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Auto Racing Research Associates Goes National!!


Auto Racing Research Associates Goes National!!  

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Author: ARRA Research   Date: 7/8/2021 3:12:42 PM  +14/-2  

Ringoes,NJ – In one of the biggest announcements in their short lived lives as an organization dedicated to researching, documenting and preserving auto racing’s history and its associated statistics, ARRAAuto Racing Research Associates are proud to announce that they are now underway with expanding their horizons and becoming a website and organization that has somewhat limited itself to coverage of the Northeast region of the United States to covering every region of the county to provide even more data on racing across the country. 

  President Fred Voorhees comments…”Member Tom Schmeh, who has served as the Curator of the National Spring Car Hall of Fame and Museum in Knoxville, Iowa….home of the famous Knoxville Raceway, has been on me to expand beyond our current restraints of the Northeast.” Fred mentioned when asked how this idea got its start.  “Tom has always thought nationally due to his background in the nationally known Hall of Fame and Museum.  I was a little intimidated at the thought of going national with our website and its work, but honestly, I think it’s time and it’s the next logical step for us to take.  Tom was instrumental in putting together a few names across the country that I ended up getting in contact with to ask them to join us in our research efforts” Voorhees alluded to. “I got a few positive responses from some enthusiastic guys and I look forward to welcoming them aboard!”

  The move to go national means that there will obviously be more work involved in keeping the groups website current and up to date.  “I like keeping it up to date weekly”, boasted Fred from his ARRA office in his home in Ringoes, NJ.  “So, I will be looking for some help from my historians to streamline our efforts to cut the time needed to impart it all to the website.  I currently average about five or six hours each Wednesday evening updating all of the active files on our website and then probably spend another ten hours or up to fifteen each week in taking care of submissions and additions from our many active historians who are always working on various subjects.”

  Currently, the search for other historians from other regions of the country is still underway as the dearth of actual historians in the sport of auto racing has been making it difficult to find those who have the time to donate to documenting the sports important info.

   ARRA is currently taking on another four historians to their ranks…swelling the membership to almost thirty members…now spreading across the country.

   “I would like to welcome the following four new members to our dedicated group and I look forward to working with them for the betterment of the sports history!” Voorhees ended with.

  Chesterton, Indiana’s Bobby Markos comes to ARRA with much enthusiasm and is the Research Historian/Associate Producer at “Lost Speedways”, a co-operative effort between well known racing journalist Bobby Dillner and one of NASCAR’s most popular drivers in its history…Dale Earnhardt Jr.  From their Facebook page Lost Speedways Community, to their Website Lost Speedways dot com to their now current television documentary series Lost Speedways.  Bob is a member and the Induction Director for the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame and also runs his own racing media company – Markos Racing Media and produces videos on past racing.

   Like Bobby Markos, Papillion, Nebraska’s Lee Ackerman comes to ARRA and he would be honored to be a part of ARRA and looks forward to beginning to submit his works.  Also like Bobby…Lee is also a member of the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame.  Lee is a well versed racing journalist who has written for numerous magazines including Dirt Late Model, Flat Out and Dirt Modified Monthly.  He has also written for Hawkeye Racing News, Late Model Illustrated and spent twelve years covering auto racing for the Omaha World Herald.  Lee is proud of his time working for the Greenwood, Nebraska I-80 Speedway.

  New York state’s Ed Bittig has already submitted a handful of his research work to our ARRA website and has been on the sidelines willing to lend a hand with any information race-wise that we may have had questions on regarding his region of racing in the Eastern area of the Empire State, including Fonda, Lebanon Valley and Albany Saratoga Speedways.  Long known as a dedicated scribe for the Gater Racing News out of Liverpool, NY, Ed currently pens contributions to the D Track Digest website and he and his wife contribute weekly to two different NY area metro papers…the Cobleskill, NY Times Journal and the Scoharie, NY Mountain Eagle.  Ed and his wife have served as the media coordinators at the Fonda Speedway under the Promotership of Ralph Compani and Ric Lucia and were inducted into the tracks Hall of Fame back in 2015.

  Ed has served as the President of the New York State Stock Car Association (NYSSCA) and the North East Stock Car Old Timers (NESCOT).

  New Jersey’s own Fred Hahn joins ARRA as one of the “home town boys”.  Like Ed Bittig, Fred has been one of those guys on the peripheral of the groups outside sources of information that they sometimes dip into when they are working on a particular subject that the group is working on.  Fred comes from a line of Hahn’s who have raced including Dad Fred Hahn Jr who raced at the East Windsor and Flemington Speedways and his Mom Sue who participated in various Powder Puff events at NJ tracks over the years.  On the other side of the fence…Freddie has been involved in the states racing websites over the years.  Establishing the website New Jersey Dirt Racing,  it later morphed into New Jersey Racing News which had a section of its site dedicated to the sports history in the state.  He also bought the rights to the East Windsor Speedway website in an effort to keep memories of the Hightstown, NJ speedway alive.  Both of those eventually fell by the wayside when Fred decided to take over running the track websites for two of the remaining three race tracks left in NJ…for the New Egypt Speedway and Wall Stadium.

  This is only the beginning of this growing period as they expand to truly become a nationally recognized website source of reliable data and statistics on race tracks from coast to coast. 

   Auto Racing Research Associates is a group of almost thirty auto racing historians across the country banded together for the purpose of the research, documentation and displaying of auto racing history such as driver win statistics, as well as track, racing series’ and organizations histories and also the background of racing personalities, particular cars from the past and various other interesting facts of racing history that should not be forgotten.  ARRA continues to build a network of associated auto racing related websites to unite for better chances of furthering the understanding of the past of our sport.  ARRA offers looking up services for those looking for one particular piece of information from the past.  We encourage you to visit our new website if you have not had the pleasure yet.  You can visit our website at: https://sites.google.com/site/arradocumentingracinghistory/

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