0
0
Pre- and Post-Event Parties Planned
The stars will be out! Former and future Hall of Famers, car owners, media members, promoters and personal friends will be introducing the Class of 2024 during the upcoming induction ceremonies at the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame.
The 32nd annual induction program will take place Wednesday, July 10 at 7 pm in the Hall of Fame Museum on the Weedsport Speedway campus in New York. The event is free and open to the public, with both pre- and post-program celebrations planned.
Each one of this year’s guest speakers has a special connection to an honoree.
A Hall of Fame driver himself, inducted in 1999, New Jersey star Sammy Beavers will introduce our 2024 inductee Jimmy Horton.
Beavers has a long history with the Horton family, going back to the 1960s when young Jimmy was just a wide-eyed kid hanging around his father’s race shop.
“He used to sit on my knee in the race car when he was about six or seven years old,” said Beavers, who started driving for Pop Horton in 1968.
Even at that age, racing was the focus of Jimmy’s life. “He would work on the race car, right beside the guys, but he was too young to get into the pits,” Sam recalled. “So he would sit just outside the fence, like a tagger, trying to get in.”
There was nothing else that Jimmy wanted to do but race.
“When he was a teenager, he wasn’t very interested in school,” Beavers recollected.
One day, his dad handed him a camshaft. “If you’re so damned smart, why don’t you put this cam in the motor?” Pop Horton challenged his son.
“I can’t do it,” Jimmy conceded.
“Well then,” Pop made his point, “you’d better start learning how to do math!”
From that moment on, “He went from the bottom to the top of his class in school,” Beavers affirmed.
In 1974, Jimmy was racing Orange County on Saturday nights, as he wasn’t old enough to run in Jersey; Sammy was driving Pop Horton’s car at Flemington. “I didn’t like that,” Beavers said. “If something ever happened, I felt the father should be with the son.”
So Sam stepped aside in 1975, giving the seat in the Horton Modified to Jimmy, and watched the kid rise.
Beavers recognized just how good Jimmy was when they were racing each other on the Syracuse mile in the 1976 Schaefer 100: “I think I was running third in the 81, he was in the Statewide car, and he hit me in the back bumper—moved me out of the goddamned way and passed me!”
Horton’s friend and mentor saw the future. “Jimmy was always determined to do good. He was focused just on racing—that was his life. Even as a young kid: he didn’t want to play baseball or do any of that other stuff. And I think that’s why he’s so good,” Sammy considered.
“Back when he was sitting on my knee, I told him, ‘There’s one thing, kid, you should never forget: don’t ever give up!’ And that became Jimmy’s motto. Don’t give up.”
In an interview with MC Shane Andrews during the July 10 ceremonies, Beavers will talk about Horton’s legacy in the sport. Also: watch for a surprise guest to make an appearance via video, congratulating Jimmy on the honor.
Only the best of the best: those are the drivers that Jim Beachy associated with when he fielded cars on the DIRT circuit. In the late ’70s and ’80s, Beachy sponsored Jack Johnson for two Syracuse triumphs and six Mr. DIRT series titles. Hiring Alan Johnson, Beachy’s own team hustled to two more Mr. DIRT Modified championships and a third win on the Syracuse mile. When A.J. exited Beachy’s high-profile Pillsbury car after the 2003 season, it was one of the hottest rides in the region, with driver resumes being thrown around like confetti. On July 10, Beachy will reveal exactly why our 2024 driver inductee Gary Tomkins rose to the top of that intensive talent search to get the call—and why it was such a good decision for all involved.
Over almost 40 years in the sport, Capital District car owner Jake Spraker banked a boatload of wins and championship titles—with Mike Romano, Bobby Varin and Ronnie Johnson, to name a few. But the driver that was with him the longest—Rocky Warner—was the most prolific. Following a stellar Pro Stock career, Warner was just getting his feet wet in the Crate Sportsman pool when Spraker picked him up in 2015. Three years later, after winning everything there was to win in the Sportsman ranks, Jake moved him into a Modified. Together, they were good for nearly 100 wins and a dozen championship titles at Fonda, Glen Ridge, Utica-Rome, Albany-Saratoga and on the GRIT Series, ending with Rocky’s last track title at Fonda and Spraker’s retirement at the close of the 2021 season. Warner will look back on his successful stretch with Spraker, as Jake receives the Hall of Fame’s Gene DeWitt Car Owner Award.
Hall of Fame driver Frank Cozze had this year’s Mechanic/Engineering award winner on his team multiple times over the past 30-some years. And for good reason: with his intuitive ability to understand what a race car needed and a staunch work ethic, Davey Hoffman quietly boosted some of the greats to their best moments. With his brother Doug, Hoffman turned the wrenches for more than 180 wins. Davey also crewed for Billy Pauch, and was key in putting Cozze in position to win “the big one” at Syracuse—not once, but twice. With Hoffman setting tire strategy, Cozze came within seven laps of winning the Super DIRT Week classic in 1989; 19 years later, the team finally claimed victory. Cozze will take the mic to explain how he got more than he bargained for when he first hired Davey, as Hoffman is honored for his life’s work.
A longtime fixture in the announcer’s tower at both Lebanon Valley and Albany-Saratoga, Dan Martin got to know Lyle DeVore in the ’90s. “Our friendship stemmed from our mutual love of racing. And when he went to work for promoter Alex Friesen, I saw just how driven he was,” Martin said of DeVore’s passion for the sport. They have worked together since 2000, when Lebanon Valley owner Howard Commander hired DeVore; a dozen years later, Commander took control of Albany-Saratoga and installed Lyle as promoter. Through all the ups and downs weathered over the years—racing through the COVID shutdown and DeVore’s cancer battle—Dan and Lyle have forged an infallible friendship. Martin will comment on that kinship as DeVore accepts the prestigious Leonard J. Sammons Jr. Award for Outstanding Contributions to Auto Racing.
DIRT Motorsports founder and Hall of Fame honoree Glenn Donnelly made a savvy hire when he signed nationally-known sportscaster Doug Logan—“The Voice of the Orange,” to a legion of Syracuse University football and basketball fans—to host his fledgling television venture in the early 1980s. That Logan was a veritable newbie to auto racing, and completely unfamiliar with dirt Modifieds, mattered little to Donnelly—it was a calculated move that paid off tremendously. Donnelly will take to the podium to underscore the importance of Doug’s involvement in legitimizing “This Week on DIRT” and other DIRT-TV programming, as Logan receives the Andrew S. Fusco Award for Media Excellence.
Award-winning NASCAR and IMSA pit reporter and television commentator Matt Yocum met our Outstanding Woman in Racing, Mandee Pauch Mahaney, at Bristol’s Super DIRT Series event in 2021. By that time, her YouTube channel “Dirt Track Untold”—following the exploits of her racing family—had become a hit. And Yocum was a fan: “He introduced himself to me at Bristol and praised my work,” Mandee remembered. “We’ve stayed in touch ever since.” In an introductory video, Yocum will assess the value of Pauch Mahaney’s video catalog, which takes viewers on the road, behind the scenes and into the heat of the action.
For the past 32 years, Hall of Famer Joe Marotta has shared the announcer’s booth with Roy Sova at Oswego Speedway, as well as at tracks on the DIRT circuit going back to the 1970s. Both were students of the late Jack Burgess, learning the game from one of the greats behind a microphone who’d set the tone for any race meet. Marotta will do the honors as Sova receives the Jack Burgess Memorial Announcer’s Award, recognizing 58 years of voicing the action.
The 7 pm induction ceremonies will be preceded by a “Happy Hour” reception hosted by Weedsport Speedway from 5:30-6:45 pm, under a tent just outside the Museum. A complimentary array of finger foods will be served, along with iced tea, water and lemonade, courtesy of the track. Beer and wine will be available for purchase.
At the conclusion of the ceremonies, the party will move to Weedsport Speedway’s world-famous Portside Pub, where honorees and attendees can continue to socialize, have snacks and drinks, and enjoy video presentations from 9-11 pm.
On Sunday night, July 14, Weedsport Speedway will present its Super DIRTcar Series Hall of Fame 100 for the big-block Modifieds, sponsored by Ryan Phelps Auto Sales and Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast.
For the eighth year, a special Hall of Fame commemorative program has been produced, featuring the history of the Museum and Hall of Fame, a complete list of all HoF drivers and award winners in the past 32 years, a rundown of past HoF race winners, as well as stories and photos of all 2024 honorees. All profits from sale of the $7.00 program book benefit the Museum.
