Billy Pauch, Jeff Heotzler Sr, Don Diffendorf To Be Honored This Year
Story By: BUFFY SWANSON / DIRTcar HALL OF FAME MEDIA Photos By: RACERSGUIDE.COM PHOTO STAFF
WEEDSPORT NY.-April 29, 2016- Billy Pauch, one of the region’s winningest and most versatile modern-era drivers, longtime Orange County and Accord kingpin Jeff Heotzler and pioneer Southern Tier legend Don Diffendorf will officially be inducted into the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame in August. These three driving greats add their names to a stellar list of Modified standouts that was started in 1992 when the Hall of Fame was established on the Cayuga County Fairgrounds in Weedsport, New York.
The 25th annual induction ceremonies honoring the Class of 2016 will take place Monday, August 8 at 7 pm in the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame and Museum, on the grounds of the renovated Weedsport Speedway. The following evening, Weedsport Speedway will present its Super DIRTcar Series Hall of Fame 100 for the big-block Modifieds.
A second generation racer and New Jersey farm boy, Billy “the Kid” Pauch proved to be a natural-born talent the first time he slipped behind the wheel in 1975. Since that rookie season, he has racked up an astounding 720 feature wins at 30 tracks in seven states, including over 100 each at Flemington, East Windsor and New Egypt speedways.
Pauch is the all-time winner of both Grandview’s marquee Freedom 76 and Fulton’s Victoria 200 classic with a half-dozen each; twice claimed Big Diamond’s Coalcracker; aced the DIRT 320 Nationals at Syracuse, Ransomville’s Summer Nationals, Hagerstown’s Octoberfest, the Delaware State Dirt Track Championships; and has 14 Super DIRTcar Series wins, even though he never followed that circuit.
But that’s not the half of it. Although more than 80 percent of Pauch’s victory lane appearances were in dirt Modifieds, the agile switch-hitter also won big in asphalt Mods, winged and wingless Sprints, Midgets, Late Models and SpeedStrs, under NASCAR, World of Outlaws, USAC, CRA, All Stars, URC and other sanctions. The speed record he turned in a WoO Sprint car in 1994 on the Syracuse mile still stands.
Although Jeff Heotzler’s 11 championship titles at Orange County Fair Speedway and Accord will always tie him to those tracks, the Wallkill, NY, driver stacked up some pretty impressive scores over the years outside his familiar home turf. Heotzler was named Mr. DIRT 320 Modified series champ in 1984; he won the inaugural Syracuse small-block race, the 2007 Eastern States 200 at Orange County, and back-to-back Eastern States small-block Mod 100s in 1988 and ’89.
He owns a pair of wins in Lebanon Valley’s prestigious Mr. Dirt Track USA championship big-block event, and another deuce in the Valley’s Race of Kings for SBMs. Since 1978, when he first strapped into his brother’s coupe during a hot lap session at Orange County, “The Jeffer” has notched nearly 150 wins at 13 tracks from Florida to Quebec. The defending Accord Mod champ, age 58, is in his 39th year of competition.
“The Old Grey Fox,” Don Diffendorf began his racing career at Five Mile Point Speedway the year the track opened in 1951, recording his first victory in a 1938 Ford flathead coupe owned by buddy John Gorman. A racer’s racer in the rough-and-tumble ’50s and ’60s, Diffendorf cut his teeth on tough Southern Tier and Pennsy bullrings against bruisers Ken “Monk” Rauch, “Irish Joe” Donahue, Dave Kneisel, Bobby Quick and Bobby Butcher.
By the 1960s, he was not only the scourge of Five Mile Point, but also a force to be reckoned with on the newly reopened Shangri-La, where his battles with the likes of Dutch Hoag are well-remembered, and the All-Star League, where he routinely cleaned up at Lebanon Valley and Fulton. A hard crash at Shangri-La ended a two-year foray in the Supermodified ranks (1963-4), although he did score a single win at Oswego during the period.
His most famous ride was Glenn Scott’s iconic S/360, named for the IBM computers Scott sold. Although there were a lot of “almosts,” Diff’s career highlights included wins in the STP 200 at Lancaster Speedway, and two NY State Fair championship runs on the mile in 1969 and 1971.
He retired from driving in 1978. Don Diffendorf passed away in 2012.
Also being honored at the August 8 induction ceremonies are Eugene Mills, Bob Dini, Marty Beberwyk, George Caruso Jr. and Theresa Rogers.
The 2016 Gene DeWitt Car Owner Award goes to Eugene Mills of Milford, DE. Forming the Blue Hen Racing Team with a group of college buddies in 1977, they quickly clicked. Driver John Kozak won the 1978 Reading Fairgrounds opener, as well as a pair of championship titles, at U.S. 13 and on the MODCAR circuit. Over the years, the team had top tier racers like Ricky Elliott, Bobby Wilkins, Harold Bunting and his son H.J., Jack Johnson, Bob McCreadie, Gary Gollub, Dave Kelly and Keith Kauffman in the seat.
Hall of Fame driver Kenny Brightbill got the most out of his two years with the team, winning Super DIRT Series events at Volusia County, Rolling Wheels, Lebanon Valley, Fonda and Ransomville, culminating with the biggest of the crown jewels, the October 1988 Super DIRT Week championship at Syracuse. The following year, Mills became sole owner of the team, with son Jamie since steering to six track championships in three states. The #30 has been in Mills’ family since 1946, when his father and uncle entered a stock car they built in a sanctioned race at Georgetown and NASCAR assigned them that number.
Devoting most of his adult life to fine tuning the dirt Modified, Bob Dini of West Nyack, NY, will be honored with this year’s Mechanic/Engineering Award. Under the tutelage of his father John, Dini grew up in a race car garage and never left. By 1979, he was teching cars at Orange County and became DIRTcar’s chief technical inspector two years later, a position he held for almost 30 years. During that time, Dini was instrumental in redefining and clarifying Modified car and engine specs, creating the rulebook that essentially still endures today. He currently serves as technical inspector at both Orange County and Accord speedways. Earlier in his career, Dini was a championship TQ Midget driver and had the singular opportunity of racing Ferraris, Cobras, Lolas and on the SCCA’s Can-Am series with celebrities such as Mario Andretti, Sam Posey and Bruce McLaren.
Capital District native Marty Beberwyk will receive the Leonard J. Sammons Jr. Award for Outstanding Contributions to Auto Racing. Setting out in 1956 at the old Empire Raceway, Beberwyk spent a decade in the cockpit before he picked up a set of flags and began officiating, first at Pine Bowl Speedway and then at Lebanon Valley, where he served as assistant flagger, head flagger and then pit steward for 33 years. He was the original starter for Glenn Donnelly’s newly-formed series at Syracuse from 1972-4, before stepping into the role of Super DIRT Week pit steward, a position he held for 25 years. He also traveled with the DIRT Asphalt Tour, and flagged at Midstate Speedway, Rolling Wheels and Devil¹s Bowl. Beberwyk was named general manager and race director at Fonda Speedway in 1996, serving under promoter Ric Lucia for 17 years until his retirement at the conclusion of the 2013 season.
Program book publisher George Caruso Jr., Oswego, NY, will be the recipient of the Andrew S. Fusco Award for Media Excellence, in memory of Hall of Fame board member and legal counsel Andy Fusco, who passed away last year. Caruso and his brother Doug grew up at Oswego Speedway, the track their family built in 1951. Young George was 17 when he decided that putting together and selling a little program book would be a lot more interesting than painting fences and picking up trash at the speedway, so he proceeded with the project. That static track program was so successful that Caruso began offering weekly editions the following year, featuring topical pictures and articles. Lancaster Speedway took notice and contracted with Caruso for a weekly program of their own, and the empire was formed: By the time Caruso got out of school, Speedway Press was started with a little single-color 12×18 offset press. At its peak in the 1970s and ’80s, Speedway Press was operating four-color presses out of a 9,000 square foot facility, turning out weekly program books for 30 race tracks as well as special event magazines for major series. Although the printing business has since been sold, Caruso continues to keep his hand in, still producing Oswego’s weekly program for 53 years and running.
Theresa Rogers, general manager of Pennsylvania’s Grandview Speedway for the past 50 years, will be honored with the Outstanding Woman in Racing Award. Virginia-born Theresa Craig was a stranger to auto racing when she met and then married Bruce Rogers in 1960. Three years later, Bruce’s father Forrest completed building the one-third mile high-banked clay track on his 103-acre property in Berks County. A sudden heart attack took Forrest’s life just three years after the track¹s opening, putting son Bruce — and then daughter-in-law Theresa — at the helm. Under their leadership, the little raceway flourished: the original seating capacity was increased six-fold, skyboxes installed, lighting was improved, and the pit area expanded. While nearby tracks like Reading, Penn National, Nazareth and Flemington were shuttered, Grandview kept growing. Bruce and Theresa partnered with Bob Miller to present the popular Thunder on the Hill series, now in its 27th year; they adopted a NASCAR sanction in 1992; and they have made their season-ending Freedom 76 a must-see event, paying as much as $50,000 to the winner. Bruce and Theresa Rogers have been named Eastern Region Auto Racing Promoters of the Year five times by Racing Promotion Monthly.
