Yearly Archives: 2007

President’s Desk

June 2007

What a way to start of the racing season with the deaths of two great racers. On Friday May 4th racing legend Stan Perry died during a race at the Spartan Speedway & then the very next night Auto City seen Sprint car driver Scott Seaton loose his life during a race. We here at MARFC send out our deepest sympathies to both the Perry & Seaton families. Once again we know not way God called both these racers home but we must remember they are both safe at his side now. “God Bless & Keep them both”  

Thank you to all who took the time to vote. It show’s the great support that our club receives from its members.  

THE NEW 2007 MARFC EXECUTIVE BOARD AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS: 

President: Bill Barnhart
Vice President: Dave DeHem
Secretary/Treasurer: Susan Ginter

Board of Directors:
Larry Iacoboni
Jeff Moroni
Al Peltier
Cathie Rohloff
Cory Russell
Fran Russo
Laura Tucker
Bill Walters

I’d like to welcome to our new board members and look forward to working with them. I’d like to thank board member Jack Lecot for his time on the board. Jack was our first board member from Canada who did a great job for us these past two years. Thanks again Jack! One other board member has decided to retire after nearly 40 years on the board. Bill Stone has been one of our greatest board members and has held the office of President for a total of 13 years at different times. Bill is one of the clubs charter members since 1965 and has not missed our annual banquet in the 41 years. He has done an outstanding job with his scheduling of guest speakers over the years. He has also, been our Santa at the annual children’s Christmas party for the past 10 years. With out his help over these past 40 plus years our club would have not continued this long as one of the best racing fan clubs in the country. I take pride in calling him my friend and on behalf of the entire MARFC membership say Congratulations for a job well done and enjoy a long and healthy retirement. “THANKS AGAIN BILL” for everything.

May Events

SPARTAN SPEEDWAY: Cool & a little overcast but racing was great. Nice to see many members on hand for this event. We presented Bud Perry with our MARFC Uniform/Helmet Bag during a brief memorial to Stan Perry prior to the evenings racing. We wish to Thank Paul Zimmerman, Jim Leasure and Bill Lackey for a fantastic night. We also wished “Poor” Paul a Happy 83rd Birthday on the same night. Thanks to “Big ED” for the great PR during the night.

AUTO CITY SPEEDWAY: Another cool night for our members but seen some awesome racing. Board members Cory Russell, Fran Russo and Jeff Moroni were on hand to present our MARFC Uniform/ Helmet Bag to the # 88 Factory Stock driver Kenny Ford. Kenny has had some hard luck here in the start of the season and we hope our bag brings him some luck. Many thanks to Joe DeWitte and the
entire staff of the speedway for having us again this season.

BERLIN RACEWAY: As always what an outstanding facility for us to visit for a racing event. Mike Strevel and crew did a fantastic job for all our members to enjoy some great local short track racing. The MARFC Uniform/Helmet Bag was given to Tom Thomas the 2006 Late Model Champion. Larry & Sue Iacoboni were on hand to greet members at our table. It was great to see and hear the 2006 Tom Carnegie announcer of the year winner Norm Jelsma. Thanks again to the Berlin Raceway for inviting us.

President’s Desk

May 2007

Well it is here racing season is in full swing now and I hope everybody has a great racing season drivers, fans and promoters alike. Lots of information this month so here we go. We need to send a Get Well wish to our old friend Dick Beebe. Dick was in the hospital for awhile last month and is recovery at home as of right now. Here is a Speedy Recovery to you Dick!

Just a reminder to all that we have a few great ways to keep up with what’s going on in racing during the week. For those of you who have access to the internet there is the Michigan Short Track Racing Club at www.mstrc.com to chat with drivers, track officials and other race fans across the state.

Then there are three great radio shows you can listen to for more information. Motor City Motor Sports with host Eddie Sachs Jr. airs Tuesdays at 7:00pm on WSNL 600AM starting on May 1st. Then there is Race Talk Radio with Larry Loynes airs Wednesdays at 7:00pm to 9:00 pm on WNFT AM 1470 and Race Day Review with “Big” Ed Inloes on Sunday mornings 11:00 am to 1:00 pm on WTRX 1330 AM. Don’t forget we have three racing papers to keep you up to date also like MARC TIMES RACING NEWS, MID AMERICANS RACING NEWS and MICHIGAN RACING SCENE. All these shows and trades help support our sport and I think we need to show our thanks by supporting them as often as we can.

As fan club days draw near we could use some extra hands in the way of volunteers to help out at our MARFC table during the start of the night at each track. If you can help out please contact me and let me know at which track you might be able to help out. All help will be greatly appreciated tremendously.

Bill Barnhart
President MARFC
president@marfc.org

MARFC HISTORY SEGMENT: Part II
My Association with the Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club

by: Past President Russ Jacobson

Our club Banquets were a special occasion. I remember many great racing personalities honored by the club over the years. The Banquet that stands out to me was the following:

We (the Board of Directors) had a meeting to finalize all the details the weekend before our banquet date at the Imperial House, held at Sam & Fran Russo’s house. When I got home from the meeting, I received a phone call from Vito saying that the Hall had a bad fire. Boy, this news put our board members in a bind, to say the least! With luck, and a lot of work by the board, we found Woody’s Hillcrest Country Club was available for that night, and Woody agreed to honor the Imperial House price. As things turned out, this became one of our better banquets. That night we honored Jim Gillmore as “Michigan’s Man of the Year” and Dick Purtan was the M.C. This was a night, and week that many of us will not forget.

During the 70’s and 80’s, the club gave the honorees a gift instead of a plaque or trophy. Trudy Hall and my wife, Barbara, spent many nights buying and wrapping the gifts. My years with the MARFC were very rewarding. And, on my retiring as President, I was awarded a “lifetime” membership of which I am very proud.

I wish the MARFC officers and Board of Directors, many years of continued success and enjoyment for all members and fans.

Sincerely,
Russ Jacobson
“J2”

April Meeting

Our April meeting was good even though we were up against the rescheduled ASA race at Toledo and with a couple of tracks opening night on the same night. Our guest speaker was one of our newest club members who started his own business called Stadium Events Todd Hutson. Todd talked about how he plans racing & other sporting events with travel arrangements in a one day deal. He uses great transportation like Deluxe Motor Coach’s for a comfortable ride to and from the events and also has a deal with Hooters Restaurants for some events. He has a deal to go to the Indy 500 for one ticket, the ride down and back and a souvenir hat all for about $ 115.00. We hope to be able to work out an event for our club members to partake of.

Todd has an events schedule listed on his web site for all to see. Check Todd out at www.thestadiumevents.com for more information.

President’s Desk

April 2007

We would like to send out a couple of GET WELL Wishes to club members Steve Russell and to Tony Russo who both were in the hospital last month and could use our thoughts and prayers. Steve is the husband of board member Cory Russell and Tony is the son of long time board member Fran Russo. Get Well Soon to you both! We are also looking for volunteers to help with these events so if you would like to help out please contact me as soon as possible. Once again if you are planning to run for the board you will need to attend our April meeting on the 21st to be nominated and accept it to be voted in. This will be our last meeting until the fall so come on out and be apart of a great night. As always any questions or comments contact me at:

Bill Barnhart

President MARFC

E-mail president@marfc.org

My Association with the Michigan Auto Racing Fan Club

by: Past President Russ Jacobson

My first association with MARFC was in 1964 when I won the Midget feature at Crystal Raceway and Vito LoPiccolo awarded me a transistor radio from MARFC.
My wife, Barbara and I joined the club at that time and we formed a great friendship with Vito & Barbara and many more with other club members. Vito soon asked me to run for the Board of Directors, and I won one of the positions. A few years later, I was nominated for the position of Vice-President. I held that position until Vito retired as President, and I took over that position.

In the early years, the “MARFC Messenger” was sent out of the LoPiccolo’s home. My family would look forward to Vito’s call each month to say the newsletter was ready and we would go to his house where they prepared a nice dinner. After dinner, both families retired to his basement where Barbara had previously typed the newsletter and we all worked to mimeograph, staple, fold, stuff, address, and stamp them. This procedure would go late into the evening and when my family would leave, we took the boxes of newsletters and dropped them into the postal box on the way home.

To be continued…

March Meeting

What a great night we had for those who attended. Just before the meeting members were able to see and enjoy thousands of photos and memorabilia on hand during the Old Timers Reunion. Then we had Ron Drager speak about the ARCA Banquet & Tribute to Jack Bowsher, and then show video from banquet as well as a short video of the 1976 race against cancer at Toledo with, Richard Petty, Bobby Allison, Benny Parsons, Cale Yarbrough & Joy Fair who won the race. Then Scott Schultz talked about both tracks and the special events planned for the 2007 racing season. Brian Norton talked about how the set up the Old Timers Reunion, Brian Philips talked about Benny Parsons and his racing collection tribute to him, and we even let Gary Lindhal talked too.

March 2007

From the President

Cold nasty weather is not what I am caring much about this month. Bring on the sun and heat and racing. I know that with the rising cost of gas and money tight this upcoming season. Traveling to different race tracks this summer might be out for some but, remember to stop and say thanks to all of our track promoters who are working to keep racing alive here in Michigan and across the county. Local short track racing is the best in the country bar none. Without these racing facilities our sport has no future at all. As much as NASCAR and IRL and F-1 are great racing they too would be no where with out local tracks because, your favorite driver started somewhere at a local rack track to be able to move on to where they are competing today. Go when you can and support our sport the best that you can and we will see local racing continue for many years to come.

See you at the races!

Bill Barnhart

President MARFC

Memories as a Club Member

by: Past President Bill Walters

I’ve been a member of this club for about 35 years and I have many fond memories of different events. One of those events was in 1974. In September of that year I had gone to the Hoosier Hundred a USAC championship dirt car event on the mile dirt at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. In the closing laps of that race Jackie Howerton, Al Unser and Mario Andretti raced nose to tail and side by side lap after lap. It was a blanket finish with Jackie Howerton taking the checker flag. In October or November of that year at our monthly meeting Bill Hill was the scheduled guest speaker. Bill was a PR guy from the Indianapolis area. Bill brought along Jackie Howerton. What a surprise.  After watching him win that great race and now he would be our surprise guest speaker to talk racing with us.

Then there was 1993. Our club helped out at the Michigan State midget championship races and this 15 year old driver named Ryan Newman emerges as the state champ. I could go on and on. I think the best memory I have about this club is the PEOPLE. From the officers to all the guest speakers that have taken the time to address our club and all of the members that are race fans, just like me.

February Meeting

For those of you who didn’t attend this great opportunity you missed out on a great deal. Our tour of the RM Motor Sports facility was outstanding. They had vintage race cars from many different series as well as a verity of old classic cars that they are currently restoring for customers. They are working on 10 classic restoration cars for the Prince of Thailand at this time. They are the only shop who is currently building the Dodge Tomahawk motorcycles. They were preparing 3 race cars for the Sebring race in Florida while we were there. Unfortunately Buddy Bennett was already in Florida at the time but both sons Kirt & Craig were there and answered many questions asked by members present. Many thanks to Board Member Susan Ginter who set up this tour for our club. Thank You to RM Motor Sports for allowing us the great treat.