Taking advantage of this partnership, Frye Jr. captured the SLARA title. Much like his father, he also balanced a full-time job with racing. He worked splicing and repairing cable for Southwestern Bell Telephone.
As the 1974 season neared its end, Frye Jr. was at a crossroads. When Middleton and Frye Jr. discussed plans for the following year, Middleton said he wanted to race with USAC and wanted Frye Jr. to be the driver. On one hand it was a dream come true. In those years success in USAC could still get aspiring and talented drivers rides at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Then came a fateful meeting.
“I went home and mom and dad were at the table and at that point I have been with the telephone company seven years,” Frye Jr. remembered. “I told my parents that I was quitting my job so I could race with USAC. Mom was crying and dad was cussing like you would not believe. Then dad picked up the phone and called George and told him that I am not going to do that.”
Frye Jr. was angry, but by the time he walked away from his job after 32 years, he understood the wisdom of his father‘s logic.
As his career moved forward, he diverged a bit from his father‘s path. Danny Frye Sr. might do some different things from time to time but in his son‘s words, “He was a midget man.”
Frye Jr. never left the midgets behind. In fact, he and Ken Schrader dominated the action at Lake Hill Speedway for several years, but he spent considerable time in sprint cars and competed in the USAC Silver Crown Series. Frye attended the first official World of Outlaws race at Devil‘s Bowl Speedway in 1978. In 1980, he was the high-points sprint car driver at Tri-City Speedway in Illinois.
It seems fair to suggest drivers often remember races that got away more than they do the ones they won. For Frye Jr., there is good reason for him to ruminate a bit on one specific feature that slipped through his fingers.
It was Jan. 9, 1988, and the scene was the second annual Chili Bowl Nationals in Tulsa, Okla. He was riding high after winning the preliminary night feature.
He was leading the Saturday night finale when family friend Scott Hatton passed him on the 16th lap.
“Scotty had that Volkswagen and it lost oil pressure two laps from the end,” Frye Jr. explained. “I told him later if I would have known what the Chili Bowl meant today, you wouldn‘t have won that race. I had him dead to rites several times and could have parked him. We were good friends and I had driven for his dad. But I could have done it.”
After the race, Chili Bowl co-promoter Emmett Hahn told Frye that if the event survived it had the chance to be the biggest midget race in the nation.
Frye had a disappointing end to a 1998 race at Macon Speedway and decided it was time to step away from driving. Raising a son, also named Danny, his life was filled with watching his son compete in a variety of sports. While the third generation of Fryes is not technically Danny Frye III, nearly everyone refers to him by that name.
Like his father and grandfather, Danny Frye III caught the racing bug early on.
He first recalls watching his father race at the 1995 Chili Bowl and says he was captivated by it all. The family also loves recounting a time he was watching his dad race at Sweet Springs (Mo.) Motorsports Complex.
“My aunt says it felt like it was 98 degrees,” said Frye III, “and I am sitting in the stands wearing one of my dad‘s old helmets. When the races would start, I would snap down the visor and act like I was driving.”
Although he had an affinity for racing, he first excelled at bowling, winning a Missouri State championship while in high school and earned a college scholarship at Lindenwood University. However, before he entered college, he got his first chance to drive a midget.
In 2008, father and son headed to I-70 Speedway in Odessa, Mo., for a two-day show with the Southern Midget Racing Series with racing on a dirt track, located on the grounds of the asphalt oval.
Danny Frye III recalled that his father had invested in all the appropriate safety equipment and told his son, “It‘s not a question of if you will get upside down, it is a question of when.”