Ken Hamilton’s induction into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame this June is no accident. As a member of the class of 2023, it’s an honor well deserved.
Hamilton is the father of former IndyCar series competitor Davey Hamilton and grandfather to former King of the Wing and Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series champion Davey Hamilton Jr.
But not only is he the patriarch of a legendary racing family, the elder Hamilton enjoyed an impressive racing career in his own right. In fact, he was one of the most successful pavement sprint car and supermodified drivers to come from the Northwest.
Hamilton began racing at Meridian (Idaho) Speedway when he was 23 years old. He started in the B-Class, which was an entry-level, open-wheel division utilizing inline six-cylinder engines in modifieds. He had traded a 650 Triumph motorcycle for his first race car.
It didn’t take Hamilton long to become competitive, and he claimed rookie-of-the-year honors in 1964.
Winning regularly the following season, Hamilton received offers to drive other cars and started to travel around the Pacific Northwest. Oregon car owner Art Sugia noticed Hamilton and offered him a ride for 1967. He did not disappoint and wheeled Sugia’s car to the 1967 Meridian Speedway A-Class title as well as numerous race victories across the region.
Prior to the 1968 season, Sugia ordered a new Grant King sprint car he intended to let Hamilton drive. Sugia had purchased a King-built roadster years earlier and was quite happy with it. The new car would have a slightly longer wheelbase than cars being built at that time.
The 90-inch wheelbase car was promptly painted pink once it was delivered, which was customary of Sugia cars. It would eventually be known as the “Pink Lady” and is one of the most famous sprint cars of all time.
The new car was dominant in 1968. Hamilton wheeled it to victory in its first night out and won another 16 non-winged pavement sprint car races that season.
Hamilton eventually purchased the car from Sugia and continued to race it for more than five decades. The car was responsible for many of Hamilton’s championships and victories over the years. Among the titles were 10 Meridian Speedway winged sprint car championships.
In addition, the car was responsible for a championship at the now defunct Firebird Super Oval in Emmett, Idaho. Hamilton captured the 1971 Copper Cup Classic at the Salt Lake City Fairgrounds and again a few years later at Bonneville Raceway.
In 1976, Hamilton was invited to South Africa to compete in a series of non-winged pavement sprint car events.
“A guy from South Africa named Louis Faree came over and bought some cars from here in the U.S.,” remembered Hamilton. “Terry Nish and Mike Shaw had raced in South Africa a couple years prior to this. They had wanted some guys to race against the South Africans. Nish called me and Bobby Baker and wanted to know if we wanted to go? ‘Of course, hell yes.’ So that’s how we got invited.
“It was a six-week, all-expenses-paid trip. We also got something like $150 a week in their money. Of course, I owned my own painting business at the time and could do that. But everything was taken care of — motels, airfare, everything. I came back with 100 Rand ($5.50 U.S. dollars),” Hamilton said with a laugh. “When we got to the shop at Johannesburg there were six cars. Out of the six cars, we chose which ones we wanted. I took what I thought would be good and it was fine. We had to maintain them ourselves. We had South Africans that helped us, but the cars all stayed in Johannesburg. We worked on them ourselves.
“The races were all non-winged. I found the other drivers to be nice guys. They were fair drivers. Really no bad ones whatsoever,” Hamilton continued. “It was really fun. The scary thing is I landed in Johannesburg with 3.5 million people at the time, and the cars they gave us, you drove them from the right side.