RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Veteran Legend Car driver Silas Hiscock Sr. succumbed to injuries he suffered in a crash during practice Saturday afternoon at Riverhead Raceway.
Hiscock, 78, impacted the fourth-turn wall heavily during a practice session. It is the first in-car fatality at the quarter-mile Long Island oval since 1994 when NASCAR Modified driver Bill Quilligan, 45, perished while racing off the second turn in a non-contact incident after suffering what was determined to be heart failure.
Silas Hiscock Sr. was racing his car through the third and fourth turn at the time of the crash with the exact circumstances that led up to the impact still not fully known.
Once removed from the car Hiscock was rushed to Peconic Bay Medical Center just east of the raceway where he was treated and evaluated. Once stabilized it was determined by the attending doctors Hiscock was transferred to Stony Brook University Hospital, a Level 1 Trauma Center, where he died Sunday night.
To call Silas Hiscock Sr. an old school racer would be accurate with Silas enjoying essentially two different racing careers.
Back in the day, Silas ran sportsman and modifieds at Riverhead (N.Y.) Raceway in the 1950s and 1960s, earning his lone modified win on July 8, 1961.
After stepping away from the game for a while, Silas heard about a new class coming to Riverhead Raceway that he thought would be able to return him to the game he loved, Legend Cars.
What made returning to racing more attractive to Silas this time around was the fact his sons Silas Jr. and Will joined him on the track often racing side by side.
Hiscock’s passing is the fourth death at the track in the past 25 years. In 1999, Walt Edsall, the NASCAR chief steward at the track was stuck by a wheel that came off a NASCAR Modified during a heat race, Walt died a few weeks later at the hospital. In 2002, popular charger driver and track sponsor Larry “King” Costa died from injuries suffered in a fall from a golf cart at the track.