SHOEMAKER TRIBUTE HIGHLIGHTS THE FONDA SPEEDWAY RACING PROGRAM ON SATURDAY, MAY 14
Story By: RON SZCZERBA / FONDA SPEEDWAY MEDIA Photos By:MATT NOLES / RACERSGUIDE PHOTO FILES
Fonda, NY –May 12, 2016- On Saturday, May 14 at the “Track of Champions” Fonda Speedway a regular show in all divisions will be on the racing card along with a tribute to two time Fonda Speedway Track Champion Ken Shoemaker who was crowned the champion for the first time at Fonda in 1958 followed by the Fonda Sportsman title in 1965.
Shoemaker has a total of 54 wins in 14 winning seasons at Fonda placing him fourth on the all-time win list with his first win coming on 10/8/1955 and his last win coming on 8/9/1975. During those years Shoemaker’s winningest seasons were in 1960 and 1965 when he won seven times in both of those years. Shoemaker was also inducted into the first Hall of Fame class at the Fonda Speedway back in 1988.
In his autobiography They Call Me “The Shoe”, Shoemaker was quoted as saying: “Steve Danish was my hero”. “He was the man to beat on the east coast if you wanted to be anybody. I said to myself I’ll never be a real racer until I can beat Steve Danish.”
According to the book FONDA!, Pete Corey befriended Shoemaker as children and they remained close pals for life. According to Shoemaker in that book he and Corey were only 15 years old when they decided to enlist together in the Navy. They doctored the dates on their birth certificates but a recruiter knew Shoemaker’s family and alerted his mother of what they were doing so Shoemaker didn’t serve but Corey wasn’t as fortunate and ended up serving in World War II.
After the war Corey and Shoemaker both married and their families shared a Troy, NY apartment. In 1949, they chipped in together to buy a 1935 Ford coupe and made it into a stock car. They numbered the black racer #35 to represent the purchase price. Corey was tabbed to drive the car at the nearby Burden Lake Speedway in Averill Park, NY.
“Pete was just a natural born race driver,” Shoemaker said in his autobiography. “It was a little harder on me. I had to learn to drive them.”
Shoemaker’s learning curve was a long one according to the book FONDA! The Shoe, a taxicab proprietor at the time, had scored one early Fonda victory, an October 8, 1955 upset when he was pinch hitting behind the wheel of Red Knoblauch’s #13 coupe, wrenched by Tony Achzet. But that win was kind of a fluke according to the book FONDA! because many of the better drivers by-passed that Fonda show in favor of the National Open at Langhorne the same weekend. Most of the time, Shoemaker was a decided crasher and also-ran according to the book FONDA!
That all changed in 1958 when Shoemaker was hired to drive Al Caprara’s potent #37. The pairing earned “The Shoe” five feature wins at Fonda in 1958, a track championship, and much pit side respect. From there “The Shoe” moved to the Harry Caputo/ (and then) Chris Drellos #111 for a five year (1959-1963) stint. That was followed by three years steering the Wright/Zaunter #24.
The glory years of 1958-1966 saw Shoemaker visit Fonda’s victory lane 36 times, second only to Bill Wimble as the track’s winningest driver during that era. Shoemaker would continue to win regularly at Fonda into the mid 1970’s.
My personal recollection of Ken Shoemaker was back when I was in my teens when he was piloting the Barrelhead Root Beer sponsored #24. There was a store near where I grew up in Amsterdam, NY called the Mohawk Dairy on Forest Avenue in Amsterdam, NY and one day the Barrelhead Root Beer #24 was on display at the store. I will never forget hounding my brother and my parents to take me over to the Mohawk Dairy to see that race car.
Just going to see that race car on display at that time or going to the races at Fonda with my brother on Saturday’s back then were times in my life that I will never forget. If we could only get kid’s to feel the same way now in this day and age of video games, cell phones, and computers that would be a welcome sight in my opinion.
For more information about the Fonda Speedway you can go to their website www.fondaspeedway.com Also don’t forget to visit the Fonda Speedway Museum which is open every race night from 3:00 p.m. until race time. This week there will be many displays of items documenting Shoemaker’s racing career so stop in and check it out and talk to all of the other visitors about the history of the “Track of Champions” Fonda Speedway.
