‘The Track of Champions’ Great Bill Wimble Passes

Racersguide Pays Tribute to a True Gentleman and Champion of Northeast Auto Racing

Northeast Racing Legend Takes His Final Checkers

Amsterdam NY.-April 27, 2016- The following was written by Ron Szczerba in the August 14, 2009 edition of the Schenectady Gazette and we found it a fitting tribute to the legendary driver.

Stock car racing: Wimble a true legend at Fonda

For the last few weeks, legendary driver Bill Wimble has been making his yearly stops at the local race tracks to meet all of his friends. This year, there is something else to keep him busy on his visit to the Northeast, autographing and promoting his new book, “I’ll Never Be Last Again.”

On Saturday, Wimble will be at Fonda Speedway to sign copies of his biography, which was written to award ­winning journalist Lew Boyd.

According to the book, “Fonda,” Wimble was the son of a college professor and had been educated since age 6 at the highly esteemed St. Albans Boys Academy in Brockville, Canada. He was so superior in academics that he passed the admissions test for McGill University in Montreal at age 14.

He chose to bypass college at the request of his maternal grandparents, who wanted him to come back to Lisbon to operate the family farm because they were too old to run the 160­acre spread.

Wimble was raised by his grandparents because his parents separated just before his birth. He honored his grandparents’ wishes and managed the family dairy farm throughout most of his racing career. At age 16, he was a full­time agriculturist; by age 17, he was married;
and at age 19, he became a racer.

Lisbon is located a full 200 miles due north of Fonda. Although he was a young, quiet dairy farmer from the St. Lawrence Valley, he burst onto the scene to bring national prominence to Fonda Speedway.

Although his first race at Fonda was in 1956, Wimble actually started his racing career when he climbed into a stock car in 1951 with his initial feature wins coming the following year in 1952, the first one being at Ottawa and then Canton in a self­owned car. He gained his first
career win at both Monroe County and Fonda on consecutive nights on May 30­31, 1958, driving the Hal Kempney No. 113.

When Kempney retired from racing, Wimble drove for seven different car owners between Memorial Day and Labor Day in 1958.

On Aug. 23, 1958, Wimble climbed into Dave McCredy’s No. 33 at Fonda and Monroe County, but McCredy wouldn’t support Wimble when he went to chase NASCAR points, so Wimble had to find other rides.

In 1959, Wimble finished in the top 20 in points at six different New York speedways, including Fonda (second), Monroe County (third), Saranac Lake (third), Canandaigua (seventh), Islip (20th) and Plattsburg (20th). He won a single feature at Fonda that year on Aug. 29.

In 1960, Wimble collected his first NASCAR National Sportsman Championship by a margin of 1,445 points over Dick Nephew which brought national prestige to Fonda Speedway. He also collected the 1960 point title at Fonda, along with three feature wins.

In 1961, Wimble and Nephew tied for the NASCAR Sportsman Championship, with Wimble winning a total of 19 features including eight at Fonda along with his second consecutive Fonda track championship. That was the last year that Wimble would run for a national point title.

From 1962­-1967, Wimble was Fonda’s winningest driver. In 1963, he won 10 races at Fonda and 28 overall in the best year of his career. In 1964, Wimble won the second annual Fonda 200 on Aug. 15 and in 1967, he McCredy switched from sportsman power to modified power under the hood of the No. 33.

Wimble’s 43rd and final win at Fonda came in the last race of the 1967 racing season.

In 1968, Wimble became an “outlaw,” running at Spencer on Fridays and Lebanon Valley on Saturdays because he had an issue with NASCAR after they changed their emphasis from dirt racing to blacktop racing. At that point, Wimble wrote a letter of resignation to
NASCAR.

In 1968, McCredy died, but his widow, Marg, vowed to keep the No. 33 tradition alive. But on Aug. 24, Wimble was involved in the worst wreck of his career at Lebanon Valley, resulting in a fractured skull.

Wimble’s wife, Nancy, was horrified by the wreck, and didn’t want to ever watch another race, so Wimble decided to retire a year earlier than he had planned, and he then turned his attention to other ventures. He sold the family farm in 1964, and took a sales position with AR Gundry, a bulk petroleum transporter located in Rochester.

Wimble learned the trade, bought into the company and sold it in 1976. He did the same with a trucking company in Florida that he built to almost five times the size before selling that business, as well.

Besides his 43 wins at Fonda, Wimble also has eight feature wins at Lebanon Valley, two at Albany­Saratoga (both coming in 1966), and another one in a legends race at Can­Am Speedway in 1993, when he piloted a Dave Lape modified painted to look like the McCredy No. 33 to a win against some of his 1960s peers, including Buzzie Reutimann, “Fuzzy” Van Horn and Andy Romano.