INDIANAPOLIS — Of all the characters who have colored the racing landscape over the past half-century, none were as complex and unique as Randy Sweet.
Sweet, a championship driver and the founder and owner of Sweet Manufacturing, died peacefully in his sleep on Nov. 8 at age 72. It was a quiet ending to a loud and raucous life.
From the beginning, Sweet was a broke-the-mold character. He danced to a tune that was beyond the pitch of normal human hearing and saw things nobody else could see. He was equal parts brilliant, erratic, mystifying and colorful. The ride was perpetually bumpy but in the end, he will be remembered as one of the most important technical contributors in racing history.
Sweet began racing in the early 1960s and quickly emerged as a frequent late model winner in his native Michigan, a local hero at tracks such as Berlin Raceway and Kalamazoo Speedway. He also raced extensively with ASA and scored numerous track championships.
During the 1980s, the flamboyant Sweet applied large Plexiglas panels to his “rocket car” late model and barnstormed throughout the Midwest, shattering speed records everywhere he appeared. Arriving at the track in a limousine and living like a rock star, Sweet raised the bar in terms of promotion and presentation.
But promotion, hype and outrageous living didn’t define Sweet, not by a long shot. A gifted thinker, he created steering and suspension equipment that revolutionized the sport. Sweet developed an early rack-and-pinion setup and then set about building a company that could effectively manufacture and market his products. His iconic red decal — Sweet Mfg. — would ultimately be found on thousands of race cars through the years.
Most of those things — the outrageous Plexiglas panels and the revolutionary steering gears — people already know about Randy Sweet. Beyond that, Sweet’s background — and the factors that he overcame on his path to success — are unknown to most.
A child of difficult circumstances, Sweet had very little formal education. He found himself living on the mean streets of Grand Rapids as a pre-teen, peddling ice cream to survive. In his pocket was an ice pick for self-defense, and on many occasions he bluffed and blustered his way out of a life-threatening jam.
It was an upbringing most of us could never understand or fully appreciate. Sweet had his share of demons; there are no secrets about that. But if you consider his background, you tend to cut him some slack in terms of passing judgment.
Throughout his early life one element helped him survive: a brilliant mind. A bona fide genius, Sweet had the ability to comprehend and decipher the complex physics of a race car. Many people think they fully understand the dynamics of making a race car turn; few really do.
Sweet understood. And from the moment he fell in love with racing and race cars, the technical things we do to make a race car turn were never the same again.
A conversation with Sweet could be raw and unvarnished. His personality was strong and forceful. He told you what was on his mind and he didn’t bother to take the edge off his words. But along the way he came to be admired and respected for his passion, his knowledge and his drive.
In his later years Sweet found a unique kinship with a fellow eccentric, Scott Bloomquist. It was Doc Brown and Voodoo Child, their brilliant minds working as one as they applied a century of knowledge and experience to their race car.
They were more than friends, more than partners; they were brothers. They would fuss and argue all the way, but if they carried a trophy back to the hauler at the end of the night there was pure, unabashed joy.
Sweet lived a hard life. If you made a list of all the bad things that can happen to a person, Sweet checked many of them off the list. He faced some very difficult times and was shaped several times by personal tragedy. But through it all he kept reaching, kept pushing, kept seeking. No amount of success could satisfy his enormous appetite for competition. No amount of adversity could defeat him.
Whatever it was that drove him, fueled him, inspired him, and haunted him, I hope he found what he was looking for. I know this much: racing will never forget him.
Rest in peace, Randy. Because of you, these ole race cars will keep on turning.