Drivers Prepare For Memorial Race At Buxton

Dale Glassford with the family of Don Hendricks – Photo by James MacDonald/ Apex One Photo

Memorial races always seem to bring out the best in Dale Glassford.

The Ridgetown driver will be looking for his third straight Don Hendricks memorial feature win this Saturday at South Buxton Raceway when the Westside Performance Plus UMP Late Models honour the Hall of Fame driver.

“When there’s special nights like this, it means that much more to win,” Glassford said.

The Late Model points leader is already one-for-one in memorial races this season as he took the checkered in the inaugural Gord Gotelaer feature on June 7, in honour of the former Ridgetown driver who died May 19, 2013 at the age of 76.

The Late Models will also run memorial races for Gord DeWael on July 26 and Rick Haskell on Aug. 30 for the Late Models.

Glassford is a two-time Haskell memorial race winner, his last in 2012, but went out early in last year’s first DeWael memorial.

Hendricks, Gotelaer and DeWael were inducted post-humously in the first Hall of Fame inductions this May.

Hendricks was one of the winningest and most popular drivers during the early years of South Buxton Raceway. He won the first Late Model feature the night the track opened – June 12, 1971 – as Raleigh Raceway Park.

Hendricks drove his famous ‘09 Panic’ car to Late Model points championships in 1975, 1979 and 1985. He died at the age of 48 in 1995 from cancer.

“It’s special to win a memorial race because you remember as fans watching them race for a lot of years,” said Glassford, who as a youngster watched his father Wayne race against the trio of Hall of Famers.

“This is always a special race to win,” he said of the Hendricks memorial.

Glassford leads the division standings by seven points over Chatham’s Jim Jones going into Saturday.

Glassford leads the class with three feature wins and seven checkered flags.

Last Saturday’s feature winner Brad Authier is a four-time Hendricks memorial race winner, his last coming in 2011.

Authier heads into the weekend coming off a perfect three-for-three last Saturday including his first feature win of the year.

“I was hoping tonight would have been the Hendricks,” Authier said, with a smile, after last Saturday’ win.

“I’d love to win it again, I thrive for this race,” he looked ahead to Saturday.

Authier enters the night fourth in the standings, just 41 points behind Glassford and just 14 back of third-place Gregg Haskell of Chatham the two-time reigning points champion.

Pit Stops

• Leamington’s Joel Dick has the biggest division lead with a 101-point lead over Belle River’s Mario Toniolo in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds.
• Trevor Jones is three points up on fellow Blenheim driver Brett Hope and 13 ahead of Cottam’s Rob Quick in the Tirecraft Mini-Mods.
• Hope and Quick have finished one-two in each of the last three features, with Hope winning June 7 and 21.
• Two Merlin drivers led the Tirecraft Sport as Eren Vanderiviere holds a 53-point lead over Steve Shaw.
• Chatham’s Chris Ellerbeck is 36 points ahead of Blenheim’s Jeff Schives in the Autotech Bombers.
• The Bombers will race on a new infield track beginning this Saturday. The entry-level class, in its second full year, had been racing on a track that was partially on the infield and the front stretch of the main track.
• The Southern Ontario Sprints visit South Buxton on July 5, as both Tilbury’s Kyle Patrick and Ridgetown’s Adam West have confirmed they will be competing.
• The grandstand opens at 5 p.m. and racing begins at 7 p.m.