to get a couple of channels like WLS and WCFL out of Chicago to listen to the great DJ Larry Lujak spinning the Vietnam War songs like Fortunate Son and Run Through The Jungle by Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Unlike Spike, though, no one was shooting at me.
While in Thailand, Spike told me he somehow got his hands on the bible of all auto racing back then, National Speed Sport News, and read about one of his favorite drivers of all time, Jimmy Caruthers, who at that time was also in the U.S. Army.
Spike read where Jimmy was on leave from the Army for a few weeks, came back to Manzanita to run one of his dad‘s famous midgets and won the USAC race there.
In his interview after winning the race, he said he had to leave the following day to go to Thailand and finish his service in the Army.
Spike said that after reading this he thought he would see if by some chance Jimmy might have come to his unit, and went down to the division where they had incoming troops getting signed in to ask the registration guy if there was a guy named Caruthers that had come through. The registrar checked his list of new recruits.
He finally looked out the window and pointed at the line of new men and said, “Do you see that guy standing fourth in line? That‘s Jimmy Caruthers.”
Spike went outside and slid in behind Jimmy and leaned forward and said, “Anybody around here ever been to Manzanita Speedway?”
Jimmy snapped around with a big smile on his face. Ironically, it turned out Jimmy was also a radio operator and he and Spike got to be pretty good friends through the years.
It always fascinated me how great each one of the Caruthers family was in racing — they all made it to the top of their sport. I have wondered so many times what Danny Caruthers‘ career would have been with all his super talent before he left us after one season in USAC on that fateful night at Corona, Calif.
After his active duty in the Army, Spike returned to his hometown of Bloomsburg, Pa., and began his lifelong career in the midgets.
I remember seeing him for the first time when we ran the Daytona Beach Memorial Stadium one year and he was part of that East Coast bunch of racers like Buck Buckley, Doug Craig, Leigh Earnshaw and Dutch Schaefer, along with a whole lot of ARDC drivers and guys from Dutch‘s group, the ARC club.
We had drivers from all over the country back then, and it was a week of all-out fun and racing with five straight nights of racing on the small cinder-surfaced track.
I sure wish we could go back and run that week again, as it was a small version of the week of the Chili Bowl today.
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