Post by Crossbones Dennis on Jun 4, 2010 20:33:49 GMT -6
The following roster includes the newest members of the Gateway International Raceway/St. Louis International Raceway Drag Racing Hall of Fame inducted on Sunday, May 30th, 2010. Members are listed in alphabetical order.
The GIR/SLIR Drag Racing Hall of Fame recognizes, with gratitude, outstanding achievement and influence throughout the sport of those who have been integral to the history of the Gateway International Raceway motorsports facility in Madison, Illinois. Originally known as St. Louis International Raceway Park from its opening day on May 19th, 1967, the facility became St. Louis International Raceway in June, 1971, and was renamed Gateway International Raceway in February, 1987.
The 2010 inductees will join these members, (inducted in 2008 and 2009), of the GIR/SLIR Drag Racing Hall of Fame:
Don Baran, St. Louis, Missouri (Category: Sportsman Driver)
Jerry Bickel, Troy, Missouri (Category: Constructor)
Jeff Burk, O'Fallon, Missouri (Category: Media)
Gary Duckworth, Maryville, Illinois (Categories: Professional Driver/Constructor)
Don Garlits, Ocala, Florida (Category: Professional Driver)
Jerry Haas, Fenton, Missouri (Categories: Professional Driver/Constructor)
Matt Johnson, St. Charles, Missouri (Categories: Team Owner/Sponsor)
Bret Kepner, Crestwood, Missouri (Category: Sportsman Driver/Media)
Jim Lockaby, St. Jacob, Illinois (Category: Facility Employee)
Tim McAmis, Hawk Point, MO (Categories: Professional Driver/Constructor)
Wayne Meinert, San Antonio, Texas (Categories: Track Operator)
Allen Mollet, Highland, Illinois (Category: Sportsman Driver)
Steve Pearson, St. Charles, Missouri (Category: Sportsman Driver)
William "Bill" Rowe, Sr., Eureka, Missouri (Categories: Sportsman Driver)
Eileen Waters, St. Louis, Missouri (Category: Media)
Dave Wise, St. Louis, Missouri (Category: Team Owner/Sponsor)
Digital images of all GIR/SLIR Drag Racing Hall of Fame inductees are available from Gateway International Raceway.
Gateway International Raceway/St. Louis International Raceway Drag Racing Hall of Fame 2010 Inductees
Ed Dixon
Maryland Heights, Missouri
Categories: Professional Driver/Sportsman Driver
Ed Dixon earned a reputation as one of the toughest competitors in the area soon after his introduction to the sport in 1960. His ruthlessly competitive spirit permeated every aspect of his racing exploits in both the sportsman and professional categories. Ed Dixon defined the term ghardcore racerh.
Dixon competed in a variety of sportsman divisions in his first decade of racing but remained loyal to Ford Motor Company products even during his first foray into Pro Stock Eliminator in 1970. As one of the areafs earliest traveling professionals, Dixon raced in AHRA and IHRA national series in several different vehicles. By 1974, he devoted his efforts to securing a track championship in the sportsman ranks with an extremely popular manually-shifted 1964 Chevy Nova. While he won dozens of weekly events, it was a 1967 Nova in which earned his first SLIR season title in 1980. By 1983, Dixon returned to Pro Stock racing with a Pontiac Firebird in which he also entered sportsman competition. Three seasons later, Dixon teamed with the Callier Steel Corporation to field a Pro Stock Thunderbird which returned Dixon to both his Ford roots and the national spotlight. In IHRA competition, Dixon remained a national contender for almost a decade in a car acknowledged for its record-setting speeds.
When the Callier Steel withdrew from the sport, Dixon purchased the teamfs mechanical assets and created Ed Dixon Innovations, an engine building and tuning facility which remains active to this day. Dixon still owns and competes in a Pro Stock Ford Probe while his many customers enjoy success at the new GIR as recently as one week before his induction.
Vicki Grater
Highland, Illinois
Category: Facility Employee
As a child, Vicki Lockaby Grater attended events at St. Louis International Raceway from its opening day. Her father, past Hall of Fame inductee Jim Lockaby, was the original manager of the facility under the operation of track creator Wayne Meinert. Her friendships with the racers and a close relationship with Meinert led to a job in the trackfs control tower and, even before gaining a driverfs license, she took on the demanding position of chief statistician for weekly events.
In charge of accurately recording the elapsed times and speeds of each run down the track in an era when statistics were recorded manually, Vicki Grater coordinated each event from qualifying and timed trials to eliminations. Few women, let alone young girls, were strapped with such responsibility and, after her abilities were noticed by American Hot Rod Association president Jim Tice, Vicki was offered the same position at AHRA National Events across the country.
She eventually became friends with the greatest racers in the sport while developing a trust with the racers and officials as one of the most dependably accurate statisticians in the industry long before computer scoring was introduced. Although she left her position to begin a family in the early 1980s, her pioneering efforts in maintaining and directing the accuracy of the events at SLIR and other facilities remain amazing accomplishments.
William "Billy" Rowe, Jr.
Eureka, Missouri
Categories: Sportsman Driver
As the son of a previous GIR Hall of Fame inductee, Bill Rowe, Jr., was exposed to area drag racing from birth. While his father gained notoriety as one of the premier competitors in the area, Rowe learned not only the tricks to becoming a winning driver but also the skills of a master fabricator. Within days of gaining a driver's license, Rowe became a team driver with his father and almost immediately began to eclipse his father's amazing win record.
Simultaneously, he constructed an array of drag racing vehicles most of which remained true to his family's roots in Ford products. At an early age, he gained a reputation as one of the best natural driving talents in area history while becoming one of the most sought tuning advisors, as well. Billy Rowe displayed an extraordinary ability to win in any vehicle he drove including the machines of customers, friends and even those of his father.
Although he earned several track championships at SLIR, Rowe also made headlines on a national level by scoring final-round finishes in AHRA, IHRA and NHRA competition driving the machines he built. Fittingly, his biggest victory came as the first, (and, to date, the only), area racer to earn the title at the new GIR's most prestigious event, the NHRA Midwest Nationals, with his Super Stock championship at the race in 2002. He has since posted final-round appearances at other NHRA National venues, as well, and competes at events across the country as part of a multiple-vehicle team with his wife, Jeanette. Currently, the Rowe family owns race cars for competition in no less than four different NHRA eliminator categories and each is a proven winner.
Tim Seibel
Belleville, Illinois
Categories: Media
Tim Seibel has earned the accolades of his racing peers on several occasions. As the only two-time recipient of GIRfs most prestigious honor, the Earl Liverpool Memorial Award, his dedication to the sport and the success of the GIR facility is renowned. His induction into the GIR Hall of Fame is based on his tireless efforts to gain recognition for local competitors while maintaining an open dialogue with the owners of the facility. In his role as a volunteer mediator, Seibert works tirelessly as a voice for the racers.
While his own racing exploits include a variety of Chevrolets which have been successful in every class of competition from Super Pro to Street Eliminators, Seibel is best known for his printed publication, the GIR Drag Racing Newsletter, which he produces independently of the track. The Newsletter contains no advertising but includes complete photographic and editorial coverage of the events on GIR's dragstrip and is issued free to all spectators and racers. Seibel has also volunteered his time to serve as GIR's Team Captain at the annual NHRA Division III Bracket Racing Finals at Indianapolis Raceway Park in Clermont, Indiana, where he coordinates the racing efforts of more than three dozen qualifying local race teams from the facility.
In addition to his own racing efforts, the publication of his newsletter and his many positions as an advocate for his fellow competitors, Tim Seibel maintains a fulltime job at Fabick Construction Equipment and somehow has found time to raise a family. A friend to all, his selfless promotion of the facility, its racers and the sport is rare, indeed.
Joseph "Jody" Trover
Belleville, Illinois
Categories: Track Operator
Originally a delivery route driver for Landshire Foods, Jody Trover purchased the East St. Louis franchise of the company in 1966 and moved it to Belleville, Illinois, in 1972. He began an expansion of the company which eventually became one of the Midwest's largest food distribution corporations. In March, 1977, Jody and brother Phil Trover negotiated the purchase of St. Louis International Raceway from founder Wayne Meinert and began a nine-year tenure which saw a complete transformation of the facility.
In his first season as operator of the track, Trover added the AHRA Fall Nationals, featuring one of the largest purses in professional drag racing, to the strip's other AHRA National Event, the Gateway Nationals. The following season, he also hosted the AHRA's first Bracket Racing World Finals at SLIR. In the same period, Trover elevated the SLIR weekly sportsman purse to the highest guaranteed purse in the sportfs history. Jody became sole operator of SLIR in 1980 and began an aggressive schedule which included the continuation of the UDRA's presence and the addition of an AMA/Dragbike motorcycle national event while creating signature events such as the Outlaw Pro Stock World Championships and the Crown Royals Motorcycle Club Nationals, (an prelude to the later United Black Drag Racers Association's Black Sunday event). Likewise, the weekly sportsman racing purse remained one of the largest in the nation and, in 1981, Trover presented the first Illinois State Championships with a huge $5,000 top prize. Jody and his track crew also developed a solid relationship with communities in the greater Bi-State area by increasing the schedule to three days of racing per week including the extremely popular additions of a street car racing program and a High School competition sponsored by local businesses.
In 1982, Trover expanded St. Louis International Raceway to include a three-quarter-mile dirt off-road course, located on the west end of the property, which offered weekly motorcycle competition. On May 22nd, 1983, the dirt track hosted an AMA National Motocross Championship event. Trover also brought to the track championship tractor pulling, mud racing and monster truck events and even packed the facility to capacity with the second annual Budweiser SuperFest concert which moved from nearby Busch Stadium to SLIR in 1982.
With the demise of the AHRA at the conclusion of the 1984 season, Trover negotiated with the International Hot Rod Association, (which had briefly sanctioned racing at SLIR during 1975), to continue the Gateway Nationals for two more years. In early 1985, Trover was presented with a proposal by St. Louisan Kevin Eichner to construct a national-caliber road racing course and a companion one-mile dirt oval track on the SLIR property, a plan which, ironically, closely resembled the original vision of Wayne Meinert. Trover agreed to join a consortium of six other investors to form a corporation and begin the $2.2 million-dollar renovation. The team quickly proceeded with the largest expansion project since the trackfs initial construction utilizing almost every inch of the property to first complete a thirteen-turn, 2.28-mile road racing track for which four major events were scheduled in its first season. The facility was refurbished with new garages in the pit area and gskybox suitesh along the dragstrip, (which doubled as the main straightaway and the pit lane for the road course). The renewed St. Louis International Raceway opened for competition on June 9th, 1985, and boasted championships events such as the Firestone Firehawk Endurance Championship, the unique 24 Hours of St. Louis, (an event in the Sports Car Club of America's Playboy Magazine Endurance Cup series), the Gateway Historic Races for vintage race cars, the Bendix Brake Trans-Am Championship, the SCCA Can-Am Challenge and the first road-course event in twenty-one seasons for the Automobile Racing Club of America, (ARCA). The new SLIR also held multiple events under the auspices of the SCCA, several motorcycle organizations and a number of go-kart series. In mid-season, a small oval track was constructed in the far northwestern corner of the property for quarter midget racing which remained in operation for the next two years.
Trover also presented the Car Craft Magazine Street Machine Nationals to the facility and added the Midwest Drag Racing Nostalgia Nationals and Scott Seivekingfs first Monster MoPar Sunday which, to this day, remains the facilityfs longest-running event. After the conclusion of the 1986 Motorcraft/CARQUEST IHRA Gateway Nationals, however, Jody Trover relinquished his stake in the facility to devote more time to the growth of his primary business, Landshire Foods.
Jody Trover's motivation allowed SLIR to expand into a multiple-purpose racing facility and, under his tutelage, it became a nationally-recognized sports facility. It was his dream which eventually led to the construction of the current Gateway International Raceway a decade later. Although his induction into the 2010 GIR/SLIR Hall of Fame was scheduled for over a year, Jody Trover passed away on April 28th, 2010.
www.stldragracing.com/2010/06/girslir-hall-of-fame-2010-members-inducted/
The GIR/SLIR Drag Racing Hall of Fame recognizes, with gratitude, outstanding achievement and influence throughout the sport of those who have been integral to the history of the Gateway International Raceway motorsports facility in Madison, Illinois. Originally known as St. Louis International Raceway Park from its opening day on May 19th, 1967, the facility became St. Louis International Raceway in June, 1971, and was renamed Gateway International Raceway in February, 1987.
The 2010 inductees will join these members, (inducted in 2008 and 2009), of the GIR/SLIR Drag Racing Hall of Fame:
Don Baran, St. Louis, Missouri (Category: Sportsman Driver)
Jerry Bickel, Troy, Missouri (Category: Constructor)
Jeff Burk, O'Fallon, Missouri (Category: Media)
Gary Duckworth, Maryville, Illinois (Categories: Professional Driver/Constructor)
Don Garlits, Ocala, Florida (Category: Professional Driver)
Jerry Haas, Fenton, Missouri (Categories: Professional Driver/Constructor)
Matt Johnson, St. Charles, Missouri (Categories: Team Owner/Sponsor)
Bret Kepner, Crestwood, Missouri (Category: Sportsman Driver/Media)
Jim Lockaby, St. Jacob, Illinois (Category: Facility Employee)
Tim McAmis, Hawk Point, MO (Categories: Professional Driver/Constructor)
Wayne Meinert, San Antonio, Texas (Categories: Track Operator)
Allen Mollet, Highland, Illinois (Category: Sportsman Driver)
Steve Pearson, St. Charles, Missouri (Category: Sportsman Driver)
William "Bill" Rowe, Sr., Eureka, Missouri (Categories: Sportsman Driver)
Eileen Waters, St. Louis, Missouri (Category: Media)
Dave Wise, St. Louis, Missouri (Category: Team Owner/Sponsor)
Digital images of all GIR/SLIR Drag Racing Hall of Fame inductees are available from Gateway International Raceway.
Gateway International Raceway/St. Louis International Raceway Drag Racing Hall of Fame 2010 Inductees
Ed Dixon
Maryland Heights, Missouri
Categories: Professional Driver/Sportsman Driver
Ed Dixon earned a reputation as one of the toughest competitors in the area soon after his introduction to the sport in 1960. His ruthlessly competitive spirit permeated every aspect of his racing exploits in both the sportsman and professional categories. Ed Dixon defined the term ghardcore racerh.
Dixon competed in a variety of sportsman divisions in his first decade of racing but remained loyal to Ford Motor Company products even during his first foray into Pro Stock Eliminator in 1970. As one of the areafs earliest traveling professionals, Dixon raced in AHRA and IHRA national series in several different vehicles. By 1974, he devoted his efforts to securing a track championship in the sportsman ranks with an extremely popular manually-shifted 1964 Chevy Nova. While he won dozens of weekly events, it was a 1967 Nova in which earned his first SLIR season title in 1980. By 1983, Dixon returned to Pro Stock racing with a Pontiac Firebird in which he also entered sportsman competition. Three seasons later, Dixon teamed with the Callier Steel Corporation to field a Pro Stock Thunderbird which returned Dixon to both his Ford roots and the national spotlight. In IHRA competition, Dixon remained a national contender for almost a decade in a car acknowledged for its record-setting speeds.
When the Callier Steel withdrew from the sport, Dixon purchased the teamfs mechanical assets and created Ed Dixon Innovations, an engine building and tuning facility which remains active to this day. Dixon still owns and competes in a Pro Stock Ford Probe while his many customers enjoy success at the new GIR as recently as one week before his induction.
Vicki Grater
Highland, Illinois
Category: Facility Employee
As a child, Vicki Lockaby Grater attended events at St. Louis International Raceway from its opening day. Her father, past Hall of Fame inductee Jim Lockaby, was the original manager of the facility under the operation of track creator Wayne Meinert. Her friendships with the racers and a close relationship with Meinert led to a job in the trackfs control tower and, even before gaining a driverfs license, she took on the demanding position of chief statistician for weekly events.
In charge of accurately recording the elapsed times and speeds of each run down the track in an era when statistics were recorded manually, Vicki Grater coordinated each event from qualifying and timed trials to eliminations. Few women, let alone young girls, were strapped with such responsibility and, after her abilities were noticed by American Hot Rod Association president Jim Tice, Vicki was offered the same position at AHRA National Events across the country.
She eventually became friends with the greatest racers in the sport while developing a trust with the racers and officials as one of the most dependably accurate statisticians in the industry long before computer scoring was introduced. Although she left her position to begin a family in the early 1980s, her pioneering efforts in maintaining and directing the accuracy of the events at SLIR and other facilities remain amazing accomplishments.
William "Billy" Rowe, Jr.
Eureka, Missouri
Categories: Sportsman Driver
As the son of a previous GIR Hall of Fame inductee, Bill Rowe, Jr., was exposed to area drag racing from birth. While his father gained notoriety as one of the premier competitors in the area, Rowe learned not only the tricks to becoming a winning driver but also the skills of a master fabricator. Within days of gaining a driver's license, Rowe became a team driver with his father and almost immediately began to eclipse his father's amazing win record.
Simultaneously, he constructed an array of drag racing vehicles most of which remained true to his family's roots in Ford products. At an early age, he gained a reputation as one of the best natural driving talents in area history while becoming one of the most sought tuning advisors, as well. Billy Rowe displayed an extraordinary ability to win in any vehicle he drove including the machines of customers, friends and even those of his father.
Although he earned several track championships at SLIR, Rowe also made headlines on a national level by scoring final-round finishes in AHRA, IHRA and NHRA competition driving the machines he built. Fittingly, his biggest victory came as the first, (and, to date, the only), area racer to earn the title at the new GIR's most prestigious event, the NHRA Midwest Nationals, with his Super Stock championship at the race in 2002. He has since posted final-round appearances at other NHRA National venues, as well, and competes at events across the country as part of a multiple-vehicle team with his wife, Jeanette. Currently, the Rowe family owns race cars for competition in no less than four different NHRA eliminator categories and each is a proven winner.
Tim Seibel
Belleville, Illinois
Categories: Media
Tim Seibel has earned the accolades of his racing peers on several occasions. As the only two-time recipient of GIRfs most prestigious honor, the Earl Liverpool Memorial Award, his dedication to the sport and the success of the GIR facility is renowned. His induction into the GIR Hall of Fame is based on his tireless efforts to gain recognition for local competitors while maintaining an open dialogue with the owners of the facility. In his role as a volunteer mediator, Seibert works tirelessly as a voice for the racers.
While his own racing exploits include a variety of Chevrolets which have been successful in every class of competition from Super Pro to Street Eliminators, Seibel is best known for his printed publication, the GIR Drag Racing Newsletter, which he produces independently of the track. The Newsletter contains no advertising but includes complete photographic and editorial coverage of the events on GIR's dragstrip and is issued free to all spectators and racers. Seibel has also volunteered his time to serve as GIR's Team Captain at the annual NHRA Division III Bracket Racing Finals at Indianapolis Raceway Park in Clermont, Indiana, where he coordinates the racing efforts of more than three dozen qualifying local race teams from the facility.
In addition to his own racing efforts, the publication of his newsletter and his many positions as an advocate for his fellow competitors, Tim Seibel maintains a fulltime job at Fabick Construction Equipment and somehow has found time to raise a family. A friend to all, his selfless promotion of the facility, its racers and the sport is rare, indeed.
Joseph "Jody" Trover
Belleville, Illinois
Categories: Track Operator
Originally a delivery route driver for Landshire Foods, Jody Trover purchased the East St. Louis franchise of the company in 1966 and moved it to Belleville, Illinois, in 1972. He began an expansion of the company which eventually became one of the Midwest's largest food distribution corporations. In March, 1977, Jody and brother Phil Trover negotiated the purchase of St. Louis International Raceway from founder Wayne Meinert and began a nine-year tenure which saw a complete transformation of the facility.
In his first season as operator of the track, Trover added the AHRA Fall Nationals, featuring one of the largest purses in professional drag racing, to the strip's other AHRA National Event, the Gateway Nationals. The following season, he also hosted the AHRA's first Bracket Racing World Finals at SLIR. In the same period, Trover elevated the SLIR weekly sportsman purse to the highest guaranteed purse in the sportfs history. Jody became sole operator of SLIR in 1980 and began an aggressive schedule which included the continuation of the UDRA's presence and the addition of an AMA/Dragbike motorcycle national event while creating signature events such as the Outlaw Pro Stock World Championships and the Crown Royals Motorcycle Club Nationals, (an prelude to the later United Black Drag Racers Association's Black Sunday event). Likewise, the weekly sportsman racing purse remained one of the largest in the nation and, in 1981, Trover presented the first Illinois State Championships with a huge $5,000 top prize. Jody and his track crew also developed a solid relationship with communities in the greater Bi-State area by increasing the schedule to three days of racing per week including the extremely popular additions of a street car racing program and a High School competition sponsored by local businesses.
In 1982, Trover expanded St. Louis International Raceway to include a three-quarter-mile dirt off-road course, located on the west end of the property, which offered weekly motorcycle competition. On May 22nd, 1983, the dirt track hosted an AMA National Motocross Championship event. Trover also brought to the track championship tractor pulling, mud racing and monster truck events and even packed the facility to capacity with the second annual Budweiser SuperFest concert which moved from nearby Busch Stadium to SLIR in 1982.
With the demise of the AHRA at the conclusion of the 1984 season, Trover negotiated with the International Hot Rod Association, (which had briefly sanctioned racing at SLIR during 1975), to continue the Gateway Nationals for two more years. In early 1985, Trover was presented with a proposal by St. Louisan Kevin Eichner to construct a national-caliber road racing course and a companion one-mile dirt oval track on the SLIR property, a plan which, ironically, closely resembled the original vision of Wayne Meinert. Trover agreed to join a consortium of six other investors to form a corporation and begin the $2.2 million-dollar renovation. The team quickly proceeded with the largest expansion project since the trackfs initial construction utilizing almost every inch of the property to first complete a thirteen-turn, 2.28-mile road racing track for which four major events were scheduled in its first season. The facility was refurbished with new garages in the pit area and gskybox suitesh along the dragstrip, (which doubled as the main straightaway and the pit lane for the road course). The renewed St. Louis International Raceway opened for competition on June 9th, 1985, and boasted championships events such as the Firestone Firehawk Endurance Championship, the unique 24 Hours of St. Louis, (an event in the Sports Car Club of America's Playboy Magazine Endurance Cup series), the Gateway Historic Races for vintage race cars, the Bendix Brake Trans-Am Championship, the SCCA Can-Am Challenge and the first road-course event in twenty-one seasons for the Automobile Racing Club of America, (ARCA). The new SLIR also held multiple events under the auspices of the SCCA, several motorcycle organizations and a number of go-kart series. In mid-season, a small oval track was constructed in the far northwestern corner of the property for quarter midget racing which remained in operation for the next two years.
Trover also presented the Car Craft Magazine Street Machine Nationals to the facility and added the Midwest Drag Racing Nostalgia Nationals and Scott Seivekingfs first Monster MoPar Sunday which, to this day, remains the facilityfs longest-running event. After the conclusion of the 1986 Motorcraft/CARQUEST IHRA Gateway Nationals, however, Jody Trover relinquished his stake in the facility to devote more time to the growth of his primary business, Landshire Foods.
Jody Trover's motivation allowed SLIR to expand into a multiple-purpose racing facility and, under his tutelage, it became a nationally-recognized sports facility. It was his dream which eventually led to the construction of the current Gateway International Raceway a decade later. Although his induction into the 2010 GIR/SLIR Hall of Fame was scheduled for over a year, Jody Trover passed away on April 28th, 2010.
www.stldragracing.com/2010/06/girslir-hall-of-fame-2010-members-inducted/