New Book: Len Sutton - My Road to Indy

[indyracer56]

This looks like a neat book.

http://www.lensutton.com/

I figured that some of you would be interested.

[IndyJim]

http://www.motorsport.com/stats/champ/data/ch196006.pdf

I love this website - here is one of Len's 3 champ car wins, this one at Milwaukee.

[Niseguy]

Saw him win at Trenton in Pete Salami's Central Excavating #81 a Kuzma dirt car. 1958

[Racewriter]

Here's a hope:

Most of the bios of Indy drivers, including Lloyd Ruby, Johnny Rutherford, Jim Hurtubise, and others, have given short shrift to the time those drivers spent racing other types of cars, such as stockers and sports cars. I know Sutton did a lot of USAC stock car racing, and I'm hopeful that this book covers it.

Hurtubise' bio, for instance, would have been much more enjoyable to this fan had it dealt with his 70s efforts in stockers and dirt champ cars - most of which were not totally successful, but would have rounded out the picture of the man and racer.

Or maybe it's just because I met Herk when I was a kid at Daytona, and he was running Dick Bahre's Plymouth in the ARCA race.

[manson]

Wasn't Sutton plugging this book at Indy last May?

[theunions]

Originally posted by manson
Wasn't Sutton plugging this book at Indy last May?

Yes (so in other words it's not "new"). And as of last week he's down to his last 100 or so copies, IIRC.

And yes, he talks at length about USAC stock cars and even his sole sportscar appearance.

[Racewriter]

Originally posted by theunions


And yes, he talks at length about USAC stock cars and even his sole sportscar appearance.

That's good news. If I can find a copy while I'm in Indy this week, I'll pick it up.

[3-wide]

Posted by Racewriter;

>>"Or maybe it's just because I met Herk when I was a kid at Daytona, and he was running Dick Bahre's Plymouth in the ARCA race."

I'm going to take a guess and say that Dick Bahre is related to the owner of the New Hampshire Intnl. Speedway, Bob Bahre.

Maybe his brother? Yes?

[Racewriter]

Originally posted by 3-wide
Posted by Racewriter;

>>"Or maybe it's just because I met Herk when I was a kid at Daytona, and he was running Dick Bahre's Plymouth in the ARCA race."

I'm going to take a guess and say that Dick Bahre is related to the owner of the New Hampshire Intnl. Speedway, Bob Bahre.

Maybe his brother? Yes?

Yes.

They had an orange #62 Plymouth Satellite, always carrying "Oxford Plains Speedway" on the quarterpanels. For those who don't know, the Bahres owned the Plains for many years before they built NHIS. They sold it to Mike Liberty when they started construction.

Herk was a total gentleman, even though this was the late 70s and his best racing days (and rides) were behind him.

I liked Bob Gates' book. However, there was much to the Hurtubise story left untold. A top-five at Syracuse in a Dirt Champ car in the late 70s, good runs in the early World 100s at Eldora, a lot of NASCAR, ARCA, ASA, and USAC Stock racing (some of it with very competitive results). Getting Herk's reflections on this would have rounded out the picture for me. A lot of it I didn't know about until I purchased a complete set of Stock Car Racing magazine. You'd be amazed at how often Herk's name and picture shows up in race reports - in the early 70s, he must have been running 40-50 late model races a year.