WHITELAND, Ind. – H. Eugene ‘Gene’ Nolen, a two-time winner of the Pay Less Little 500 as a car owner and a USAC Silver Crown Series team owner for parts of four decades, died Wednesday.
Nolen was 77.
He had been fighting kidney failure and pulmonary fibrosis for roughly a year, and recently deveoped pneumonia before his passing at Kindred Long-Term Hospital in Indianapolis, where he was admitted about three weeks earlier.
Born in the heart of the Hoosier State in 1943, Nolen developed a passion for engineering at an early age and used that passion to build Nolen Racing into a championship-caliber open-wheel team after graduating from Arsenal Tech High School in Indianapolis in 1961.
He first appeared in the USAC Silver Crown Series owner standings in 1989, but as the years progressed his cars and drivers steadily moved up the ranks to become some of the best in the division.
Nolen’s 16 career Silver Crown wins as an owner rank eighth all time, and he finished among the top five in the series entrant standings six times – including each of the past five seasons.
The first driver to bring Nolen to the top echelon of the sport was Johnny Parsons Jr., who put Nolen’s iconic No. 20 fifth in points in 1992, but Nolen fielded many of the sport’s elite drivers during his tenure.
Among Nolen’s Silver Crown pilots were the late Tony Elliott, Jim Keeker, Tony Stewart, three-time USAC national champion Bryan Clauson, USAC Triple Crown champion Jerry Coons Jr., Chris Windom and Kody Swanson, who won the Silver Crown driver’s title with Nolen in 2019.
Elliott won the 200th Silver Crown race in series history at the controls of Nolen’s machinery in 1998 at the Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track, while Clauson steered the iconic entry in 2014 when Nolen returned to the series after a brief hiatus.
Regarded as “the best Silver Crown owner to never win the crown,” Nolen’s cars finished third (2015), fourth (2016), second (2017), third (2018) and second (2019) in the series entrant points over the last half of the decade.
Particularly bittersweet was last year’s runner-up status, where Swanson won the driver’s title but lost out on the owner’s championship after the Nolen No. 20 suffered engine issues with multiple power plants at the DuQuoin (Ill.) State Fairgrounds in September, forcing Swanson to another car for the main.
Though Nolen never hoisted a championship, his drivers did win some of the Silver Crown division’s most historic races, including the legendary Hoosier Hundred three times at the now-defunct Indiana State Fairgrounds dirt mile.
Elliott won the 2000 and 2001 runnings in Nolen’s equipment, with local favorite Shane Hollingsworth adding a third victory for Nolen in the 2009 Hoosier Hundred.
But where Nolen had largely suffered heartache in Silver Crown competition in recent years, he made up for it with jubilation in asphalt sprint car racing at the legendary Anderson (Ind.) Speedway quarter mile.
After more than 25 years of futility in the track’s crown jewel event – the Pay Less Little 500 – Nolen finally tasted the sweet milk of victory during the 2018 edition, with Swanson at the controls of a V6-powered, non-winged sprint car out of his stable.
Ironically, Swanson’s win that year came after he passed Hollingsworth with 23 laps left in the event. Nolen wasn’t concerned, though. His car was finally in victory lane at one of the biggest sprint car races in the land.
“It was a constant thing (afterward) where people would come up and talk to me and congratulated me. I don’t think anybody was mad that I won the race,” Nolen said with a smile. “It’s hard to explain the feelings you have.
“I was happy for me, but I was happy for my crew, too, because these guys have been with me a long, long time.”
Swanson’s follow-up act from last May was even more impressive. He and Hollingsworth combined to lead 499 of the 500 laps in the 2019 Little 500, with Swanson winning for Nolen in back-to-back years.
Prior to starting his racing operation, Nolen helped found Manar Inc., a custom plastic injection molding company, in 1974. Today, Manar Inc. has manufacturing plants in Indiana, Tennessee and China.
But racing was his love, and Nolen embodied everything good about the sport through the years.
“In my race business, the most important thing is to go out and have fun with the people,” Nolen told the Franklin, Ind., Daily Journal in 2018. “If it wasn’t fun, or I didn’t find enjoyment in it, I wouldn’t do it.”
Nolen was preceded in death by his wife Rosie, who passed away in 2005, and is survived by his son Greg (wife Tisha), daughter Tammy Sue Wagner (husband Mark) and four granddaughters: Whitney McAtee, Emily Wagner, Jenna Wagner and Amelia Rose Nolen.
The last driver to wheel an on-track entry for Nolen Racing under Gene’s leadership, Swanson released a statement Wednesday night and had nothing but praise for the white-haired, gentlemanly car owner who gave him a chance when DePalma Motorsports closed its doors after the end of the 2018 season.
“Gene was a friend to so many of us, and a serious competitor,” Swanson said. “He was more than a car owner; he was someone that you raced with and you became family. I know that he was proud of his team, his family, and the people that he was able to race with throughout an incredible career. Gene was a great friend to me, and wonderful to my wife and children as well.
“I’m grateful to have had the chance to race with him, get to know him, and be part of his Nolen Racing family,” Swanson continued. “He will be dearly missed.”
Nolen’s son Greg confirmed Wednesday night that, in accordance with his father’s wishes, Nolen Racing will continue to field cars for Swanson in the USAC Silver Crown Series.
The team will also field a pair of V-6 powered sprint cars at the Little 500 in Nolen’s memory, one for Swanson and a second for Hollingsworth.