Tried to put this on FaceBook last night, but I tried to do it on my tablet and the included two pictures of this typewriter were fresh from my camera which formats the pics at a high res. I think it prevented the post from getting to where it needed to go. On the desktop now and I really want to post this. This is something very near and dear to me. I found out something last night about an event 48 years ago and I never knew about it. Hang with me here:
The two pictures accompanying this post represent a Royal brand portable, manual typewriter that I got from my parents for Christmas back when I was 16. You see, it was at that age that I decided to pursue a hobby of writing about the local dirt track racing….something that had captured my heart since the age of five. It was truly the very beginning of my lifetime of being a journalist in the sport of auto racing….that typewriter right there. I quickly drummed out a handful of feature articles for a monthly auto racing magazine put out by Area Auto Racing News. Editor Pat Singer was ever so instrumental in giving me my start in writing for that monthly called Auto Racing Monthly. I was soon covering the weekly racing at the nearby Flemington Speedway for my hometown paper, the Lambertville (NJ) Beacon.
I wrote for The Beacon for sixteen years before budget concerns saw it disappear. Before that stint ended….Flemington Speedway Announcer Bill Singer asked me to take over the weekly Saturday night competition press release work and any other show results press releases. I spent about ten years performing that task for Flemington before I moved on. Also, while still writing for The Beacon…..long time racing friend Dave Pratt hooked me up with Gater Racing News out of Liverpool, NY where I was charged with writing a weekly column..which was titled “The Last Lap” as well as pen racing event reporting and special feature reports. The Patrick family was such a joy to write for! Sadly, Gater Patriarch Norm Patrick just recently passed away. I am going to miss Norm for years to come.
I spent a few years covering Flemington for the Hunterdon County D e m o c r a t. I was one of the first to introduce the idea of monthly subscriptions to driver newsletters…winding up doing three of them. Billy Pauch’s was the most successful with subscriptions to almost every state in America and even a couple of them in foreign countries. I distinctly remember having a subscription on the Isle of Mann. Billy’s newsletter was called “Kidstuff”. I also did a newsletter for Doug Hoffman called “The Allentown Express”. Doug was very involved with the doings of “The Express” and approached it very professionally. And last but not least…I also did a monthly newsletter for Craig VonDohren called VonDohren’s Ventures. Did those for a few years, but the advent of the internet spelled doom for stuff like that.
Some of the coolest stuff I did, happened at the Flemington Speedway! For a couple of seasons…I performed the color commentary for both tv and radio broadcasts covering the racing at Flemington. THAT…was a blast if I have to say so myself. Not to be outdone….I also spent two or three seasons as the announcer at the asphalt surfaced New Egypt Speedway. That can be intimidating as all get out at first. But I wouldn’t trade those years for anything!
Did a little bit of writing for one or two racing websites. Did some PR stuff for some drivers along the way and also did PR for the Pro 4 Modifieds back in the day.
These days…I really keep my butt busy involved with Auto Racing Research Associates…or ARRA for short. ARRA got its start back in the early to mid 90’s when myself and ARRA founding member Bill Braga Jr. got together to begin collaborating on research projects of drivers of the area. I began putting together the career record of Billy Pauch. Bill Braga heard of the effort and got in touch to ask me to help him in putting together the racing record of Doug Hoffman. We have been together since then. Billy and I eventually got our work featured on someone’s racing website, but the person behind that site sort of fell off of the pace of being current and Billy and I decided to give our own website a try. Once I found out how relatively easy it was to make a website…I ran with it.
Billy and I quickly realized the potential of this website and we decided that we had to expand our efforts and take advantage of the fact that we could create a reference website to document the history of our sport….local at first, but these days…we are always expanding our horizons at ARRA! I now head up twenty six other auto racing historians across the country who are dedicated to capturing the sports history and putting it in a file for future reference and keeping the memories alive as time passes by.
ARRA’s work has been used for televised racing broadcast announcing work, is frequently referred to by a large number of track PR people, drivers, press members and anyone needing to obtain accurate and documented racing statistics. We do most of the research work for the Northeast Dirt Hall of Fame and Museum located in Central New York and are the official historical statistics website of the Flemington Speedway Historical Society.
I have spent many many years loving all of this activity in the sport! You can’t take the memories away! I have so many closer than close friends because of the sport and I will never forget that my wife Karen and I had to schedule our wedding before the racing season began because most of the guests were racing fans and we weren’t sure if they would show up at the wedding or at the races that night. I have had a great ride! Now, I take great pleasure and pride in giving back to the sport by dedicating a darned good portion of my retirement to this research work!
And it all began with this typewriter. It all began with that little Royal manual typewriter. What I DIDN’T know 48 years ago and to last night…never had an idea about, but the truth be told….my Mom saved up all of her S&H Green Stamps over that year to purchase something special for myself and my Brother Dave that year for Christmas. Karen was talking to Mom last night, as she does every day, and they were talking about typing for some reason. I told her to tell my Mom that I still had that typewriter that they bought for me back when I was sixteen and looking to become the next Chris Economaki!
Hey Mom…thank you so much for the gift! I think I made good with it!
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