Family, drivers ready to pay tribute to Lou Blaney

By Thomas Zuck, FOR THE TRIBUNE-REVIEW Friday, July 3, 2009

Racing, perhaps more than any other sport, is as much about the past as it is the present or future. That's why each time one of the legends passes on it is important to remember them and cherish the memories of what they accomplished.

That's a big part of what's happening this coming week when Sharon Speedway holds the Lou Blaney Memorial Classic Tuesday, a combination Big Block Modified and 410 Sprint Cars. Blaney died this past January at the age of 69.

Blaney began racing in 1958 and kept going through part of the 2004 season. It's nearly impossible to summarize a career that spanned that length of time. Lou's wife of 49 years, Kate, said they never counted Lou's victories, but she said it is more than 600.

Blaney raced against hundreds of drivers in his career, but five might have know him best: his son Dale, Brian Swartzlander and Kevin Bolland, who both aspire to have Blaney's success, and Jim Weller and his son, Jimmy, who knew him as a racer and a family friend.

"When I think of dad, I think of a competitor, and a clean driver," Dale Blaney, a very successful Sprint Car driver in his own right, said. "And also the high side of the track. Those three, but out of the three I would say competitor. He just wanted to beat everybody every night."

While the Blaney Memorial is naturally at Sharon Speedway, a track where his son, Dave, is one of the owners and the family lived down the street, it could just have easily had been Lernerville. Blaney, along with Bob Wearing Sr. have been the names that have dominated Lernerville's 40-year history.

"I truthfully never heard two guys in my life say anything bad about him," Blaney said. "That tells you the kind of guy he was. He could win 10 races in a row and they'd still cheer for him and guys would come down and congratulate him. He just wanted a good race."

Blaney is second in all-time victories at Lernerville. His 118 wins are bested only by Bob Wearing Sr.'s 179. Blaney scored 49 victories in the Sprint Car and 69 in the Modified.

"When I get to that night and see a lot of the people that he raced with, I am sure it will get a little personal and emotional then," Blaney added. "Truthfully, I never really thought about him being my dad and winning all those races, to me he was just my dad."

Sure, there are a few who are on the verge of placing themselves in that category, but they are not there, yet. Ed Lynch Jr. is two victories away from 100 at Lernerville and Lynn Geisler, with his 107 Lernerville wins, is there.

Younger fans will remember Blaney as a Modified driver, but he made his mark in the Sprint Car. Blaney won four consecutive Lernerville Sprint Car titles from 1972-75. He also won the Sprint championship in 1977-78. During that run, he won an incredible 49 victories at the track.

Even with so many victories from which to choose, Dale was able to pick one as his favorite.

"Watching him run a non-winged at Mercer in about 1977 is the thing I will never forget," Blaney said. "I watched him run a ton of Modifieds, but I think he won 15 out of 18 that year. Just watching him pass guys and how he did it was cool, but having him be your dad and watching it was even cooler."

For a while, Blaney raced the Sprint and Modified until he turned the Sprint Car over to son Dave, now driver in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. After that, Blaney won Lernerville's Modified championship in 1980, 1991 and 1996.

For the better part of a decade, Swartzlander and Bolland have battled each other for dominance in Lernerville's Modified division but before they arrived at this point in their careers, they had to cut their teeth racing against Blaney.

"He was one of my heroes when I was growing up," Swartzlander said. "He was a lot of fun to watch race, and then, he was a lot of fun to race with and to get to know. One night comes to mind that I will always remember. It was up at Tri-City and after a race he came into my trailer to give me hell.

"He started first and I started second that night and I passed him at the white flag and held on to win. He was only joking around of course, but he came in and said 'I led that entire race and you didn't bother me one bit and then you passed me.' He always congratulated me when I won and I always did the same when he won."

Bolland could not pin down one memory of Blaney, but that does not mean he didn't appreciate what Blaney did for the sport.

"There really isn't one memory that sticks out for me," Bolland said. "It just seems that when I was younger, he would be winning races week in and week out. I knew as a young driver that we were getting there, getting better. If you beat Lou, you knew that you had had a good night racing."

The Weller family has been friends with the Blaney’s for decades, so Weller's memories are not confined to the track. Weller purchased his first racecar after a night of frivolity and libations with then Blaney car owner Bill Thomas. Weller flew planes and Thomas owned racecars. Thomas wanted to fly a plane and Weller wanted to drive a racecar. By the end of the evening, Weller owned a racecar.

"To be honest, if it wasn't for the help that Lou gave me early on, I would have been done in a couple of years," Weller said. "My favorite memories of Lou really are not from the track. They are just all of the things he did for people, racers or not. He was an intimidating guy, if you didn't know him. But he would go out of his way to help you."

Perhaps the best remembrance of Blaney does not come from someone who raced against him. In fact, Jimmy Weller was not even born when Lou did his best work in a racecar. But as a youngster, he did catch a glimpse of what made Blaney such a competitor.

"There was a bike race up at Sharon one night and I think I was five or six years old," Jimmy Weller said. "I came in second in my race and I was all excited. Lou came up and asked me where I finished. I told him second, he looked at me and said, 'and you lost'. That was Lou, always a racer."

Remember When by Don Gamble

Lou Blaney a Gentleman and a Champion

Raceway 7 has announced that they are hosting a Big Block Modified Tribute to Lou Blaney. Modified racing has been a staple of Raceway 7 since the beginning in 1970. The Lou Blaney Classic 25 will be on June 27^th.  This tribute is without a doubt to honor one of the best in the business. It did not matter sprint or modified Blaney was always a contender and most often the winner.

Lou's career started in 1958, driving a coupe for his father. He began racing Coupes, Super Modifieds, and Sprints, becoming an instant success.  I first observed the teenage driver in a Trevis built sprint car competeing with the super modifieds at the Greater Pittsburgh Speedway in Clinton PA in 1959. The young driver was part of the three car team of Gib Orr, Dale Johnson and Blaney. The cars were referred to as the “Three White Mice”. The team won a great deal of the races running against drivers like Dave Lundy, Bobby Adamson, Mac Clingan, Dean Mast, and Gus Linder.  

He moved to the Modifieds in 1978. His first Modified was acquired by long time car owner Bill Thomas from legendary modified stock car driver and builder Dick Tobias of Lebanon. Blaney was a winner right out of the box aboard the car. He continued to drive Modifieds and Super Sprints until 1981, when his son and current NASCAR Nextel Cup star, Dave Blaney, started driving the sprint car.

His success in the modifieds is legendary but his best years were behind the wheel of his famous number 10 sprint car. The track championships are too numerous to mention, but the career highlight came in 1973. Driving for the Crash Brothers, Lou was running a three track circuit. Friday night was Lernerville, Saturday night Jennerstown, and Sunday night was Tri-City Speedway. Winning a point race on the last night of the season is thrilling enough, but Lou and Ted Wise were locked up in a last night battle at all three tracks, which sounds like a fantasy but true. And even more unbelievable, Lou Blaney managed to win all three track championships on that last night at each speedway.

Blaney is well-known for his Super Sprint exploits. He recorded over 200 Super Sprint wins from 1961 to 1980. In 1966 driving for Bill Thomas; Lou won the Williams Grove National Open, which at that time was the premier race for sprint cars in the entire country. He placed third to eventual two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Gordon Johncock in the 1963 inaugural event. Three years later, Blaney won the National Open. It is probably the most cherished of his many victories.

In 1981, when he started driving the DIRT Modified full-time, Blaney finished second to Merv Treichler in the Schaefer International 200 for his best career finish in the world’s richest dirt track modified stock car race. Unexpectedly, Blaney’s red and white No. 10 ended up on the front cover of Stock Car Racing Magazine that winter, which earned him more notoriety.

Lou was a good athlete even before he started racing, as he was a standout basketball player at Hartford High School scoring 1200 points over his four year high school career. It was probably just a coincidence that Lou's basketball uniform was number 10. 

Late Model car owner Jook George, one night at Expo Speedway, convinced Lou to drive his late model #10. Jook chose the number because Blaney was his hero.  It was the only time Blaney was ever in a late model.

Lou’s sons, Dale and Dave, have also had their share of sports headlines. Dale was a star basketball player at West Virginia University and got a tryout with the pros. Dale has developed into one of the premier sprint car drivers on the East Coast. Dave needs no introduction to racing fans, was a star in his own right in the World of Outlaw sprint circuit as well as his current deal with NASCAR Sprint Cup and the Nationwide Series.

Dave finished second at Syracuse, first in the sprint car segment, and repeated in the big modified show in 1989. It's not very often a father and son will take two of the first five places in the biggest modified show in the country.

Lou Blaney was one of the few big winners that the fans have continued to cheer over the years. Big winners usually have had their share of boos from the crowd, which goes with long term success. Lou was always a quiet, reserved person who won his races with his head and right foot, and not with his mouth.

There have been many great drivers in the Tri State area, but it's hard to say that any of them are any better than Lou Blaney. His rim riding style was smooth as it was in 1958. And his personality and sportsmanship have never been questioned.

Lou Blaney was inducted into the DIRT Motorsports Hall of Fame in Weedsport, N.Y. He was the first driver to be elected to the Hall of Fame from this region. Blaney’s victory list in the DIRT Modifieds is virtually untouchable. Lou was inducted into the Pittsburgh Circle Track Club Hall of Fame in 1997 along with Jack Freeman, Jean Lynch, and Mike Klapak.

He has victories at Sharon, Lernerville, Mercer, Raceway 7, Tri-City, Expo, Sportsman, Pittsburgh, and Hagerstown Speedway. Lou along with his sons Dave and Dale have ten titles and Lou is second all-time with 118 wins at Lernerville Speedway.

It's been a long time, hundreds of feature wins, and numerous track championships since Lou climbed into his first race car, a Cadillac powered 1934 Chevrolet, in 1958. He has numerous track championships, and won Walt Wimer’s #1 Cochran Cavalcade Modified point championship sixteen times and four times in the Sprint Cars. A gentlemen and a champion that created many wonderful memories for the fans over five decades and a great reason to “remember when”.