SPRINT CAR DRIVER “COWBOY’’ JIM KENNEDY POSES AT HIS BEDFORD COUNTY HOME. PHOTO BY SHAWN WOOD
PHOTO LEFT: PLYING HIS TRADE: “COWBOY’’ JIM KENNEDY ATTRACTS ATTENTION AT A SPRINT CAR RACE AT HAGERSTOWN (MD.) SPEEDWAY CIRCA 1965 WITH HIS RACE CAR EQUIPPED WITH WINGS MADE OF PLYWOOD. THE USE OF WINGS ON SPRINT CARS WAS RELATIVELY NEW AT THE TIME AND DIDN’T BECOME WIDELY POPULAR UNTIL THE 1970S. KENNEDY USED TWO WINGS, EACH 4-FOOT, BY 2-FOOT, BY 2 INCHES. PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE KENNEDY FAMILY
BORN THIS WAY: THE PAULIE HARTWIG STORY Teen sensation’s talents seem limitless
BROADSLIDING WITH BEV
Racing family matriarch covers dirt track scene with words
THOMPSON CLAN STILL GOING IN CIRCLES Youngest moves from micros to 410 sprints
Owner
50 YEARS OF BEING ‘MR. SMOOTH’
From servicing school buses to Hall of Fame race car driver
SWEET SOUNDS OF MOTORSPORTS THROUGH SCHOOLING
CENTRAL PA TRACKS
A track directory, listing some of the best tracks in Pennsylvania, to satisfy your need for speed!
Colorful nonagenarian still racing sprint cars Yodel-lay-hee-hoo
By Harold Raker/For Inside PA Motorsports
It’s a victory lane celebration at a rural Pennsylvania racetrack. The winning driver, trophy in hand, approaches the public address announcer for his interview.
The fans stand in anticipation.
“Cowboy” Jim Kennedy, wearing his fire suit and – what else? – a cowboy hat breaks out in a yodel, as the fans go wild.
It’s a tradition that fans have talked about for decades, but Kennedy can’t tell you when or at which track it started.
“How it began? I’m guessing I was only 10 years old, and my uncle did it (yodeled) a wee bit and he got me started,” Kennedy recalled, adding with a laugh, “Of course he wasn’t nearly as good as me.”
In addition to the kind of disappointments that happen to all racers, losing races they should have won, Kennedy recalls a major letdown that occurred after he won a race years ago at Dog Hollow Speedway in Strongstown.
“They always get me to yodel when I win, but the loudspeaker didn’t work,’’ he said.
Then last year, Clinton County officials invited him to a race there to celebrate his 90th birthday, and, of course, they insisted that he yodel.
Another disappointment.
“I couldn’t yodel right,” he said. “I felt so bad.”
Kennedy, of Everett, added, “At home, I can really rip them off.”
These occasions are not as common lately. His most recent checkered flag came in 2019 in a 305 sprinter at Clinton County Raceway near Lock Haven. He had also won at Clinton in a 410 before making the switch to 305s.
The 305 win was notable at the time because Kennedy was 84.
Seven years later, 90-year-old Kennedy is still towing his famed No. 7 to a few central Pennsylvania tracks, mostly in Clinton County. Kennedy has several wins at the track, once known as Raceway for Heroes.
People have told him that he may be the oldest active sprint car driver.
Legendary former NASCAR driver, and a still-active dirt track late model racer Charles “Red’’ Farmer still competes at 92.
But, Kennedy said, “I could be the oldest sprint car driver in the world.”
He laughed and added, “I hope I don’t have to stay around until I’m 95 to keep the record.“
If he takes a green flag this month, he will have begun his 68th racing season.
It’s something the father of four couldn’t have imagined when he was 24 with no racing experience or knowledge. “I
had just come back from Baltimore (after nearly four years working in a railroad yard) and I didn’t know nothing about racing. I didn’t think about it,” Kennedy said, noting that he already had a wife and kids.
Photo by Shawn Wood
“Cowboy” Jim Kennedy stands next to a portion of his trophies and plaques that he has been awarded over the years at his home in Everett.
Kennedy and his wife, Marlene, have three sons – Mike, 70; Barry, 66; Jake, 65 – and a daughter, Linda, 60. When the couple married, in 1953, “Cowboy” was 19 and Marlene was 16.
After he and his family returned home in 1958, his uncle, who had an old Chrysler car body, talked him into going racing.
The circumstances of his start in the sport recall the Johnny Cash song “One Piece at a Time.”
“I started with a ‘34 Chevy I got out of the junkyard, with old rusty waterpipes for rollbars, and shoved it together,’’ he said.
Years later, Kennedy wowed race fans and his fellow competitors when he cut sheets of plywood to build the wings for his car.
At that time, both wings were the same height, and both were sticking up in the back, he said.
Kennedy has no idea how many wins he has in his career, but has won races in 305s, 358s and 410s in addition to the several types of cars he ran in the 1960s. They included the forerunners of today’s super sprint cars. He also won in a late model in Clearfield.
Among the tracks where he won were Hagerstown, Bedford, Hesston, Dog Hollow and Clinton – along with several no longer in existence.
His first competition, in what were known then as Hooligans, came at local tracks such as South Penn, in Everett; and Hesston. He also ran at a racetrack at the Huntingdon Fairgrounds.
Although the number of wins remains a mystery, Kennedy has numerous trophies, a collection which has been depleted after many of them were tossed out during
WITH HIS PENCHANT FOR YODELING AFTER SPRINT CAR WINS WHILE WEARING A COWBOY HAT AND OCCASIONALLY DECKED OUT IN A COWBOY SHIRT AND BOOTS, VETERAN RACER JIM KENNEDY’S NICKNAME WAS A NO-BRAINER.
BUT, FOR A TIME IN THE MID-1960S, KENNEDY ACQUIRED A DIFFERENT MONIKER.
KENNEDY’S WIFE, MARLENE, WAS DUE TO HAVE THE COUPLE’S FOURTH CHILD, AND FIRST AND ONLY DAUGHTER, LINDA.
JIM AND HIS FAMILY WERE LIVING IN THE RENOVATED BASEMENT IN HIS FATHER’S AUTO REPAIR GARAGE WHERE JIM WAS EMPLOYED, AND THEY HAD AN INTERCOM TO COMMUNICATE BETWEEN THE GARAGE AND BASEMENT.
IT WAS A COLD FEBRUARY MORNING, JIM SAID, AND “MY WIFE CALLED AND SAID, ‘THE BABY’S COMING’ AND ‘CALL THE DOCTOR.’” BUT THE DOCTOR HAD GONE ON VACATION, JIM SAID.
“THE DOCTOR NEVER MADE IT, SO I DELIVERED THE BABY,” HE RECALLED. KENNEDY SAID THE DOCTOR ARRIVED MUCH LATER BUT “HE DIDN’T EVEN HAVE HIS BAG OR NOTHIN’. ”
FOR A WHILE AFTER THAT, RACERS AND FANS BEGAN CALLING HIM “DR. KENNEDY.’’ KENNEDY ADDED, “I STILL HAD TO PAY THE WHOLE BILL.”
Photo courtesy of the Kennedy family
Jim Kennedy stands next to his small-block Modified at Hesston Speedway on Memorial Day 1965. On that day, he beat Gerald Chamberlain in the 35-lap feature.
various moves, he said.
As for the number of race tracks he has run on, Kennedy said he had been marking down every new track he visited until he lost the paper several years ago, when the total was then 31.
Kennedy has raced and won against many of the greats during his long career, including Elmer Ruby, Jan Opperman, Kenny Weld, Mitch Smith, Ray Tilley and Smokey Snellbaker, all of whom have passed on, and are members of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame.
PHOTO BY TED VAN PELT
He recalled racing with Opperman at Hagerstown (Md.) where Opperman and Weld wrecked in the third turn, resulting in a large fire.
He also remembers Opperman racing at Port Royal and Clearfield on dry tracks with the same size tires on the left and right and winning both races.
“I don’t know how he did it, Kennedy said.
Many fans want to know how Kennedy does it, at his age, and how much longer he would like to race.
If racers had walk-up songs, Kennedy’s might be George Jones’ “I Don’t Need Your Rockin’ Chair.”
“People ask me if I’m going to quit, and I say, ‘I ain’t ‘quittin’ until my body gives out.’ ‘’
He says that he never even thought about taking off his fire suit for good after several serious crashes, some of which he said nearly killed him.
Not even after a bad crash, of which there have been many.
He had a bad one at Port Royal in the mid-60s when one part of the engine landed in one spot on the track and the other part on another, and there was a fire.
“I didn’t get injured fortunately,” he said.
He said his action after a race at a track in Frostburg, Md., could have killed him.
“There were bumps and rocks and stuff, it was horrible, and it was so dusty,” he said. “The fence in front of the grandstand was three foot high and (another car) was getting closer (to the wall) or I was, and I caught it, and it snapped in half.”
He said, “Like a dummy, I jumped right out of the car and the cars were going by and it’s a wonder they didn’t smash me.
“Now I try to remember ‘don’t get out of the car.’ ’’
He was knocked unconscious in a crash at Path Valley six years ago when another car went high and then straight down and got into the side of Kennedy’s car.
“It knocked me out and they said that when I came to I was trying to yodel,’’ he said.
The racing accidents never made him consider stepping away, although, as more safety equipment came along, he began to wear a HANS (head and neck support) device.
“After I got hurt at Path Valley, my oldest boy, Michael, made me do that,” he said.
“One year I got rolled over three times.”
Still, he motors on, hoping to find another win, and the lungs to keep on yodeling.
Photo courtesy of the Kennedy family
Jim Kennedy of Everett poses for pictures in victory lane during the 2005 PASS 305 Series race at Lincoln Speedway as snow begins to fall in the closing lap of the feature.
Berwick’s Charlie Anderson, a former dirt track racer at Selinsgrove Speedway, stands next to a 2008 Cobra, part of his extensive antique car collection.
From competitor to collector
Former Berwick race driver proud of antique cars
Story and Photos
by Harold Raker/For Inside PA Motorsports
Some people go golfing, fishing, camping, maybe head to the shore, to get away from the pressures of work.
Charlie Anderson went racing.
Again.
Anderson grew up with a love of cars and began his vast collection of antique vehicles when he bought his first, a 1930 Model A truck, at age 15. That was his road vehicle in high school, and it remains in his collection.
The Berwick businessman, owner of Anderson Ice Co., raced late models from 1976 to 1979 with his future fatherin-law and brother-in-law, Johnny Crawford Sr. and Jr., then quit to raise his family.
He never lost the itch to get back on the track.
Anderson returned to the dirt track in 2000, this time after buying a sprint car.
His father, Hiram, who was suffering from terminal cancer, sat down with Anderson one day and said, “ ‘You know you are like me; you never take a vacation. Get a hobby.’ So, I said, ‘I’m going back into racing.’ ”
Anderson said his father didn’t like racing, but told him, “If that’s what you gotta do, do it.’’
His father died that January and Anderson climbed into a sprint car for the first time in May 2000.
The fast and powerful sprint car was quite different from the late models that he raced in the 1970s.
“There’s nothing better than a sprint car,” Anderson said. “You step on that pedal and you’re on your way to wherever and sometimes you don’t know where wherever is going to be.”
Anderson had his share of crashes and injuries, but he said he would do it again “tomorrow” if it would not be risky.
The clue that his racing career was ending came during time trials at Selinsgrove in 2018.
“I was stupidly running a 410 and I came out of (turn) two, and the center broke out of the right rear tire and the right rear went up the center of the backstretch and turned into the pits,” he said.
At that time the pits were still in the infield.
Meanwhile, Anderson was along for the ride in his No. 71 sprint car.
“I don’t know how many times (the car) went up and down, but I smashed my helmet.’’
Anderson continued, “I don’t know how much air I got but they woke me up and there wasn’t a wheel on it. I got out and all the blood went somewhere else, and I went down. I got back up and (a paramedic with the ambulance) asked, ‘Do you know where you are?’
“I said, ‘yep, I’m at Port Royal and I just went over the firstturn fence.’
” Anderson’s helper, Darrin Schott asked, “Are we going back out? and I said, ‘It’s $600 to take the flag; what do you think?’ ”
They put the car back together and headed onto the track to tag the tail, but when Anderson stepped on the brake pedal, there was no brake.’’
When he returned to the pits and told Schott he had no brakes, Schott said. “If you had brakes you would still be out there.’’
Anderson replied, “These tears running down my cheeks are not tears of joy.
“I broke three ribs that day, then that was it, I knew I was out (of racing).’’
But Anderson still had his other hobby, his car collection. He can continue to enjoy that without the risk of the racetrack.
He still has the truck, now part of a collection of 21 trucks, cars and one 1957 John Deere tractor.
“I was a car nut all my life,” he said.
Sitting in his barn looking over the collection, he says, “Every one of them has a story.’’
Many husbands might have an argument with their wives if they wanted to buy several antique cars, like those Anderson has collected.
Not so for Anderson.
“Joannie (his wife, daughter of legendary racer Crawford Sr.) never had a hard time with it,” he said.
He even bought her a 2008 Cobra for their anniversary, which is among the older cars, along with another one that he desperately wanted, a red hot-rod Model T.
Anderson saw his daughters, Amanda and Jessica, carry on his love of a car racing as both competed along with him for a few years at Selinsgrove.
Jessica, who studied a year at Penn State and graduated from the University of North Carolina, is married to former Berwick-area resident Chris Whitenight, who is an engineer with Joe Gibbs racing. They have three children.
Amanda, now Stutzman, has a doctorate degree and is a Bloomsburg University professor. She has two children.
Their other sibling, Charlie, is not married.
Anderson’s collection of antique cars doesn’t get much mileage these days, but he takes them to a few local car shows a year, those held for charitable causes.
Last year, he thrilled his eight grandchildren (including three with his son-in-law) by driving them in a local parade as they sat in the rumble seat of that 1930 Model A.
That was an enjoyable time, but it doesn’t provide the thrills from yesteryear as he threw up dust on the racetracks.
“I was never a good race driver, but I did it to get away from work.
“If I started in the front, I finished in the back, and if I started in the back, I finished in the back,’’ he said with a laugh.
“My last year was 2018, and if I had my choice, I’d be down there (at Selinsgrove) tomorrow.’’
Instead, Anderson can enjoy his collection and recall the memories of his racing days.
400MILESofTRAILS
This 1929 Buick is one of 21 antique vehicles in Charlie Anderson’s collection, which spans 58 years.
Son of a Buckeye Bullet
It all started with “Lightning” Lou.
Today, a third member of the Blaney family, Ryan, of Hartford, Ohio, is one of the rising stars of NASCAR.
The late Lou Blaney, one of the all-time greats of dirt modified racing, won more than 600 races in a 47-year career. Blaney, who died at 69 in 2009, was inducted into several halls of fame, including the National Dirt Modified Hall of Fame.
His son, Dave, 62, nicknamed “The Buckeye Bullet,” became one of the top drivers of the World of Outlaws and won races at tracks throughout Pennsylvania, including Selinsgrove Speedway, and beyond.
He won many of the nation’s premier sprint car races along with championships in WoO a the All Star Circuit of Champions series.
Third-generation Blaney has deep racing roots races.
At the top of his game, Dave moved to NASCAR, racing in that series for 17 years and 473 races. He and his family own Sharon Speedway in Ohio, near the Pennsylvania border.
Along the way, Dave’s brother, Dale, 61, a college basketball star at West Virginia University, turned down a chance to play in the National Basketball Association for the
Ryan Blaney
PHOTO LEFT:
Ryan Blaney races off of Turn 3 at Pocono Raceway during the 2023 season in which he won the NASCAR Cup Series championship;. Blaney is the grandson of the late Lou Blaney and the son of National Sprint Car Hall of Fame member and World of Outlaws champion Dave Blaney.
Los Angeles Lakers to continue his dirt-track racing career.
He also spent a year playing for the Youngstown Pride of the World Basketball League.
Dale, now an assistant basketball coach at Westminster College in New Wilmington, won 137 races and six championships in the All Star Circuit of Champions series and 11 races with the WoO.
Although his father and uncle were unavailable for interviews, Ryan, 31, the 2023 NASCAR Cup champion, took time last month to talk about growing up in a famous racing family.
Ryan was too young to remember watching his grandfather race, but he learned a lot about him from his dad.
“Dad would always talk about my grampa,” said Ryan, who was in elementary school and younger when Lou was winding up his racing career.
He was even young when his father was running sprint cars on dirt before making his way to NASCAR.
“I remember a handful of sprint car races in the late ‘90s when I was 6 years old or so by the time my memory kicked in,” he said.
But then the excitement grew.
His dad joined NASCAR, and Ryan’s boyhood friends included the likes of Harrison Burton, current NASCAR driver and son of driver an TV commentator Jeff Burton; and Brandon McReynolds, a driver and spotter, son of former champion crew chief and now longtime TV commentator Larry McReynolds.
Back home in Ohio, Ryan’s friends loved to talk to him about his dad, and about racing.
“I didn’t really go to school with kids who (were involved) in racing and they would always ask me what my dad did. On Monday we’d come in and someone would say, ‘I watched your dad on TV.’
“I turned a lot of the parents into NASCAR fans, and that was pretty cool.”
Programs such as “Show and Tell” and “Career Day” were a lot of fun.
“I would bring some of my dad’s things, like his driver’s helmet, his fire suit and show them and I would tell them ‘these are the things my dad wears to work, not a threepiece suit,’ ” he said.
“The little kids always got a kick out of that.’’
He recalled that his dad came to his school one day for Career Day and talked about his racing experiences.
Asked if Dave’s appearance made other fathers seem less important, Ryan said it was just the opposite, at least for him.
“Some were firefighters and other professions that I didn’t know anything about,” he said.
Blaney had more than one reason for his choice of professions, not just because racing was in his blood.
“I played basketball and baseball from middle school through ninth grade, but I didn’t have the passion for them that I did with racing,” he said.
“Then I got to my sophomore year and my racing was getting serious and I knew I couldn’t commit to both of those things.
“But honestly, I wasn’t great at the other things, and I had to face the reality that I’m pretty short and not as talented. Plus, I was really getting serious about my racing, and I knew that I couldn’t commit to both.”
He said, “I always wanted to race, but I never knew it was going to work out, but fortunately it did.’’
Blaney joked that while his uncle, Dale, got the height from his grandfather, he and his dad got his grandmother Lisa’s genes.
That made college basketball and the NBA much less of an opportunity than the world of racing.
“It was a smart decision,” Ryan said.
But, he said, “I never sat around as a kid and thought that I wanted to achieve this or that, I just wanted to be part of the show, and I wanted to be the best that I could.”
That attitude proved successful as Ryan began racing quarter midgets at age 9 and progressed through the various levels until arriving in the Cup series in 2014.
“I never did any open-wheel stuff such as go-karts; I was on more of a stock-car path because my dad knew that stuff,” he said.
He has had some recent bad luck in the Cup series which had him in 10th place in recent standings.
Nevertheless, he considers himself fortunate.
“I am really lucky to be with the group I am with (Team Penske), and my dad is happy because he didn’t know how it was going to work out,’’ Ryan said.
That also goes for his family.
“It’s always one of the neatest things as a kid to relate to your parents in a way to share something with your mom and dad that they know very well and it’s neat to have something I get to talk to my dad about,” Ryan said.
“I talk to him every single week because it’s something that he knows just as well if not better than me,’’ he said. “He is still one of the first people I call Monday after the weekend race. He’s been a mentor my whole life and that’s pretty special.’’
Ryan also has two sisters and last year he married model Gianna Tulio Blaney.
He added, “Not a lot of kids and their parents have that cool dynamic with something they have done all their life and it’s pretty cool.”
Dave Blaney, of, Hartford, Ohio, races off of Turn 2 at Williams Grove Speedway during his time with the World of Outlaws where he was the series champion in 1995.
The late Lou Blaney, grandfather of 2023 NASCAR Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney, races at Speedway 7 in Ohio in his big block modified in the 1980 season. Lou, who passed away at 69 from Alzheimer’s in 2009, was inducted into both the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame.
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SETTING HIGH EXPECTATIONS
TOwner and driver not slowed by deafness
Story and Photos by Shawn Wood/For Inside PA Motorsports
o the casual race fan, Brett Wanner is like any other driver who straps into a race car.
Until they find out that he is deaf.
The driver known as Silent Thunder from Shoemakersville, near Reading, has been going to races since he was a kid. His dad Dale raced sprint cars at Selinsgrove Speedway in the 1980s.
Today, Brett and his car owner and best friend Richard Fisher, of Middleburg, who is also deaf, are embarking on another season of 358 sprint-car racing in Central Pennsylvania.
The veteran open-wheel racer started racing micro sprints when he was 14.
Before he moved to the big car, Wanner transitioned from the micros to the midget cars as he raced with the prestigious American Racing Drivers Club from 2012 to 2016. He was the Rookie of the Year in 2012, and he scored two midget feature wins.
He made his winged sprint car debut in 2017.
“I’ve known Brett since middle school,” Fisher said. “That is how I learned that his family was into the racing. He loved to talk about racing all the time. We have been best friends for years and when he started racing, he asked if I wanted to be a part of his team. I said yes and here we are 20 years later.”
It took Wanner until his fourth season of racing in the
Brett Wanner signs a T-shirt for an unidentified fan in the pits at Williams Grove Speedway. Wanner has gained popularity among the fans in Central Pa. over the years.
358s to score his first-ever win in the division in 2020 Lincoln Speedway.
Wanner took a year off from racing the 358 in 2023 to take over the seat for Midwest racer Greg Gunderson, who is also deaf. The pair raced in the Midwest with success but Wanner also suffered a bad accident at Husets Speedway that year. He has made a full recovery.
Both Wanner, 35, and Fisher, 38, are graduates of the Scranton State School for the Deaf.
Wanner still has a goal of making it to the 410 sprint-car circuit in Central Pennsylvania. It’s a goal that he shared with Fisher when they were in middle school.
“We just don’t have enough sponsors, and it has been tough because sometimes, I feel like just because we all are deaf, we don’t get the sponsorship,” Fisher said.
“RICHARD IS FAMILY TO ME. I’M VERY LUCKY TO HAVE A BEST FRIEND
WHO IS SUPPORTING ME. I HAVE BEEN SUPPORTING HIM WITH HIS BUSINESS TOO.”
-BRETT WANNER
According to Fisher, another one of the team’s goals is to race in the Knoxville Nationals. That would require a lot more sponsorship dollars.
Among his supporters are three deaf-owned businesses – Greg Gunderson Racing Inc., Andy’s Barber Shop and Richard Fisher Lawn Care.
Fisher did try his hand at racing in the micro sprints at Lanco Speedway, also known as Clyde Martin Memorial Speedway, where Wanner started his racing career.
“I tried it, and I did enjoy it, but it wasn’t for me,” he said. “I enjoy being the car owner and working on the car with Brett.”
Fisher noted that it is getting more expensive each year to
maintain a car, but they truly enjoyed their time racing the midget with ARDC. He said he wanted to become an owner so that he could help Brett and handle the budget for the racing team.
The team plans to race at Williams Grove, Lincoln, BAPS Motor Speedway, Port Royal and Selinsgrove Speedway in this, their eighth year of running the winged sprint car.
“I hope to improve on how I drive as I did not get a lot of racing in last year with the rainouts,” Wanner said in an email.
“As a team we are really looking forward to this year. I see it being a better year for myself and the team overall. I hope that my improvement will help others to see that I can do anything despite my deafness.”
Wanner credits his father, Dale, as the guiding force that got him into racing.
“My dad has been going to the races since he was a little boy,” he said. “He always went to the Reading Fairgrounds (Speedway) to watch the races, and he enjoyed racing the sprint car at Selinsgrove Speedway. He was also in a Jeep 4x4 racing club. I grew up around the racetrack, and I learned to love racing like my dad still does. He would take us to places like Williams Grove, Port, Selinsgrove and Lincoln. We even went to Eldora Speedway!”
Fisher works for CPR Towing in Winfield. He started there on weekends when he was in high school. He went full time after he graduated and has been with the company for 21 years.
Justin Eckhart, left, helps Brett Wanner’s father Dale, as he puts the right rear on his son’s sprint car at Port Royal Speedway during the 2024 season. Crew member Ty Livelsberger, right, is going around to do work on the left side of the car.
He has a goal of having his own towing company. He owns Fisher Lawn Care, where Wanner works for him.
The dream of racing at the 410 level in Central Pennsylvania is still very important for the team.
“It is our goal to have Brett in a 410,” Fisher said. “It is our dream to watch him race in that division. It has been his dream since he was little. He’s talked to me about it since middle school. It has become my dream to see him in it, too, and we are working very hard on it.”
With a burning desire for success, Wanner and Fisher are on track to reach the pinnacle of the sprint-car world by racing in the 410 Central Pennsylvania sprint-car circuit.
“Richard is family to me,” Wanner said. “I’m very lucky to have a best friend who is supporting me. I have been supporting him with his business, too. It is also so easy to communicate and understand what is going on with the race car.”
Wanner and Fisher have already proven they will never allow their deafness to deter them from achieving a dream.
Richard Fisher, Middleburg, sits on the 358 sprint car that he owns for driver Brett Wanner. Fisher and Wanner have been best friends since middle school and are hoping to make it to the 410 sprint car scene one day in Central Pennsylvania as the first-ever deaf car owner and driver.
50 years of being ‘Mr. Smooth’
From servicing school buses to Hall of Fame race driver
Story and Photos by Shawn Wood/For Inside PA Motorsports
Nestled to the west of Baltimore and some 73 miles southeast of Hagerstown Speedway is the town of Owings Mills, Md.
Its population is slightly more than 24,000 and it is the home of Maryland Public Broadcasting from which the long-running television show “MotorTrend” originates.
It is also the area where super late-model legend Gary Stuhler, who is celebrating his 50th consecutive season in dirt-track racing this year, grew up.
Known as “Mr. Smooth” for his ability to handle “dryslick” surfaces, Stuhler turned 70 on April 13. He lives in Greencastle with his wife Jerri and the two have been married for 27 years. Gary retired in 2023 from the Washington County School District, where he worked on school buses for 17 years.
His introduction to the world of dirt-track racing arrived when he was 5 years old and his family would take him to the races at Lincoln Speedway and Susquehanna Speedway, now BAPS Motor Speedway.
No one in his family had ever raced.
“I started hanging around and helping a guy named Don Reily,” Stuhler said. “He used to race at Reading Speedway, and I would go to shows with him. He bought a 1965 Chevelle. They were called late models back in the day, with the big 454 cubic-inch engines. When Don was getting out of racing, he made me an offer to buy the car and trailer and, I ended up buying it in 1975.”
The first race Gary ever competed in occurred at Williams Grove Speedway. The week after, he went to Lincoln Speedway and got in a crash and, then in his third week at Lincoln, he ended up winning the race.
He is the all-time feature winner in the super late-model division at Hagerstown, with 139 victories.
“I never expected to win races like I did,” he said.
“The cars were still the small-bodied cars that we ran, the Mustangs, Chevelles and it was in the 1980s that the wedge-body cars started coming around,” he said of the transition toward today’s super late-model cars.
He credits the time he got hooked up with Bobby Allen (not the sprint car driver) as the point in his career where it started to take off.
“Bobby was the one who started taking me out on the
road and we ran the National Dirt Racing Association series for a year or so and we traveled all over the country,” he said. “That was back when guys like Larry Moore (Ohio), Rodney Combs (who also competed in NASCAR), and Charles ‘Buck’ Simmons (Georgia), were racing. I got to race with a lot of great guys back then.”
All three of the drivers are in the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame. Stuhler was inducted in 2008.
“I never raced full time or followed any circuits as I had a full-time job, but now that I am retired, I can say that I am a full-time racer,” he said with a laugh.
Stuhler also ran for Dale Beitler on the Short Track Auto Racing Series tour. He scored a Have-A-Tampa series event win at Hagerstown in 2000.
His wins at Hagerstown came while driving for Ronald “Speedy” Hays and Beitler.
“Speedy was one of the best at car setup,” Stuhler said about that team’s success at Hagerstown. “Most of the time, Hagerstown was slippery (dry-slick), where you had to finesse stuff, and it got to where I was good at that kind of surface. I won races where the track was muddy and heavy, but when places like Pittsburgh Motor Speedway (Pa.), and West Virginia Motor Speedway (W.Va.), got slick, I was pretty good there as well.”
Stuhler’s two track titles at Hagerstown came in 1990 and 2003.
He’s won at every track at which he has raced, but he is still seeking a win in the Dream race at Eldora Speedway (Ohio).
Stuhler noted that back in the day it could cost about $400 to change shocks. Now, depending on what the car builder wants to try, that cost is anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000.
“Our local races pay $4,000 to win for a local show at Port Royal and that’s pretty decent for a weekly show,” he said of the changes to the sport over the years. “The killer (to the sport) is the prices of the motors and shocks. The technology that has come into the sport has made it hard. When guys would come in with the touring series, say to Hagerstown, I could kind of compete and almost contend for wins most of the time. But it has gotten so anymore with engineers and data on cars, that when they come in,
Gary Stuhler of Greencastle stands next to his Super Late Model at Port Royal Speedway. He is celebrating 50 years of racing this season.
it is like you are racing against a different league.”
His heroes in racing include the late Kenny Weld and Steve Smith along with Kenny Schrader.
“That’s been the fortunate thing of my racing career is racing against guys like Jeff Purvis and Larry Moore. And even when I was younger and I started racing, I had contacts that I went to for help – Steve Smith and Kenny Weld,” he said. “I hung out at their garages, and they helped me when I first got started.
“Kenny was kind of eccentric,” he said of the late openwheel driver. “He was one of the best at building cars and back when I got started, I used to buy used tires from him. At different times, say I had broken a rear (axel), I could take the rear out and take it to Kenny’s garage and he would help me tear it apart and do what I needed to do to get it fixed.
“It was the same way with Steve Smith. I used to spend a lot of nights at Steve’s place, and we would just talk. Even though sprint cars and late models were different, you could talk about different (chassis) set-ups and what you needed to do to be tighter and get traction.
“Steve and I would talk about different set-ups, whether your right rear or left rear weights were better, and Steve ran late models for a while,” Stuhler continued. “One of Steve’s good friends told me that I should feel fortunate because Steve didn’t let a lot of people get close to him to spend time with him.”
Stuhler has been blessed to be around the greats of the
Longtime crew chief Mike Beston, right, chats with Gary Stuhler following a hot-lap session. The pair have been together since the 1990s.
“I
sport during his driving career. It has made him not only a great driver, but a personable individual who can blur the lines in conversations with drivers in both stock cars and the sprint-car world.
He hasn’t forgotten his humble beginnings in the sport in 1975. It is what has made him a champion on and off the track for the past 50 years.
the changes made to the car setup prior to hot laps. Dixon has been with
since the 1990s.
Gary Stuhler, right, listens as longtime crew member Butch Dixon explains some of
Stuhler
Born This Way, the Paulie Hartwig Story
Teen sensation’s talents seem limitless
Story by Gene Ostrowski/For Inside PA Motorsports
Photos by Walt Smith, Lisa Hartwig and SDS Photography
From left to right: Paul Hartwig Jr., Paulie Hartwig III and Lisa Hartwig celebrate in victory lane following a 2024 open wheel asphalt modified victory at Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, N.C.
For many, 2011 might not seem like it was exceptionally long ago. After all, it was only 14 years.
Lady Gaga’s “Born this Way” was being played on pop radio stations across the world and the Iraq War had finally ended. Charlie Sheen was fired from “Two and a Half Men’’ and “Game of Thrones’’ made its premier. There were 3,953,590 documented U.S. births that year, including Paulie Hartwig III, of Galloway, N.J.
Now, at only 14, Hartwig is a popular, sought-out and well-respected race driver. He and his family travel the East Coast numerous times each year and attend both dirt and asphalt racing events in which he competes.
If you’re guessing that, at his age, he’s competing in gokarts or micro sprints, you are wrong.
No. He’s racing in top-tier classes at well-known facilities, running against some of the best drivers in the country – and winning.
As the saying goes, racing runs in the Hartwig bloodline. Paulie’s father, Paul, formerly competed in both full-bodied and open-wheel cars on both asphalt and dirt. Although some might say that his on-track demeanor may have been a little on the excessive side at times, Paul made a lot of friends in the sport because of his work ethic and loyalty to those who treated him equally as a racer.
If someone needed a part and Paul had it, it was theirs, no questions asked. Along with that, there have been many times when he helped replace that part on a car that he knew that he’d be battling on the track.
It was no surprise when Paulie, who was 3 at the time, approached his father and told him that he wanted to be a race-car driver. It didn’t take long for Paul and his father,
who is also a former racer, to put together a racing kart for the youngster.
What did come as a surprise was how quickly the young Hartwig adjusted to the speeds and trickiness with handling and maneuvering of the kart. He made his first start at age 4 and went to victory lane seven times in only nine starts at Snydersville Raceway in Stroudsburg.
The following season Paulie set his focus on competing in nationally sanctioned quarter midget racing. Competing in both United States Auto Club and Quarter Midgets of America sanctioned events, he earned the 2018 and 2019 USAC national championships, along with the 2017, 2018 and 2019 USAC Regional Driving titles.
He also earned two divisional quarter midget championships at the now defunct Atco Raceway in New Jersey and went undefeated in 2019.
His father, Paul Jr., didn’t seem incredibly surprised by his son’s early success, noting, “He’s just so smooth and has good race craft.”
Hartwig Jr. isn’t the only one who recognizes his son’s talent.
“A lot of other drivers compliment him on how he races the veteran drivers clean and they also comment about how well he is on both dirt and asphalt and that’s really nice to hear. He’s earned that respect.”
Paulie continued to compete in quarter midgets in 2020, but he wanted more. That same year he competed in a Tobias Slingshot. Just like the previous classes in which he raced, the youngster had no problem with the transition. He won the 2020 Tobias Slingshot national championship and made the jump into racing full-sized, four-cylinder race
RacewayPark,LLC
PENNSCREEK
cars, earning the honor of being Pennsylvania’s youngestever stock car winner by taking victories at both Evergreen Raceway in St. John’s, Pa., and at Mahoning Valley Speedway in Lehighton.
At age 9, he finished off that season with a win against drivers up to five times his age in the prestigious “King of the Green” event at Evergreen.
The following season he began to make the leap into the powerful sportsman modified stock-car division. He learned how to handle the V8-powered open-wheel machines quickly and finished third in Evergreen’s sportsman modified championship race. He also claimed the four-cylinder championship at both Mahoning Valley and Evergreen.
Hartwig took on a new challenge for the 2023 season. Although he continued to attend pavement events with his sportsman modified, he also went back to dirt racing and that, too, was in the sportsman modified division. On dirt, he won the 602 dirt modified championship at Bloomsburg Fairgrounds Speedway and ended up placing fourth overall in the paved track Race of Champions series point standings. He was also named the series’ “Rookie of the Year.”
Hartwig enjoyed racing in Bloomsburg and expressed
how disappointed he is that racing was shut down there.
“I really like racing on asphalt, but I love dirt racing. That’s my favorite.”
Hartwig continued, “Bloomsburg was a really great place to race.”
Whether it was on asphalt or dirt, Hartwig stood out.
Up to this point he had amassed 18 asphalt modified victories, including one in the annual North/South Shootout at Caraway Speedway, near Asheboro, N.C. Another North Carolina victory came at the prestigious North Wilkesboro Speedway.
That was the season where North Wilkesboro Speedway was brought back to life after sitting dormant for several years.
“There is so much history at that place and being the youngest one to win on the asphalt there is my favorite win so far,” Hartwig noted.
As expected, Hartwig scored victories as the season progressed and gained additional experience by competing at tracks that he had never been to, while running with many drivers that he hadn’t raced against previously.
He posted fastest time against some of the best asphalt
Paulie Hartwig III (#11) works inside of Brian DeFebo (#53), a multi-time Mahoning Valley Speedway open wheel asphalt modified track champion, for position.
modified stars from the Whelen NASCAR Modified Tour at Riverhead Raceway in New York and then went to victory lane in the fan favorite “King of the Green” 75-lap Tour Type Modified event at Evergreen.
Before the season closed he finished in the top five at the prestigious Race of Champions at Lake Erie Speedway in New York, and he finished third in the Race of Champions modified series tour.
The teen rarely takes a break from the action and beginning in the winter of 2024 he competed indoors during the off-season, racing a slingshot car.
“I REALLY LIKE RACING ON ASPHALT, BUT I LOVE DIRT RACING. THAT’S MY FAVORITE.”
- PAULIE HARTWIG III
Like most of the other divisions that he conquered in the past, Hartwig went to victory lane as the youngest indoor auto racing winner in Allentown and he also took the win at the Atlantic City indoor event.
The 2025 racing season has already begun for Hartwig and he won two out of four nights at All-Tech Raceway in Lake City, Fla.
Of course, his season will be jam-packed and also includes some asphalt racing on the SMART Modified Tour and select events throughout the northeast. With the SMART Modified Tour in early March, he finished as the runner-up to Luke Baldwin in Anderson, S.C., and just before this story went to print he posted a respectable sixth-place finish with the tour at South Boston Speedway in Virginia.
It’s no secret that Hartwig enjoys racing at various tracks,
but every racer has his or her favorites. So far, the teen hot shoe has several that top his list.
“I’d definitely have to say that my favorite dirt tracks are Port Royal and All-Tech,” he said. “When it comes to asphalt, I really enjoy Spencer Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway.”
For additional exposure away from track, Hartwig enjoys participating in parades, car shows and sponsor appearances, signing autographs and spending time with the racing fans.
The team also has a strong social media presence. Lisa Hartwig frequently keeps the team’s fans, sponsors and supporters up to date with race results, upcoming events and anything new on most platforms.
His crew consists of his father Paul and mother Lisa, his grandfather Paul Hartwig Sr., Bobby Geiger, Matt Ricco and Dave Potoski.
Many great competitors have strong supporters who help take care of at least some of the bills. Hartwig credits Ace in the Hole Landscaping, Short Load Concrete, Morgantini Race Engines, Volocita, The Joie of Seating, Professional Therapy Associates, Jersey Shore Contracting and Surfside Collision for the support that they have given his team.
Some believe that people are destined to do big things, but first, they must follow their passion. Whether there is truth to it or not, it sure appears that Paulie Hartwig III was just “Born this Way.”
Paulie Hartwig III sits on the tire of his open-wheel asphalt modified prior to the
to the start of the Race of Champions modified event at Lake Erie Speedway.
‘Broadsliding with Bev’
Racing family matriarch covers dirt track scene with words
By Shawn Wood/For Inside PA Motorsports
Motorsports is probably the most nerveracking sport for a wife, mother or girlfriend.
From the 1980s to the 2000s, Bev Thompson found a way to turn those nerves into words.
Her longstanding column, “Broadsliding with Bev” in “Area Auto Racing News” started as a wife’s perspective on motorsports and then pivoted to a mother’s perspective when her son “Lightning” Lenny Thompson started racing sprint cars in Central Pennsylvania.
She noted as a child growing up in Ohio, she loved to write and even kept a journal.
Her break that led her to write for AARN came when Janet Shive, mother of United Racing Club driver Rick Shive, was getting tired of writing about URC for the paper.
“I started with AARN to get into the pits for free in my early days after Bruce and I were married as money was tight when he was driving stock cars,” she said.
Bev worked as a medical assistant, and she is continuing to write.
She is currently working on a historical fiction book about the journey of her ancestors from Poland to America. She has been researching her ancestry for the past six years.
“I had a ball writing the column,” she said. “I had a harder time quitting the column than Bruce did giving up racing.”
Her column had it all, from what a wife saw from the pits while mixing in birthdays, pregnancy announcements, gossip and even sitting in the stands and interviewing fans.
Her stories made the column come alive.
Among the most known, and printable, are the Quebec and Crossville, Tenn., incidents.
URC was on tour in Quebec one year when racer Fran Hogue was celebrating his birthday.
“I was walking down the hall in the hotel to surprise him with a cupcake, and I put a sparkler in it as the candle,” she said. “Well, the sparkler set off the fire alarm. But what we didn’t know was that it was a silent alarm to the fire department. So, we ended up being ushered outside by firefighters and they’re asking, ‘How did this start?’ and I was playing innocent and saying, ‘I don’t know,’ “ she said with a hearty laugh.
While rain ended a twoday URC race weekend in Crossville, it didn’t stop the fun.
On Saturday night, the local police showed up at the hotel where they were staying after receiving a call from “a little old lady” who lived nearby and described a scene of “naked men dancing in the parking lot.”
The group from URC assured the police there were no naked men around. Those on hand know of the famed “all-male review show” that night.
With her grandson, Michael Thompson, in his first full season of racing the 410s in Central Pennsylvania, her husband Bruce has encouraged her to get back to writing the column.
It would be interesting to get her perspective today as a grandmother. It would bring her entire experience full circle for a girl from Ohio who loves to write.
Photo Provided Bev and Bruce Thompson stand in front of their 30-foot boat at their home in Florida. Bev wrote “Broadsliding with Bev” for more than two decades for Area Auto Racing News.
Thompson clan still going in circles
Youngest moves from micros to 410 sprints
Story and Photos by Shawn Wood/ For Inside PA Motorsports
Long before the Thompson name became known on the circle-track circuit, they were going in straight lines.
Bruce Thompson, a former 410 sprint car, and United Racing Club driver from Newtown, started his motorsports career in drag racing.
He was the first person in his family to race.
“My father hated racing,” Bruce said. “He would come to the shop and take our waste oil. That was it.”
Bruce would meet his wife Beverly at the drag races as she too had her drag racing license.
After several accidents, Bruce decided he had enough.
“This is stupid, I hate drag racing,” he said.
In 1973, a friend of Bruce told him that he needed to come with him to see stock-car racing at the now defunct Flemington Fair Speedway in Flemington, N.J., a 5/8th-mile dirt track.
Bruce was hooked and two years later, he started racing in the sportsman modified division. He would eventually move up to sprint cars with the United Racing Club where he was also the president for a time before moving to 410s in Central Pennsylvania.
Today, grandson Michael is beginning his first full year of racing 410 sprint cars in Central Pennsylvania. Both of his grandparents and his dad, ‘Lightning’ Lenny, a nickname that his grandmother gave his dad when he started racing quarter-midgets, raced in Central Pennsylvania.
Lenny started racing sprint cars at 16 in 1992 and raced until 2004, when Michael was born.
“I knew I was done when I showed up at Williams Grove Speedway to a World of Outlaws show in 2005 with my helmet and fire suit looking to see if anyone had an open seat and I ended up driving the Outlaws two-seater on
Third-generation driver Mike Thompson of Newtown, Pa., gets ready to take to the track at Port Royal Speedway. It will be his first full season of 410 sprint car racing at The Speed Palace.
two different dates,” Lenny said. “That was the last time I drove a sprint car.”
As a driver, Lenny earned eight 410 wins in his 11 years of competition in Central Pennsylvania. He scored five wins at Port Royal Speedway and three at the Grove.
“My five proudest days in my life are each of the days that my sons were born, my three 410 wins at Williams Grove, and my wedding day is six, and my wife is OK with that,” he said with a laugh.
He did score a memorable win at the Grove in 2002
“I won the 410 feature (and) the late Greg Hodnett, who was driving the Apple Car, was second, Fred Rahme, Sr., was third in the Al Hamilton car, Donnie Kreitz was fourth and Todd Shaffer was fifth,” he said.
“That was a family team beating future Hall of Famers.”
The drivers from second to fourth are members of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Shaffer will be inducted in May.
PHOTO LEFT:
Allen Doan of Allentown, N.J., is the crew chief for Mike Thompson’s 410 sprint car team. Doan has wrenched on all three generations of Thompsons, starting with Mike’s grandfather Bruce and his dad Lenny.
PHOTO RIGHT:
“Lighting” Lenny Thompson, foreground, discusses a matter about the engine as his son Mike looks on. Lenny has eight career wins in Central Pennsylvania sprint-car racing, including three at Williams Grove.
The family has always raced their own equipment while running the family-owned Thompson Motor Service in Penndel, which began in 1921. Lenny runs the business, and Mike works as a diesel technician, the same job his grandfather did.
Lenny raced against his dad at Lincoln Speedway and against Mike at Path Valley Speedway in the micro sprints.
In one feature towards the end of Mike’s time in the micro sprint, Lenny made a hard left to avoid the polesitter who had spun in Turn 1 at the start of the race. Lenny felt a bump from another car. It turned out that it was Mike with whom he had made contact as he saw him sitting sideways in the infield as he drove by under caution.
Like his dad, Mike began racing quarter-midgets at the age of five.
“I think Michael is more like my dad in his driving in being smart and patient,” Lenny said of his son’s driving style. “My dad always drove cautiously, as he wanted to roll the car into the trailer as he was funding it on his own dime. He didn’t have a lot of big sponsors so if he had junked the race car, he might be out for three weeks. When I came along, we had a lot more infrastructure and I drove it like I didn’t have a dime in it.”
Michael is a three-time national quarter-midget champion. There was a race at ATCO where Lenny saw Mike’s true potential in the sport.
“He was 11 and he was running in three different classes one night,” Lenny said. “He went out and won the feature in the first class. There was another feature before our next race. While other kids were getting in their cars to go out, Michael told me that we had to tighten up the car as the track was getting slick. He also told me to drop the shock down, move the left wheel out and we’re going to go and. Sitting in front of us was a driver who currently is racing dirt modifieds. He turns to me and says, “‘I didn’t understand half the changes he wanted us to do.”
In his last year in the quarter-midgets, Mike won 38 races.
The pattern for Mike has been to really pick things up by his third year behind the wheel in each division.
He raced micro sprints with great success. He also drove wingless sprint cars and 360 sprint cars.
He began driving sprint cars at 14. A family friend gave him a sprint car to put together at age 15 with his grandfather. Now 20, he is turning his attention full-time in the 410s.
“We’ve been building up our inventory from having the first sprint car that my grandfather and I built to having three complete race cars sitting in the shop,” Mike said.
“I still have a lot to improve on. I feel like our improvements, and they may not show (on the statistics), but we did come far in the three years we ran the 360 sprint cars. We never did get to win a 360 race, but we went from being a lapped car in the feature to running up front at the end.”
The team’s goals going back to last year were to not tear
up cars and be consistent and qualify for shows. They are switching their focus just slightly for this first full season in the 410s.
“This year it is a little bit more results-oriented, but even then, in the early part of this season we want to say that we were better than we were at the end of the season last year,” Mike said.
“If we leave the track every night saying we got better or that we found something, then the results will come.”
The Middleburg IGA is a sponsor of Mike’s car. Store owner Gary Wagner’s son Andy, and Lenny, were at Penn State’s main campus at the same time.
“While guys were making sure they didn’t have classes on Friday afternoon to start drinking, I was making sure I didn’t have Friday afternoon classes so I could get to Williams Grove,” Lenny said.
“Andy and I met in the pits at Williams Grove and our friendship led to the Wagners coming to watch Mike race and that turned into a sponsorship on the car.”
Mike’s younger brother, Owen, is a sophomore at Council Rock North High School where he is a three-sport athlete for football, basketball and track. He started on the football team this past season.
According to Lenny, Owen had more raw talent than Michael did at 5 when he started in quarter-midgets. While Owen didn’t truly pursue racing, he helps at the track.
Motorsports has been a way of life for the Thompson family since the 1970s. With Mike still learning the ropes of 410 sprint cars and what it takes to compete weekly in Central Pennsylvania, the Thompson name will be going around in circles for years to come.
BETTER TOGETHER
Sweet sounds of Motorsports through schooling
Story and Photos by Shawn Wood/For Inside PA Motorsports
The man who would become known for his chocolate bars, which first appeared in 1900, didn’t let the lack of education (nothing past the 4th grade) or his life of poverty stop him from being an inspirational figure.
One of Milton Hershey’s goals was to own an auto racing track.
That dream became a reality on May 18, 1939, as a 28car midget field raced around the quarter-mile paved oval at Hershey Stadium Speedway.
Merlyn “Doc” Shanebrook of Chicago won the 25-lap feature race.
Ironically, Williams Grove Speedway would open its gates
for the first time just three days later.
Racing at Hershey Stadium paused during World War II. It did not return for 27 years until the 1968-1969 season and then again from 1982-1983.
That dreamer spirit that embodied Mr. Hershey lives on today at the Milton Hershey School, in Hershey.
MHS is a private school where qualifying students in pre-K through 12th grade live on campus and based on the Deed of Trust left by Milton and Catherine Hershey in 1909, the school covers all costs to this day for qualifying students.
In 2022, MHS identified the World Racing Group and the World of Outlaws as a way to build brand awareness for the
Brock Zearfoss, of Jonestown, races into Turn 3 at the Williams Grove Speedway during the Summer Nationals World of Outlaws event. The Milton Hershey School has teamed up with the Outlaws and Zearfoss for the past three years to promote the school’s curriculum to the global sprint-car fan base.
school and its mission.
The partnership is in its third year, which includes the highly anticipated Hershey Sprint Car Experience, where students from MHS can get up-close with drivers and sprint cars. The event will take place on Thursday, May 8, at Hershey Park Stadium.
It’s a new date this year as the Outlaws will race at Lincoln Speedway on May 6, with May 7 serving as a rain date. They’ll race at Williams Grove Speedway on May 9-10.
“We were looking into an area that we haven’t tapped into before,” Kristina Pae, MHS Vice President of Communications and Marketing, said of the Outlaws partnership. “I was aware of the Outlaws through my family and growing up in Central Pennsylvania and knowing that they have a loyal fan base. We have a rich history of racing in Pennsylvania and it’s a great match-up of passionate fans and legendary drivers and race tracks.
“The career-focused education of the MHS program and looking for opportunity for kids to get real-world opportunities with professionals, working in all different aspects of careers and trades, and a new audience makes this partnership very interesting on multiple levels,” she added.
The Career Technical Education program has been part of the MHS history for more than 115 years. The learning program at MHS is a two-pronged approach with traditional classroom instruction including math, science, social studies, and English alongside a hands-on approach through career training.
“Our Career and Technical Education at MHS is paired with your traditional academic scholastic education which
makes us unique as most schools have the vocational in separate settings away from your academics,” Tara Valoczki, MHS Senior Director of Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment, said.
Within the CTE, MHS has 10 CTE areas including automotive. Students in the automotive program will graduate with the state registration and emission certification which allows them to work at a dealership or a private garage to perform car inspections which can lead to higher wages when they enter the workforce.
“The automotive pathway is one of the CTEs we offer, and it is a very popular one with our students,” Valoczki added.
“It is a very hands-on program. It allows our kids to graduate with a family-sustaining wage. Most of the students do a co-op with a local Ford dealership in their senior year.”
One of the school’s former students, Rayshawn Shuler, spent time with Brock Zearfoss and his team during Brock’s time with the World of Outlaws.
“I’ve always been a fan of drag racing, but I’d never been to any races in person like drag or sprint-car races,” he said.
“I also didn’t have much knowledge about sprint car racing before working with Brock.”
The experience with the Zearfoss team gave him a better understanding of the sport of sprint-car racing.
“It was more of a mental learning experience than a physical hands-on experience,” he said. “I got to see how everyone’s part plays a big role for the team. I also learned how fast-paced the environment was. There were physical labor tasks that I had to do but overall, they gave me a greater understanding of the different team member roles and how
to work together as a team.”
He noted the experience with the team would be beneficial in his future career.
“It let me learn that the automotive industry is not limited to just fixing cars for the public and it taught me that this type of work can be much more than just a job.”
He credits his school work at MHS as helping him gain an advantage for moving forward in the automotive field.
“In a couple of words, seize the opportunity,” he said. “This opportunity was made available to me, and I jumped on the experience. Looking back, there were others who wanted
the opportunity, but they didn’t sign up or were not open to trying something new.”
The partnership with the Outlaws will give MHS exposure to it’s already diversified field of students who come from all over the United States for a unique educational experience.
Like Mr. Hershey, those students are determined not to let their past circumstances define them.
The Sweetest Place on Earth also holds dear the sweet sounds of race cars.
Mr. Hershey’s dream lives on.
Rayshawn Shuler, of Philadelphia, a 2023 graduate of Milton Hershey School, looks on as he awaits instructions to help out the Brock Zearfoss team at Williams Grove Speedway during a World of Outlaws event.
BAPS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
Layout: 4/10th-mile Semi-Banked Oval
Location: 690 York Road, York Haven, Pa.
Racing Divisions: Super Sportsman (Winged), Limited Late Models, Street Stocks, Extreme Stocks, 602 Modifieds, 410 Sprint Cars
Email: kgouse@bapsmotorspeedway.com
Website: www.bapsmotorspeedway.com
Twitter/X: @bapsrace
BEAVER SPRINGS DRAGWAY
Layout: 1/8th and 1/4th-mile Drag Strip
CLINTON COUNTY SPEEDWAY
Layout: 3/8th-mile Semi-Banked Dirt Oval
Location: 98 Racetrack Road, Mill Hall, Pa. a half-mile off Exit 178 on I-80
Racing Divisions: 305 Sprint Cars, Limited Late Models, Pro Stocks, 270 and 600 Micro Sprints, 4-Cylinders
Track Phone: 570-726-7223
Email: info@clintoncountryspeedway.com
Website: www.clintoncountyspeedway.com
Twitter/X: @ClintonCoSpdwy
EVERGREEN RACEWAY
Layout: 1/3rd-mile Asphalt Oval
Location: 109 Race Track Lane, Beaver Springs, Pa.
Racing Divisions: Multiple Drag Racing Divisions
Track Phone: 570-658-8601
Email: mike@beaversprings.com
Website: www.beaversprings.com
Central Pa.
Location: 183 Mill Mountain Road, St. Johns, Pa.
Racing Divisions: Tour-Type Modifieds, 602 Crate Modifieds, Late Models, Factory Stock, Hobby Stock, 4-Cylinders
Track Phone: 570-956-6347
Email: evergreenraceway@gmail.com
Website: www.evergreenracewaypark.com
Twitter/X: @EvergreenRacePa
BLOOMSBURG FAIR RACEWAY
Layout: 3/8th-mile Semi-Banked Track, located inside the 1/2-mile Cinder Track
