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DZ:
How did you get started in your racing career?
Rick:
Well, when I was 16, I was in drag racing. We had a club, the Maryland
Timing Association, which ran the first legal drag strip in the state of
Maryland, which was in fact Frederick Municipal
Airport. And, on Saturdays we'd put up snow fence, then on Sunday we'd
take them down... every week. <laughs> That got kinda old. Then we
had the Procopio Brothers build Aquasco Speedway, which I think is now called
Bud's Creek... I'm not sure. I was the starter there, as well as I ran a
1940 Mercury with an Olds engine, in C Gas.
You know, in those days
things use to break. You use to shear axel keys and blow your
transmissions, stuff like that. We had these 25 and 26 tooth Lincoln
Zepher transmissions, you could get them in the junkyards in those days.
In any case, that was down in southern Maryland and on our way back, we
would always pass Marlboro Speedway, which is roughly at the intersection
of Route 3 and Route 4. Not too many knew about Marlboro Speedway in
Maryland, but a lot of people knew about it in Europe. We had some really
big name drivers at that time come in, like Sterling Moss, Jackie Stewart,
people like that.
One day, after a day of
racing, that is drag racing, I was coming back and it was raining. The
rain was coming through the seals of the windshield. <laughs> I'm
looking over on the right side... there these guys are having this race. I
noticed that they could floor those cars and nothing would ever happen...
no transmissions blown, no engines blowing. I got sort of interested in
that. Early on, the President of the Maryland Timing Association was a guy
named Guy Fowke, who drove an MGA. He got away from drag racing and went
to this other kind of sport, that we sorta like... we would get out of our
car, off the running board and step on these little cars. We didn't have
too much respect for sporty car people.
I asked him about it and
he needed a mechanic, so that's how I got sort of like involved in sports
car racing. And then, we were written up as having the world's fastest MG.
At the time, he won a lot of nationals. He had a hard time describing what
was wrong with the car, so I decided I would go to driver's school... in
those days you only had to go to one school and you'd get your novice
license. I would go through school, get a license, then I could drive his
car. Then I could find out what was wrong with it and prepare it better.
Well, that bad part was... well, I rented this MGA from a friend of
mine... a guy named Jim Quigley <laughs>, for $25. It had 4 brand
new Michelin tires on it. It was a 1500 MGA, and I went through school in
that car for $25. At the end, they would put umm, all classes, all in one
big glob and have one race.
Well, I happened to win
the race. So, immediately I was sponsored! People wanted to sponsor me,
which was basically unheard of in those days. So that's how I got
involved... and the next thing I know, I'm running against the very car
that I tuned. I bought a Porsche Speedster, a '58 Porsche Speedster that
crashed, flipped, blown up and caught on fire. I got it for almost
nothing. I put it all back together, and that's the car that I raced. I
got sponsorship... people started giving me big brakes and different
gearing, tires and things like that, from a guy who fist sponsored me. His
name was Big Bill Thomas. Big Bill Thomas was, at one time he was the head
of the NASCAR Oldsmobile racing team, when they ran on the north track,
before Daytona was even built. He had a partnership with a guy named Bill
Terrell, who owned Metropolitan Imports in Baltimore. So, they got me all
this stuff. That was my first sponsorship.
Here I am, running
against the very car I'm tuning, and I'm beating it. Everybody was saying
I detuned his car so I could beat him, so, that went by the wayside. I
started driving my own car. That was the only car I ever owned, by the
way. I remember I had a Racer Brown 22A cam in it and it was a faulty cam.
The cam broke in half, which broke my motor. That was the only engine that
ever blew up in all the years of my racing... ever! If you ever got a
reputation of blowing motors, blowing transmissions and being hard on
something, you wouldn't be driving for anybody very long. That's the way
that was in those days. Basically, it was unheard of that people had
drivers drive for them. So, that was the start of it all.
DZ:
Do you remember when and where you saw your first race?
Rick:
Yeah... it was down at Marlboro. Funny thing was, I wasn't a driver yet
and I saw this guy... they had what they called Formula Junior, in those
days, which was a... a Junior, or small car, like a midget is to a sprint
car, a junior was to a Formula 1 car. Actually, I think the size of the
motor was 1100 cc, Fiat motor and a 600 Fiat rear end, but it had that
front engine, rear wheel driven Formula 1 look. I remember the guy coming
out of the bowl at Marlboro. The bowl was really an oval for stock cars.
They added on the sporty car track, which then totaled about I think, 1.7
miles in length. But, I remember him coming out of the bowl and then there
was this little "S" turn with a barbed wire fence and the guy
didn't make it. He slid under that fence and almost cut his head off... almost
did. He didn't. I said I would never... that was all there was for me. I
would never drive... <laughs>
Strangely enough, later
on in years I was running a Formula Vee, which is Volkswagen powered, 40 or
50 horse power, you had certain specifications. I also helped a fellow who
was a very big wheel in the Triumph Motorcycle Corporation, which was
based in Timonium. So, I was a sort of a racing technical consultant for
the Triumph Corporation, you could say. And, Gary Nixon was the national
champion in 1967. In 1967, I helped on his motorcycle. Well, before we
went down to Daytona, we rented the Marlboro race track, that is the
Triumph Corporation did, because he couldn't believe that my time was
faster in a Volkswagen than his 500 cc Triumph, tricked out race bike.
But, it was, only because we had more tires, of course, and we could go
through the turns faster, even though they could out accelerate us in the
straightaway.
Later on, Nixon
decided... you know, he was starting to wind down his career and he wanted
to maybe drive sports cars. So, at that time there was a Lucas slide
injected BRM ex-Formula 1 car that this guy was going to sponsor me...
wanted me to drive. He was a rich fellow. <laughs> So, Nixon was
gonna come down and maybe take a couple laps, see if he liked cars. Nixon
arrived, just as this guy was warming up his car. Again, came out of the
bowl. Now, instead of a barbed wire fence, they had a huge dirt mound. He
crashed the car right on the dirt mound and broke the car in half, right
in front of Nixon. The Gary decided he wasn't going to go car racing. He
said a motorcycle... you can walk off a motorcycle. But, I did let him
drive the Formula Vee around and he was just putting around. But, that was
okay. He felt like he was in a coffin and he just didn't want to drive it.
There's a lot of little stories like that.
<laughs>
DZ:
How many types
of racing did you compete in?
Rick:
Well, you know... I did drag racing early on, until I found there were
turns in the road. Then I did sports car racing and... normally, its the
other way around, you know...you went into the stock car racing first,
or something else before getting into sports car racing. Very few
people ever went from sports car racing, then all of a sudden from asphalt
they went to dirt track. But, with the help of Bucky Guilfoy, Ray Cable
and Johnny Roberts, they all sort of took me under their wing and telling
me "Don't tell anybody you're a sports car driver."
<laughs>
They guy who owned
Lincoln Speedway at that time, his name was Hilly Rife. Hilly was a sports
car kind of a fan. He had a Jaguar one time, he had a Corvette... he had
run that car at Lincoln, right up against the wall... I mean he really
enjoyed it. He actually wanted me to come up there too, see what I could
do... you know, a sports car driver. I ran a couple different cars up
there.
I ran for a guy named Tim
Harvey. Tim use to build his engines out of an old chicken coupe kind of a
thing. His father owned a farm. He had two people drive for him at the
time. One was me, I had the smaller engine... I had a 289 in a Comet, I
believe it was, #5 and #55 was Kenny Slaybaugh. Kenny use to drive for him
and on the same night, he'd drive the sprints or super
modifieds.
DZ:
Before you
started racing, who were your favorite drivers?
Rick:
I actually didn't have any. I really sort of met my favorites, because
they were friends of mine. It just happens they were some of the very best
drivers in the country. One was Dick Thompson, another was Ed Lowther. You
know, there were a lot of fast drivers, but these guys I felt were rather
exceptional.
DZ:
Who were your
biggest influences early in your career?
Rick: I actually didn't have any. I really didn't. I loved to drive
and was fortunate enough to drive the best. When it was a money race, I
would always turn the money back over to the sponsors, or whoever owned
the car, so that I could get to drive better and better cars. I worked for
the state, which was my security factor, in case I got hurt. There were
times I couldn't even been able to afford the gas that went into those
cars, some of the exotic cars that I've driven.
DZ:
Who were some of
the guys you raced against?
Rick:
Well, when we ran endurance races, for instance, we ran... I don't
remember, Sir somebody or another from England, who was the Formula 2
champion at that time. And certainly, Jackie Stewart stands out... because
the guy that I use to race for later, Heyser of Heyser Cycle in Baltimore,
MD, bought Stewart's Can Am car, the L&M car and the Kenworth tractor
trailer... everything! He bought it lock, stock and barrel and went Can Am
racing.
There's just a lot of big
names. The biggest names, whether the names were big or not, the people
who I thought were the very best drivers were Dick Thompson... and Ed
Lowther.
DZ:
Who were some of
the more talented car builders/mechanics of your during those days?
Rick:
The car builders... one, of course, we had the Lola franchise. That is Tom
Heyser, Heyser Cycle, we had what they called Mid Atlantic Lola. Through my
name in racing at the time, we met Carl Haus. Haus was the Hewland
(transmissions, rears, etc.) distributor, as well as the Lola distributor
for the entire country. When Paul Newman got involved in racing, that was
like a hookup between Newman-Haus, eventually.
Of course, Eric Broadly
was the designer of the Lolas. With that in mind, he fortunately is the
same size I am, so it was pretty easy for me to have a factory car, as it
were, for my size. It would be helpful in those days if you were Italian,
5' 4", with a size 8 shoe. My shoe is a 13... I can cover all three
pedals at once. It was very difficult, actually. You had to concentrate
not to hit the wrong pedal, especially when you're, you know, in the heat
of running.
DZ:
Who do you think
were the most underrated drivers your ran against?
Rick:
There were a lot of good drivers that were underrated, simply because of
their machinery. They didn't drive good machinery. That's the reason why I
gave up all my money. I wanted to drive good machinery. But umm, there
were just a lot of really talented drivers... Carson Baird, for one. He
could really drive and never had really top machinery. Even though he did
do well, he could have done better. That's
really hard to answer, to be honest with you.
DZ:
What tracks did
you compete at:
Rick:
I generally competed on the east coast, primarily. In fact, at one time
they use to nickname me "Regional Rick". <laughs> But,
people played hell running against me, or people like me, on my local
tracks that I was very familiar with. Especially like Jackie Stewart,
coming over from England. It was very tough for them to do well against
the locals.
When we ran the Lola
Ford, we ran up at Lime Rock. At that time, the track record was never
under a minute. We broke that just with a Formula Ford, because of the
excellent handling characteristics. I was running Formula Vee's at the time
and then I, of course, graduated to Formula Ford at the same... the same
year I was running Vee's, I was running Formula Fords. It was like night and
day. It's like running a no suspension go-kart verses a very technical
suspension kind of a thing.
But, to name some of the
tracks... Thompson, Lime Rock, Bridgehampton, Marlboro. Mid-Ohio, which
was a very interesting track. It had hell of a lot of turns and it had one
negative camber, left hand turn that you were actually in the air and had
to correct in the air. With a rear engine car... it was a real
thrill.
Thompson, Connecticut, a
lot of people I knew were killed there. One was one of my students that
was killed there. I was actually in bed, reading the sports page on a
Sunday. I read where he was killed going into the bowl. Thompson's another
track that was an oval, asphalt oval, New England type track that got
stretched into a sports car track as well. So, it was a double deal there.
Vineland, NJ, Virginia
International Raceway, VIR, which is now redone and people run in vintage
cars and motorcycle races again. I use to call that one the high speed
dangerous one and Marlboro the low speed dangerous track. If you could
drive either one of those tracks well, you could drive any track in the
country well.
Watkins Glen was the
easiest track there was. Truly easy, only it was a high power track. If
you had a strong car, you'd win. A lot of times, I didn't have a very fast
car, or 6th fastest, whatever, but I could usually win because of the
handling... you know, because they were smaller tracks. But, that was a
long-winded track, and that was before they shortened it up. You know,
like the NASCAR guys, they got through that little "S" there
(inner loop).
That use to be a flat out turn. I mean, God knows how fast we were going,
but it was fast. You never shut off. There was a guy named Bud Foust that
was a good driver, a big name. He was killed up there, one year when we
were up there, ran into the trees about 160 mph. Trees don't bend, so...
DZ:
Which dirt tracks did
you race at?
Rick:
Well, actually there were just four. <laughs> Let me think. It was
Williams Grove, Friday night. Saturday night, Lincoln. Sunday, Susquehanna,
umm... Dorsey. Yeah, four. I didn't run Dorsey very much. It was kinda a
little tighter than I enjoyed.
DZ:
Which track do
you think was your best or favorite track?
Rick:
My favorite track, I guess, was Marlboro. They always said if you could
run Marlboro well... You know, most of the national champions, that had
the money to go national, the champions were from the DC region, which is
a 4 state area. Marlboro was their home track. It was extremely tough
track to drive. It certainly wouldn't pass any of what you'd call the
safety standards set today, because if you made a mistake, you were into a
tree, or a river. <laughs> It's that simple.
One other favorite was
VIR and my third favorite was Mid-Ohio. Those were real driver tracks. The
rest of them were kind of simple... for me. Lime Rock was another one.
It's a little tricky, but one or two laps and you could beat the local
boys. <laughs>
DZ:
Which track was
your worst or least favorite?
Rick:
The least favorite track? Hmm... Well, I'm not so sure there was a least
favorite track. I just enjoyed the competition and enjoyed just doing
it.
DZ:
What was the
most memorable or proudest moment of your career?
Rick:
Hmm... <laughs> I don't know! Never thought about it. I guess when
we won the 12-hour endurance race. I was a heavy driver. I drove eight of
the 12 hours with a guy named Gene Hobbs, in what they classified a
production car. E production, at that. It's a lot slower than A
production, B production or C production. Of course, they had slower cars
than E production as well. They had F and G production. But, it was
unheard of that a production car ever won a 12-hour... never before and
never since has a production car won the 12-hours. Normally, the
hybrid cars, you know, the Porsche 917's... you know, we even had a
turbine, Comet turbine, that Ed Lowther drove, at one time. He ran into a
wall at Daytona and cracked a vertebra in his neck, that he didn't even
know that he cracked, until like 30 years later when they (doctors) said,
"You broke your neck, you know." <laughs> But umm, yeah I
guess... that was really something.
DZ:
What was the most disappointing
or hardest moment of your career?
Rick:
I guess that was really early on. When that Racer Brown 22A broke in half
and I thought that was the end of my racing career, period. I didn't have
any money. The engine was blown... and there was a guy who was in a
formula car at Marlboro and he umm... he came out of the bowl, and when
you came out of the bowl at Marlboro, the car wants to jump a couple of
feet sideways. He wasn't quite use to that and he crashed, knocked the
nose of the car and his legs were there and he broke both his legs. So, he
decided he was going to run production after that. He bought my shell, in
other words my Porsche with no motor. And then I was without... I guess
that was the low point. I didn't think I'd ever drive again.
DZ:
What was the
funniest moment of your career?
Rick:
Well, my 3-year-old Volkswagen was 300 pounds heavier. The chassis had
fractured during the race and I was running against a lot of, well, psuedo
professionals. In other words, they were paid drivers in the latest cars,
factory cars and I beat 'em. That was pretty funny, I thought. And not
only that, we also ran against what they called Formula S, which was Saab
powered, a more sophisticated car... beat them overall. It was just a
funny deal. <laughs> It just really was.
DZ:
Of all your
competitors and associates (drivers, mechanics, etc), who were your closest
friends?
Rick:
Well strangely enough, it was the guys who took me under their wings and
hid me from the stock car crowd. That was probably Bucky Guilfoy, Ray
Kable and Johnny
Roberts. I guess that would probably be the... of course I was always very
friendly, and still am, with Tom Heyser. Umm... and a person I drove for,
for a long time as well, owned 40 West Porsche Audi, Charles Gillette.
He's into these vintage cars now.
In this type of racing,
its pretty unique. I found the stock car people... the stock car people
remember, no matter what... they remember. Sports car people, I don't
know... it's a huge turnover, but stock car people, the followers that
watch in the stands have incredible memories. I ran a sort of like a
cheater type of thing. WBMD, which was a hillbilly station... guess that's
not politically correct now days, but a hillbilly station for Baltimore in
the '60's. They had what they called a disk jockey race, for the disk
jockeys. WBMD hired me to run this disk jockey race and beat the disk jockeys
because most of the people that went to the Dorsey Speedway
listened WBMD. So, of course they wanted their boy to win. It was awful.
They gave me an alcohol burner flathead, with grease slinging out of the
axels and everything... <laughs> And umm... I think I lapped the 2nd
place car on like the 8th lap and I was doing all I could do... the car
was loading up, I was going as slow as I could possibly go, but the car
was loading up... but, I was Bowling with my son, 20 years later and there
was this guy in there who's father... it was his car and he remembered my
name and everything! I just couldn't believe it. Still to this day, people
remember different things and I wasn't very prominent in stock car racing
by any stretch of the imagination. I was extremely prominent in sports
cars, but stock cars? No.
DZ:
If
you could pick a list of the greatest drivers ever (including yourself)
from any point in history, from any venue in racing, and could magically
bring them through a time machine to compete together in a race, who would
they be and why?
Rick:
Well there certainly would be Dick Thompson, Ed Lowther, myself...
<laughs>... this would be sports cars really, umm... I guess Jackie
Stewart, Brian Redman... I might be mentioning names you never heard of.
DZ:
Doesn't
matter, its your race.
Rick:
A guy named Ron Grable, Mark Donohue... geez! So many people... George
Alderman... Jerry Titus, Bob Tulius would be another one. I'd have to
really think about that one. That would be a hell of a race! I'll tell you
that! <laughs hard>
DZ:
What
changes do you think could, or should be made in racing today that would
improve the sport most?
Rick:
The problem now is that its gotten so professional
that people walk around with suitcases. In the early days, we use to hang
around, maybe get a hamburger or something. Companionship with the
drivers, you know, everybody... it's so sophisticated now. I'm glad I
raced when I raced. Its a shame that people don't enjoy what we enjoyed
before. That's probably the reason vintage racing, or vintage people, is
so big nowadays. Nostalgia, the good times. I'm not so sure its the good
times anymore. Its just money now. Money, money, money, money,
money.
DZ:
What advice would you give to a young man or woman who was thinking about
starting a career in racing?
Rick:
Don't put your own money in it. <laughs> Try to get sponsorship and
always go in with the thought that you're not the greatest, but you do
have a moving billboard. The most anybody can say to you is no.
DZ:
When
future generations find your name in the history books of racing, what is
it about you and your racing career that you would most like to be
remembered for?
Rick: Good grief! I don't know. I wasn't a dirty driver. I just got
the job done. The only thing I was ever hard on was tires. <laughs>
I'd have to ask the sponsors if it was okay if I smoked up the tires,
because my style of driving isn't exactly what most people's are.
DZ:
What
was your style of driving?
Rick: Well,
because of the absence really good brakes in the early years, in fact too
small of brakes, I developed a dirt track style of driving. In other
words, backing a car into the turn, scrubbing off the speed and giving me
a proper angle of attack to come out of a turn, so I could be faster at the
end of the straightaway, you know, for the next turn. But, that would be
hard on the tires.
I
was never hard on engines or transmissions. I didn't use the clutch as a
gear. I didn't use up my car. The only thing I ever used was tires.
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