WIMBLE TRIBUTE HIGHLIGHTS FONDA SPEEDWAY THIS SATURDAY

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BILL WIMBLE TRIBUTE HIGHLIGHTS THE FONDA SPEEDWAY RACING CARD THIS SATURDAY, JUNE 4
By: Ron Szczerba

Images Courtesy: Jane & Harry Cella/RacersGuide.com

FONDA, NY – This Saturday, June 4 a tribute to Fonda Speedway legend Bill Wimble, who recently passed away, will be on the racing card on C & C Plumbing & Heating Night. All divisions will be in action with a $750 to win sportsman feature along with “Kiddie Rides” highlighting the Saturday evening racing program. Starting time will be 7:30 P.M.

C & C Plumbing & Heating will also be adding $50 to finishing positions two through five in the sportsman feature event. They are the proud sponsors of the Chris Curtis #35 sportsman racecar.

Also, please don’t forget to visit the Fonda Speedway museum, which will have many tribute items on display from Bill Wimble’s illustrious racing career. The museum is open from 3:00 p.m. up until race time each and every Saturday evening.

Below is a story that I had done on Wimble back on August 14, 2009 in the Schenectady, NY Daily Gazette newspaper as part of my weekly racing column, which I hope that you enjoy reading. He was in town to promote his new book “I’ll Never Be Last Again” when I spoke with him about visiting the local tracks which he had done just about every summer in past years.

For the last few weeks legendary driver Bill Wimble has been making his yearly stops to all of the local racetracks to meet all of his friends. This year there is something else to keep him busy on his visit to the northeast, autographing copies and appearing on the local racing radio shows to promote his new book “I’ll Never Be Last Again”.

This Saturday Wimble will be at the Fonda Speedway to sign copies of his new book, which was written in his own words as told to Lew Boyd, and it was published by Coastal 181 after being at Albany Saratoga to do the same last Friday, and Utica Rome a few weeks ago.

According to the book, “Fonda” Wimble was the son of a college professor and had been educated since age six in the private and highly esteemed St. Albans Boys Academy in Brockville, Canada. He was so superior in scholastics that he passed the admissions test for the prestigious McGill University in Montreal, Canada 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 and too ill to run the 160-acre spread.

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

Lisbon, NY was located a full 200 miles due north of Fonda. It was there that he was known as a young, quiet, dairy farmer from the St. Lawrence Valley. Then he burst onto to the scene to bring national prominence to the Fonda Speedway with his first race at the track being back in 1956.

Although his first race at Fonda was back 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 self-owned car #0. He gained his first career win at both Monroe County and Fonda on consecutive nights on May 30 & 31, 1958 driving the Hal Kempney #113.

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

On August 23, 1958, Wimble climbed into Dave McCredy’s #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 to chase NASCAR points with.

In 1959, Wimble finished in the top 20 in points at six different New York speedways including Fonda (2nd), Monroe County (3rd), Saranac Lake (3rd), Canandaigua (7th), Islip (20th), and Plattsburg (20th). He won a single feature at Fonda that year on August 29, 1959.

In 1960, Wimble collected his first NASCAR National Sportsman Championship by a margin of 1445 points over Dick Nephew, which brought coast-to-coast prestige to the Fonda Speedway. In 1960, he also collected the 1960-point title at Fonda along with three feature wins.

In 1961, Wimble and his rival 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. 1961 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 vents at Fonda and 28 overall in his career year. In 1964 Wimble won the second annual Fonda 200 on August 15 and in 1967 he and car owner McCredy switched from Sportsman power to Modified power under the hood of the #33. Wimble’s 43rd and final win at Fonda came in the last race of the 1967 racing season on September 9, 1967.

In 1968 Wimble became an “outlaw” running at Spencer on Fridays and Lebanon Valley on Saturdays not because he had an issue with Fonda Speedway but because he had an issue with NASCAR because they changed their emphasis from dirt racing to blacktop racing. At that point, Wimble wrote a letter of resignation to NASCAR.

In 1968 car owner McCredy had passed away but his widow Marg vowed to keep the #33 tradition alive. Then on August 24, 1968 Wimble was involved in the worst wreck of his career at Lebanon Valley in the #33 resulting in a badly fractured skull. Although Wimble didn’t remember the accident he knows what time it happened to the precise moment.

How does he know what time it happened you ask? The wristwatch that he had on broke in the wreck forever frozen at 9:50:32. The watch was donated to the DIRT Motorsports Hall of Fame where Bill is a member after being inducted in 1992. Wimble was also previously inducted into the New York State Stock Car Association (NYSSCA) in 1988.

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

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. Bill and his wife Nancy have become avid travelers and dedicated race fans. They also travel to New York for a couple of weeks every summer to visit all of their friends in the northeast.

Besides his 43 wins at Fonda Wimble also has eight feature wins at Lebanon Valley with the first one coming in 1963 and the last in 1968. Add to that two wins at Albany Saratoga both coming in 1966, and another one in a legends race at the Can-Am Speedway in 1993 when he piloted a Dave Lape Modified painted to look like the McCredy #33 to a win against some of his 1960’s peers including Buzzie Reutimann, “Fuzzy” Van Horn, and Andy Romano among others.

BILL WIMBLE CHAMPIONSHIPS
Fonda Speedway Track Champion – 1960, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1967
Monroe County Fairgrounds Speedway Champion – 1961
Victoria Speedway Champion – 1963
Stafford Speedway Champion – 1964, 1965
Albany Saratoga Speedway – 1966, 1967
Lebanon Valley Speedway – 1968
New York State Champion – 1960, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1967
Connecticut State Champion – 1964, 1965
NASCAR National Sportsman Champion – 1960
NASCAR National Sportsman Co-Champion – 1961

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