I’m a gearhead. I like cars. And for me, visiting the
workshop or garage of another gearhead is great
fun.
My friend Marty Beale of Davenport is involved
in car cruises and likes stock car racing. So when
Marty told me he has a friend who has some custom
cars and is involved in stock car racing and asked
if I wanted to visit this guy’s garage, I said,
“Sure!”
Turns out Marty’s friend is former driver Don
Dickey of Silvis. Though I hadn’t met Don prior to
visiting his garage with Marty last year, I had
seen him around various racetracks many times, and
we had spoken to each other in passing. Don is a
nice guy.
Don’s garage is a neat place with a couple of
custom cars in it and lots of racing memorabilia.
As I studied everything there like a wide-eyed kid
in a candy store, he told me a little about
himself.
Don, 61, was born Nov. 3, 1949. He first got
interested in racing, he said, as a child when his
father, who died in 1966, took him to the
now-defunct
Quad-City Speedway in
Coal Valley.
He moved up a division and also into figure 8
racing the next year. “I didn’t like figure 8
racing, but it paid better than oval racing,” he
said. Ironically though, Don noted, he destroyed more
cars on the oval than he did in figure 8.
Don raced eight years, the first six while he
was single. One of his racing friends and fellow
competitors in Street Stocks was Rodger Vergane.
And he ended up marrying Rodger’s daughter, Rita.
Don and Rita have a son, Kevin, and a daughter,
Dawn. Kevin, of Silvis, began racing a Bomber at
age 15 in 1990 and most recently drove a Modified.
Dawn is married to Rock Island Mod driver Doug
Crampton. Small world, isn’t it?
(Click to enlarge)
Rita has raced, too, Don said. She won a powder
puff race in Aledo in 1992. Don works as a painter at McLaughlin Body Co.
and used to paint racing chassis and an occasional
car body on a part-time basis for the former M&M
racecars and Tri-City Buggy. He also did painting
for drivers like Gary Webb and Hershel Roberts.
Of the two cars in Don’s garage, my favorite is
a purple 1956 Ford that Don bought in about 1992.
Though it had just 59,000 miles on it, the car,
equipped then with a six-cylinder engine, had been
stored under a tarp in a back yard for 25 years.
The pink body was rusty and needed lots of work. Don bought it because, “I had a ‘55 Ford with a
427 when I was 18, so it’s like my second
childhood.” The ‘56 is perfect now and sports a 427 engine
that Don bought from Ron Weedon’s crew chief at
the time, Gene Freeman.
But while Don’s old cars were of interest, what
really got my attention during the visit was his
racing stuff: scores of racing photos, old copies
of Hawkeye Racing News, rules sheets for things
like the Speed Demons Racing Association’s Class B
cars (coupes), trophies, die-cast cars and
stories, like the one about the time Don loaned
Ron Weedon an engine part from the car Don drove
to work so Weedon could win a championship.
One trophy (it’s metal, not plastic!) that
caught my eye had belonged to Benny Hofer. Dated
1959, it spelled his name as “Ben Hafer.” Not a
laughing matter, I’m sure, for the late legendary
driver, but a real collectors’ item.
The highlight for me, though, was Don’s stack
of Quad-City Speedway track programs from 1951
that were filled with driver profiles, photos and
ads for places like a Studebaker dealership.
When new, the 8 _ x 11 programs sold for just
20 cents each at the track. Don bought them for
next to nothing at a flea market and said, “I
don’t let them out of my sight.” I don’t blame him; I wish I’d been so
fortunate!
The management team pictured and listed in the
programs for QCS, billed as the “finest track in
the Midwest,” was composed of Ray Corey and M. Van
Acker, co-owners; Mike Fitzgerald, general
manager; Norm “Red” Thorp, track manager; and Bud
Dawson, announcer.
Some of the many drivers listed might bring
back memories for some of you: Charles Sundeen of
Geneseo, car 34; Red Beals, 8; Bud Benner, 58; Ben
Hofer, 65; Red Untiedt, 75; Jerry Rinehart, 47;
Leroy Morehardt; Joseph Gustaf, 43; Ronald Weedon,
15; Lester Dykes, 82; Willis Ledbetter; Charles I.
Moffit, 41; and Harlan Kahl, 45.
One of the programs also referred to Kahl, from
Durant, as “Toothless Fosdick.” It explained that
he had been a 26-year racing veteran, earning a
few other nicknames over the years, but when he
“showed up at Sterling with six teeth missing,
most of them in front … the boys tagged him with a
Toothless Fosdick sticker. And it stuck.”
Thanks, Marty and Don, for a walk down memory
lane.
You may send comments, subject to publication,
to Phil Roberts by e-mail at roberts@mchsi.com.
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