While at the Chili Bowl in Tulsa last month, I met with Bob Baker of the National Sprint Car Racing Hall of Fame & Museum, (NSCRHoF&M), in Knoxville, Iowa. We discussed our various vehicles, interests etc.. Bob said he was trying to put together a tribute display to California's Ascot Speedway which was one of the Big Three in the nation for Sprint Car racing as well as other forms a racing. (Knoxville currently holds the biggest Sprint Car race in the country each August, the Knoxville Nationals.)
We went back and forth as to what vehicles we had at the WAD that might be of interest. I said I would help him but why don't we just do an exchange. The lights went on and we have agreed that in either late March or early April, a car hauler will arrive at WAD with 3 famous Sprint Cars and one famous Silver Crown car. When the hauler heads back to Knoxville, it will be loaded with the Jimmy Oskie's Hank Henry Sprint Car, the Bruce Bromme built Dean Thompson Sprint Car, the Parnelli Jones Midget built by Don Edmunds and our Jawa Speedway Bike motorcycle. The exchange will be through the end of the year.
Scheduled to arrive the week of March 7th, 2022, will be the following vehicles:
1. The worlds fastest sprint car. This Sprint Car ran at over 200 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats in the hands of "The Demon", Damion Gardner who is a 9 time Calif Sprint Car Champion.
2. This is the #16 winged Sprint Car that Erin Crocker,(now Mrs Ray Evernham), drove to victory in the 1984 World of Outlaws Sprint Car race in Tulare, Calif. thus becoming the only female Sprint Car driver to win a World of Outlaws feature.
3. The #32 Sprint Car driven by Cheryl Glass. She was a multi time Sprint Car winner in the short tracks of the northwest in the late 70's and early 80's. At that time, there were very few female Sprint Car drivers as well as very few African American drivers, Cheryl was both an African American and female. She and very competitive.
4. The 4th vehicle is the Rick Goudy driven #25 King 0 Lawn Champ Car, Silver Crown Car. Rick was a resident of Paso Robles and Templeton before moving to Clovis to be with family. While here, Rick was a docent in the Woodland Auto Display. Rick is a former Sprint Car champion and winner of the prestigious Turkey Night Grand Prix midget race which was the premier race of the year at the time.
All of the above cars have West Coast history and all of the drivers have, or had, extremely interesting careers. Take the time to google their names and you'll find it worthwhile and will give you more than enough information for your promo input.
As an aside and going down through the list,
1. Damion drove for me and Billy Wilkerson some years back. He is still taking in a lot of the WAD Fast Time cash awards in his Sprint Car. He just posted his 100th fast time in Yuma, Ariz. a couple of weeks ago.
2. I know both Ray Evernham and Erin fairly well. I served on the Board of Directors for the NSCHoF&M with Erin for a period of time. (They live in N.C. and Ray, among other things, was the Crew Chief for Jeff Gorden in NASCAR and went on with his own team to bring Dodge into the sport.)
3.I didn't really know Cheryl personally but remember watching her race with us. She was really good on the smaller tracks but was probably pushed into the bigger arena before her time.
4. Rick is a good friend. I have to really admire him as he nearly died in a fiery Sprint Car crash at Ascot. I believe it took him about 3 years before he was able to drive again. The results of his comeback are reported above. Rick then started an aluminum racing wheel business here in Paso Robles. From that business he branched out and became the only supplier for certain specialty parts used in the NASA aerospace program.
We are really enthused about putting this program together. It is something I had been pushing for quite a few years.
