THE RACE: The Port City 150, Oswego 1970. Neil Truesdale drove my Dad's car (the former Dick Mangus #86 from 1969) to a 10th place finish. A very slow pit stop for fuel put us a lap down but there were no cars faster than us that day. Not Troyer, Not Evans, we were the car to beat.

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L-R Front Row: Leo Kellett (crew chief), Rick Shrout, LaVerne Fecteau (car owner), Neil Truesdale (driver), Dick Mangus (car builder), “Irish” Jack Murphy - Back Row: Jim Rohde, Dave Hocking

I was 16 yrs old and I'm missing from the photo because I was walking around the track, looking at every crack and ripple in the pavement, imagining what it would be like to drive a race car some day.

Jean Guy Chartrand and the Hemi-Cuda. Ah, there's nothing like the sound of a Mopar. 
(J&H Photo)

This is where my racing habit began. My Dad (LaVerne) helped Dick "FlatTop" Mangus, owner of the Bobby Merz cars. Once they let me come over and wash parts, I was hooked. "Yes Dick, I do get my hands dirty." (J&H Photo)

It was fun to work a little while with Dick's son Tim Mangus at the start of his modified career. I was only a "race track" helper since I had moved to Syracuse. This is from 1986. Tim is a real talent both behind the wheel and in the shop.

My brief brush with fame: Spencer Speedway 1988 ? L-R: Davey Allison, Duane Delamarter, Bobby Allison after their match race.

Since Duane had a bad push during practice, I kept working on the car while Davey and Bobby got fitted in to their loaner cars. I knew this would be one of Duane's big moments and wanted him to be competitive. After the match race had ended, I assumed I had missed any chance to be near Davey or Bobby so I went back to work on the car as the feature was coming up soon. While looking over the car, I heard a voice say "excuse me", I was dumbstruck, it was Bobby. It turns out that earlier he had asked someone to point out which cars they would be racing against and he had noticed that everyone was surrounding them in the pits except for me. Bobby shook my hand, and told me that Duane was lucky to have someone so interested in making sure he did well rather than rubber neck around the so-called stars. Thank you Bobby, this I will never forget. (Photo - Ron Rigby)

My Other Heros: Dutch Hoag, Richie Evans, Roger, Merv & Gordy Treichler, Lee Osborne, The Turner Brothers, Sandman, Ray Hendrick, Mike Miller, Maynard Troyer, Wee Willie Allen, Jerry Cook, Bill Wimble, Sonny Barron, Gary Ball, Vic Lewis, Gary & Dan Mason, the Catalanos, Art Clark, Don Saunders, Norm Schmidlin, Dick Kluth and many many more.