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By Steve Barrick
Honored with the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame’s 2026 Andrew S. Fusco Award for Media Excellence, Ron Hedger has been a respected auto racing writer for over half a century. His credits include writing for National Speed Sport News, Stock Car Racing, Open Wheel and Speedway Illustrated magazines, and the Schenectady, NY Daily Gazette.
The resident of Ballston Spa, NY, is a past president of the Eastern Motorsports Press Association where he earned three EMPA Writer of the Year awards and was inducted into the EMPA Hall of Fame in 2024. He also has chaired the NYSCCA Hall of Fame Committee and continues to serve on the Saratoga Automotive Museum Board of Directors.
He is particularly proud of having been involved in the formation of the Saratoga project. Under his leadership, the Museum changes exhibits twice a year. “The Dawn of Muscle Power,” a celebration of Pontiac’s high-performance initiative beginning in the early 1960s, is featured in the museum now.
Hedger noted that “Lost Speedways,” an annual exhibit at the Museum he championed that showcased race tracks that once thrived and are now gone, has run its course. “I’ve done this for so many years there aren’t any more lost speedways to feature. That’s why we changed the title of the display from ‘Lost Speedways’ to ‘Racing Memories,’” Hedger said.
Hedger grew up in Morrisville, NY. His father raced around Central New York in the late 1950s, winning often.
“My father was involved as a driver to begin with, then became a car owner. He raced at Brookfield, Mid-State, Oswego, and Brewerton,” Hedger said. “He won the Brookfield Fair race in 1957. I still have that trophy, and my dad’s helmet.”
A succession of orange and white No. 16 cars became the Hedger brand and were largely built by Ron. “I learned how to weld working on the family race cars as a teenager and taught what I learned to my auto mechanics students later in life,” he said. He taught high school auto mechanics for 33 years.
Hedger is one of three brothers, each of whom followed a different racing path.
“My brother Randy was track champion for two years at Shangri-La then quit racing after his second title and went to work for NASCAR as the head tech inspector. My brother Ray built race cars. He was the king of the Small Block Supers at Oswego,” Hedger recalled.
Hedger was never interested in driving race cars, preferring to design and build them. “I remember walking around Langhorne Speedway each year in mid-October at the National Open, looking at everybody’s car, getting ideas from what I saw, then went home and built a new car,” Hedger said. “There were no such things as store-bought cars or house cars back then.”
He attributes his background as a car builder as a factor in preparing him for motorsports journalism. “When I started to write, I knew racing. I doubt there are a whole lot of writers today who understand racing, though they think they do,” Hedger offered.
On occasion, Hedger’s writing has raised the hackles of a promoter or two who objected to some of his characterizations.
“The one I remember most is a column I wrote about a bad night at Albany-Saratoga. The track was dusty and rough, there were cautions after cautions, the show started late and dragged on and on. Next week when I got there, promoter C.J. Richards was looking for me at the pit gate with the racing paper that carried my story in his hand. And he was mad.
“I asked him to read what I wrote and tell me what was untrue. He eventually admitted that every point I raised was true, and further admitted he had been disgusted about the night, too.
“Glenn Donnelly told me a few times that I had written some things he didn’t like but said what I wrote was always true,” Hedger recalled.
Hedger presided over the Eastern Motorsports Press Association after President Ernie Saxton and interim President Len Sammons stepped down. Hedger feels the entire racing industry has changed since his EMPA presidency.
“The tracks, the media, everything has changed. The internet media, in my opinion, has hurt the development of new writers, though it has certainly developed plenty of new photographers,” he evaluated.
Hedger shifted gears after spending 48 years with National Speed Sport News. He decided to forego weekly racing writing in favor of writing features for racing magazines.
“I wrote a story on my own about C.J. Richards, who promoted Albany-Saratoga Speedway and Devil’s Bowl at the time. I called Stock Car Racing Magazine Editor Dick Berggren about sending it which he declined to accept.
“So being a hard-headed Irishman, I sent it to him anyway, and it became the center spread story in the next edition. I became a regular contributor to Stock Car and Open Wheel after that,” Hedger said.
Throughout his half-century as a motorsports writer, Hedger said he has never wavered in his enthusiasm for the sport. “I’ve always enjoyed racing, wore out two or three tape recorders over the years in pursuit of ‘the story.’ I think the reason I love racing as I have is that I was never in the sport for a full-time job.”
Hedger, who turned 80 this year, wants to keep on writing as long as he can though he admits he’s starting to slow down a bit physically. “I haven’t been to Lebanon Valley for two years because of it. There’s a hot dog stand in the infield that was the perfect place to watch the races from. All you had to do was climb a ladder to get up there. I did it for years but can’t now,” he shared.
