Tuesday, July 31, 2018

Huffman balanced football and racing


HMS NOTEBOOK: Huffman balances football, racing



  • Tom Gillispie - Aug 22, 2012


hdr huffman

Landon Huffman, here conferring with his dad, Robert, got

his first Limited Late Model win of the season last weekend,

and his high-school football team, Bunker Hill,

won its season opener. Photo by Nick and Sherri Stearns

HICKORY, N.C. -- Teenager Landon Huffman had two reasons
to be excited last weekend.

First, he played linebacker as his high school, Bunker Hill, won
42-14 last Friday night at Cherryville.

Huffman, 16, then won a 17-car Limited Late Model race at Hickory Motor Speedway last Saturday night. He finished ahead of Jeremy Pelfrey, Travis Byrd, Brandon Setzer and Shane Lee.

Huffman also won the Limited race during last year’s Bobby Isaac Memorial weekend.

Was he excited Saturday?

“For sure,” he said. “We should have won several (times) earlier in the year; we just didn’t get it done. I’ve learned a lot this year, and I was able to use it last week and this week.”
Two weeks ago, Huffman started third and finished second behind Monty Cox. Last week, he started on the pole and led every lap.

Through Aug. 13, Huffman was 11th in Limited points, but he’s missed several races. His dad, Robert Huffman, is team manager at X Team Racing in Statesville, and Landon has worked as a tire man for racer Daniel Suarez in the K&N Pro Series series.

Landon Huffman has his sights set on the Isaac, scheduled Sept. 1 at HMS.

“We’re going over the car,” he said on Tuesday. “We should be good; we have a lot of momentum.”

On Friday night, Huffman expects to start at linebacker and perhaps play some fullback when Bunker Hill plays host to St. Stephens.

Which sport does he like better?

“I’d much rather race, but football doesn’t cost any money,” said Huffman, who is 5-foot-11 and weighs 185 pounds.

He says he hopes to run later in the season at Myrtle Beach (S.C.) Speedway and Ace Speedway in his first excursions away from HMS.

Robert Huffman was the HMS track champion in 1988 and 1989 and is a five-time Daytona Dash champion.

Other HMS results

Last Saturday, Austin McDaniel picked up his seventh Late Model win of the season. Josh Wimbish was second in the 12-car race, followed by two-time track champion Andy Mercer (2009 and 2010) and Pietro Fittipaldi.

Todd Harrington won the five-car 4-Cylinders race, followed by Nathiel Kanupp, Rob Lewis, Donn Wardo and Donnie Harmon.

Marshall Sutton beat out points leader Kevin Eby in the eight-car Street Stocks race, followed by Mike Newton and Mark Whitten.

Trivia question

Who won Hickory Motor Speedway’s Late Model title five years running? No, it wasn’t Ralph Earnhardt, who won five non-consecutive championships in the 1950s.

Learning more about her dad
It was reported here last week that Tina Hedrick wants to learn more about her late father, Richard Spears, who raced Street Stocks and other divisions at Hickory from 1977 to 1980.

She’s learning more and more.

This past week, Hedrick received emails from Gerald “Junior” Killian and Don Herman, and a family friend brought along a photo of Spears.

“I remember Richard Spears as a youngster working on one of my first racecars,” Killian said. “As a kid I helped on a couple of hobby and limited racecars that were housed in or close to Setzer’s Garage.”

Killian said Richard Spears used several cars from Tom Setzer’s junkyard for demolition derbies.

“I enjoyed watching the passion that Richard displayed,” Killian said. “He truly enjoyed his struggle and was very successful at times.”

Herman sent along a photo of an orange No. 26 car, with only “Richard” above the door.

“I remember two kids running around the garage in back of your house where you lived,” Herman said. “The other was your brother.”

Herman says he once drove Spears’ car on dirt at old Metrolina Speedway in Charlotte.

“Richard raced under the No. 26 in a 1957 Chevrolet and was pretty good, too,” Herman said.

Upcoming at HMS

• The 36th annual Bobby Isaac Memorial race (321 Lawnmower/Hickory Daily Record Night) is set for Sept. 1. A 150-lap Late Model race is scheduled along with Limiteds, Street Stocks and Sportsmen Racing Classics.

• On Sept. 8, a 100-lap Late Model race will be featured, plus Limiteds, Street Stocks, trucks, 4-Cylinders, Hobbys and Mini-Cups.

Happy birthday

Former Sprint Cup driver Steve Park (45) and Nationwide driver Kenny Wallace (49) were born on Aug. 23; same with former Cup crew chief and car owner Ray Evernham (45) on Aug. 26.

Worth quoting

Jimmie Johnson, from NASCAR’s website, after drawing a pink car for a 2003 IROC race at Daytona: “I guess those guys are going to lose to a guy driving a pink racecar.”

(Johnson ran two IROC races at Daytona, finishing fourth in both 2003 and 2004.)

Trivia answer

John Settlemyre won five Hickory track titles from 1977 to 1981.

Tom Gillispie, the author of “Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.”, writes about racing at Hickory Motor Speedway for HDR Sports. You can reach him at nc3022@yahoo.com.
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

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Tuesday, July 24, 2018

Tommy Houston feature (published in 2012)


Houston has great memories of Hickory Motor Speedway

HDR Houston
Martha and Tommy Houston pose during one of the former Busch Series Previews at the Clement Center in Hickory. Houston, a member of the National Motorsports Press Association’s Hall of Fame, won his last NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Hickory Motor Speedway in 1992.
(PROVIDED BY TOMMY HOUSTON)

Posted: Thursday, September 6, 2012 11:07 pm

Tom Gillispie
HICKORY, N.C. -- It was Hickory Speedway, not Hickory Motor Speedway, when Tommy Houston started racing at the track in Newton.



“Harry Gant and I raced against each other when the thing was dirt,” said Houston, now 67 and a member of the National Motorsports Press Association’s Hall of Fame. “My brothers were racing. We raced three years. When Ned (Jarrett) paved the track, we concentrated on paved tracks.”

Houston says he remembers winning Hickory’s Hobby Stock title the year the track was paved.

“My best memories are from when I got to race against (Bobby) Isaac and all the hotdogs back then, Ralph Earnhardt and those guys,” he said. “We were trying to win, but we weren’t doing it for money; we were doing it for fun, like people playing golf.”

They had one racecar, one trailer, one truck, he said. He recalls winning at Hickory one Saturday night, then going to South Boston (Va.) Speedway on Sunday.

“And doggone if we didn’t win there, too,” Houston said.
He says they “won some pretty good races.”

“We’d run three, four, five nights a week,” Houston added, “but Hickory was our home track. We had good success. My fondest memories are from watching my sons race and my brothers race.”
When he first started, the Hickory track didn’t have concrete walls, just dirt banks.

“I just felt fortunate to race Ray Hendricks,” Houston said. “My God, I got to race Jack (Ingram), Morgan (Shepherd), Harry (Gant).

“John Settlemyre and I were big rivals. Every time he’d get to me, he’d wreck me, and every time I got to him, I’d wreck him.”

Ingram remembers Houston fondly.

“He was a great driver,” said Ingram, who, like Houston, is enshrined in the NMPA’s Hall of Fame. “I don’t think his equipment was prepared as good as mine, and that’s probably the reason I beat him in the championships I did, but he did well.

“I’ve seen him beat quite few drivers in a lot of races. He was a good competitor.”

Houston won nearly 150 Late Model Sportsman races before the series morphed into Busch Grand National (and later the Nationwide) Series, and he won 24 races in what is now the Nationwide Series. Houston is tied with Dale Earnhardt Jr. for eighth in all-time Nationwide wins, with Ingram fifth at 31.

Houston ran in the first Busch race, in 1982 at Daytona. He started 23rd and finished ninth, then came back the next week and won the series’ first short-track race at Richmond (Va.) Fairgrounds Raceway.

Each year from 1982 through 1992, Houston won at least one race and finished 12th or better in the standings.

Houston is one of two drivers who started the first 184 races in what is now the Nationwide Series. The other driver? Dale Jarrett started his 184th race, missed a race, and Houston extended his series record of consecutive starts to 360. (Jason Keller eventually surpassed his record.)

Houston’s best year probably was 1989, when he finished second to the late Rob Moroso in the Busch Grand National standings. Moroso and Houston were battling in the season finale at Martinsville (Va.) when Houston’s engine failed in mid-race. Moroso finished third and beat Houston by 55 points.

Glenn Jarrett, a long-time friend, introduced Houston when he was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame in a 2008 ceremony in Concord.

“To be inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame, it’s just such a great honor,” Houston said then. “It’s just really exciting.  I don’t know. … It’s hard to put into words.”

He’s well-remembered as part of a racing family that includes his late brother Hal and sons Marty, Andy and Scott. He’s also the uncle of Teresa Earnhardt, Dale’s widow.

Five Houstons — Tommy, Andy, Marty, Ken and Hal — are all on Hickory Motor Speedway’s Wall of Fame. Ken Houston won Hickory’s track championship in 1964, with Tommy winning in 1975 and 1976, and Marty doing the same in 1997.

Houston’s best non-winning moment probably came when he and two sons competed in a 1999 NASCAR truck race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Greg Biffle won the Orleans 250. Dennis Setzer, another Hickory driver, finished fourth, with Marty Houston 13th, Andy Houston 22nd and Tommy Houston 35th in a 36-truck field.

Why did Tommy finish so far back? He says it was a start-and-park deal. They told him to park the truck early, and he ran laps.

“It let me know I could still qualify,” he said. “I wish I could have run more laps.”

Houston, now retired, says the family recently moved from Catawba County to Alexander County to be closer to wife Martha’s family. He
says he got Martha a Mustang convertible, and he watches two granddaughters play fast-pitch softball and Andy’s son race go-karts.

And he putters around in his garage. Gotta keep busy, you know.

Tom Gillispie, the author of “Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.”, writes about racing at Hickory Motor Speedway for HDR Sports. You can reach him at nc3022@yahoo.com.

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

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