Thom Ring

Ring Around Racing Thom Ring

I loved racing before I ever met any racers. Yet it's the racers, the people involved in racing, the drivers, the car owners, the track owners, even the media, that have kept me coming back. It's been people like the late Paul Dunigan, the supermodified car-owner who flaunted his supposed unfair advantage over the competition in these, the fastest cars racing on shorttracks. "You can't compete? Go race street stocks," he'd tell you. It's people like the Astles, a band of brothers and sons whose Saturday night speedway-saga goes on still. And it's even folks like the sorry dads who hitch a wagon to their kid hoping to ride it all the way to big-league racing, even if their kid is more into superheroes than superspeedways. Or the moron who went to one race and decided - brace yourself - that we're all there for the crashes. Or the guy who called me out because I wouldn't accuse a competitor of a bush move from my seat a football field away. They've all been fun. So has the racing. Doing it, too. My own misadventures have only added to our affair. This is a collection of my favorite of those relationships, experiences and observations from over a quarter-century around racing. Enjoy them again.