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Riverhead, NY Aug. 10th
By Bob Finan
After a few days of reflection over the holiday weekend Dan Jivanelli of Hampton Bays inducted onto the Cromarty Wall of Champion Saturday night September 4th at Riverhead Raceway has been able to absorb how very special the night turned out to be. Putting Dan’s already emotional night over the top was a tribute NASCAR Modified Pinto bearing his famed bright orange with blue numbers on one side while the other side was decked out in red, white & blue. Both color schemes were successfully raced by Dan during his career.
“First I have to express my heartfelt appreciation to Eddie & Connie Partridge, Tom Gatz, GM John Ellwood and the entire Riverhead Raceway staff for this honor, I am truly humbled” Dan, a 38 time winner & 4 time track champion over three divisions noted. Joining Dan during the enshrinement on track were a large gathering of family and friends including his wife Andrea, daughter Bridgett and her family, son Michael and brother in law and former NASCAR Cup driver Greg Sacks and his wife Vicky.
First arriving at the track in the late afternoon Dan was in for a even bigger surprise awaiting him covered in secrecy under a tarp. Vintage All Star rookie Dan Dombal agreed to have his Pinto bodied car transformed into the tribute car for the occasion. “I’ve come to find out some great people came together to pull this off” Dan recalled Thursday. “I owe a great debt of gratitude to Dan Dombal for providing the car so it could be changed over for the night, Steve Tooker, Wayne O’Kula, Dave Sapienza, Dennis Freese of Oval Speed, Jason Sheppard of Complete Chassis Solutions, Ken Heagy, Bill Smith of Wild Child Designs and my former car owner Harold Wilson, they all banded together mapped out the plans and made it happen doing my heart proud”.
The amazing part of the tribute was just the nine individuals mentioned by Jivanelli had knowledge of the project keeping it a secret until the unveiling Saturday night. As Dan Jivanelli’s enshrinement began the Pinto was pushed into the winners circle. After the ceremony the car was raced in the 15-lap All Star Vintage feature event by owner Dan Dombal. Later Jivanelli climbed aboard to pace the 50-lap Buzz Chew Chevrolet NASCAR Modified feature.
Spider Ligon of Riverhead and Jack Orlando of Calverton joined Dan Jivanelli in the class of 2021 for induction on the Cromarty Wall of Champions this past Saturday.
