“My mom stayed in the hospital with me, but my dad and friend, Rich Hasenflue, went over to Anderson to watch the Little 500. I remember dad calling the hospital and telling my mom the car had won the Little 500 with Larry Dickson. I remember being happy for Ernie Ensign for winning the Little 500,” Frey noted. “But on the other hand, it was probably the lowest weekends I ever had in my life. Here I am laying in the hospital and my car, so to speak, won the Little 500. I was pretty low at that moment. I felt like that should have been my win.”
Frey was out for three months but was also in the process of getting divorced from Ensign‘s daughter.
“In August, I won back-to-back ASA races at Indianapolis Raceway Park and Anderson. I thought this is great. I‘m right back where I was before,” Frey said. “But I could sense that the relationship with the family had changed. Even though we won a couple races right off the bat, it wasn‘t going to be the same as it was before the accident, given the fact I was divorcing their sister and Ernie‘s daughter. My wife and all her brothers worked on the car with their dad. There was no animosity, but my relationship had changed with the family. There was never really any big blow up, but I knew it wouldn‘t last much longer.”
During the offseason, Frey was out of the ride and Ensign hired Dickson to chase the USAC championship in 1975.
For the next four years, Frey bounced from ride to ride while following the USAC sprint car circuit on both dirt and asphalt.
“As soon as I got out of the No. 37 car, it didn‘t take me long to realize I wasn‘t the hero. It was the car that was the hero,” Frey said. “I don‘t want to bad mouth anyone‘s cars that I drove, but they weren‘t front-running cars. I made a mistake.
“I shouldn‘t have jumped from all these different cars thinking that I was going to be able to continue winning like I had with Ernie Ensign,” Frey added. “It didn‘t do my career any good. I went from winning races to struggling to make the feature in some of those cars.”
One bright spot is he also found a ride with Urbie Durnwald for races at Sandusky and Lorain when his schedule permitted in 1975. Durnwald had no desire to travel but it gave Frey a chance to race local when USAC was off. Frey won regularly in Durnwald‘s Ford-powered sprinter.
“His car was such a sweet handling car. But it was way underpowered with that Ford motor,” Frey remembered. “Urbie was meticulous with the thing. We ran a few USAC shows in 1976 with the car. Urbie couldn‘t travel like the UASC schedule required. He couldn‘t afford it or take time off work. We mainly just ran local with it.”
Durnwald would play a key part of Frey‘s success a few years later.
Frey teamed with Michigan car owner Howard Stone and his Lloyd Shores-built car for USAC races in 1979. Although they never won a race, they were fast. Frey never finished outside of the top five in four starts. Frey regained his confidence and it may have been a pivotal turning point in his career.
Frey and Durnwald united to run the 1980 Little 500. It was Frey‘s first appearance at the race since he qualified on the pole in 1974. With the USAC pavement portion of the schedule quickly dwindling, Frey found himself doing more local stuff with Durnwald.
Frey held a four-lap lead when the car ran out of fuel on lap 497. Though, the crew got the car fureled and restarted, he lost the lead to Bill Roynon, who took the checkered flag first. However, after a scoring check, it was discovered Roynon made only one of the two required pit stops. He was penalized five laps and Frey was declared the winner.
It was a victory he felt he should have gotten six years earlier, but nonetheless, he was now a Little 500 winner.
About a month after his Little 500 victory, Frey got the call of a lifetime.
“Gus Hoffman called me and wanted to know if I‘d run their Indy car at Pocono,” Frey said. “I said, ‘Oh boy, sure thing.‘ I was all over that. They never asked me for any money and I never had to bring any money. It happened right after I won the Little 500. I always thought my Little 500 win is what got me that ride.
“My first time in an Indy Car went terrible. I went out with it and practiced,” Frey continued. “You gotta remember this is when a four-cylinder Offy wasn‘t going to cut it anymore. But shoot, it was my first time and I was just thankful I got a shot at it. The car was pushing. They had set it up that way because it was the safest way for a new guy to get into an Indy car. You don‘t want it loose.
“I came back in and said its pushing. I can‘t get the car to turn. They took the wicker bill off the rear wing. I went out for the next set of practice. I went hauling down the front straightaway and into turn one. Without that wicker on the rear wing, it broke loose,” Frey said. “I made a rookie mistake. I should have let the car do a lazy spin to keep it off the fence. Instead, I tried to catch it and turn into the looseness. It pivoted and went headfirst into the wall.”
Frey broke his left foot in the crash and was out of action for a while. As a result, Stone put another driver in his car, which led Frey‘s sponsor, Tom Stenger, to withdraw his support from the team.
“They split up,” Frey said. “The choice in my mind was to stay with Howard Stone or stay on Stenger‘s side. I thought I needed to stay with Stenger because he was loyal to me. So now I was without a sprint car ride for USAC stuff.”
The Hoffmans repaired the car and gave Frey another chance to drive the Indy car at Michigan Int‘l Speedway where he finished 17th.
Meanwhile, Frey‘s fortunes were changing on the sprint car side of things.