2016 Illinois Stock Car Hall of Fame Reception and Banquet

Stan Kalwasinski
Photos Courtesy of Stan Kalwaskinski Photo
2016 Illinois Stock Car Hall of Fame Reception and Banquet
Rockford, Ill.—The Illinois Stock Car Hall of Fame held its fifth annual reception and banquet in
the Rockford area on Saturday, April 9. The reception was held in the afternoon at Wayne
Lensing’s Historic Auto Attractions museum in Roscoe with the banquet held later in the
evening at the Hoffman House Restaurant in Rockford.
With over 200 people in attendance, seven new inductees were honored at the banquet. Among
the new hall of fame members were drivers Erik Johnson, Roger Long, Jim Agans and Al
Johnson, car builder/owner/mechanic Mike Terrafino, track official Art Kelly and track promoter
Joe Shaheen.
Erik Johnson was a three-time late model track champion at
O’Hare Stadium in Schiller Park, winning the titles in 1962,
1967 and 1968 behind the wheel of one of the Martinelli
Brothers-owned potent Chevys. Johnson raced at O’Hare from
1958 until the track closed in 1968. He was the first driver to
win 50 career feature races at the paved speedway, totaling up
that amount by 1964. Johnson was the winner of the track’s
O’Hare American 500 in 1966 in the Martinellis-owned white
‘64 Chevy convertible. Before trying his luck on paved tracks,
Johnson raced and won at a number of local dirt tracks
including the Waukegan Speedway, Santa Fe Speedway and
the Wilmot (Wis.) Speedway. Johnson closed out his racing
career at the Rockford Speedway in the early 1970s.
Roger Long’s racing career started in 1972. A 23-year-old Long
was the 1976 Illiana Clay Racing Club champion, winning 10
feature races at the two participating Indiana tracks – Chase
Raceway and Rensselaer Raceway. Long dominated late model
action at the Kankakee Speedway in the 1980s, winning the track
title four times and winning a career total of 41 feature races. He
also claimed late model titles at other Illinois speedways
including Farmer City and Danville. Long captured late model
crowns at the Fairbury American Legion Speedway three times –
1997, 1998 and 2002, winning a career 66 feature wins. Over the
years, Long collected 15 track championships with over 350
career feature wins to his credit. The “Racing Farmer” from
Fithian, Ill., Long was always a crowd favorite.
Jim Agans started his racing career in 1955 at the age of 29 after
being involved in another form of racing – harness racing. He
won the first ‘stock car’ race he ever drove and continued
winning, claiming five consecutive track championships at the
Lincoln Speedway from 1958 through 1962. He won the track
title at the Taylorville Speedway in 1959 and captured the points
championship at the Fairbury American Legion Speedway in
1962. Agans was the top driver in the late model standings at Joe
Shaheen’s Springfield Speedway in 1973. In 1976, he won the
late model points championship at the Jacksonville Speedway,
giving Agans a career total of nine track titles.
Al Johnson was a regular at Chicagoland’s Santa Fe Speedway for
more than 20 years and was the first driver to win both the
sportsman and late model division titles at the dirt
raceway. Johnson started racing at Santa Fe in 1960 and won the
sportsman championship in 1962. He moved into late model
competition the following season. In 1971, Johnson began a string
of 18 consecutive “top 10” point standings finishes at Santa
Fe. 1981 was Johnson’s “year to shine” as he captured the track
championship for Santa Fe’s very competitive late model
division. He scored 11 feature race wins in his “Silver Bullet” late
model on his way to the crown. The “Silver Bullet” tag came from
Johnson’s habit of putting paint-less sheet metal on his
car. Johnson came back and won the Santa Fe late model crown
again in 1983.
Art Kelly was the dean of Chicago area racing
starters/flagmen during his career that spanned almost three
decades. Kelly was well known as the official starter at
Soldier Field and later – O’Hare Stadium and Indiana’s
Illiana Motor Speedway. Some of Kelly’s early flagging jobs
were at the Savage Speedway in Indiana around 1946 and at
Chicago’s Hanson Park, waving the flags for the weekly
midget races in 1947. He worked as flagman in the turns at
Soldier Field for a year or two before becoming promoter
Andy Granatelli’s chief starter for the hot rod and stock car
races at the “Field.” In the early 50s, Kelly was part of
Granatelli’s officiating crew that traveled the Hurricane
Racing Association circuit of Soldier Field, Rockford
Speedway and the old quarter-mile dirt track located inside
the “Milwaukee Mile.” A crew member at Indianapolis for
Chicago area midget great Jimmy Snyder in the late 1930s,
Kelly retired from the flag stand at Illiana after the 1975 season.
Mike Terrafino put his driving career on hold and became one
of the top stock car builders/mechanics/car owners in the
Chicago area, fielding cars for the likes of area frontrunners
Whitey Gerken and Bill Lutz. Terrafino actually won the very
first race he ever competed in, wheeling his MG sports car in a
special intermission spectator race at Mance Park in Hodgkins
in the mid 1950s. He was a late model regular at O’Hare
Stadium for a number of years before turning his ’57 Chevy
over to Gerken. The Gerken/Terrafino combination won five of
the last six feature races held at Soldier Field in 1960, including
the 100-lap Season Championship with additional wins coming
at the Rockford Speedway. With Gerken away chasing a
NASCAR career, Lutz became Terrafino’s driver with the team
winning the inaugural American 500 at O’Hare Stadium in
1962. The following year, Terrafino put together a new ’63
Chevy convertible in two or three weeks with Gerken driving it
to victory in the 500 lapper at O’Hare. In 1964, HolmanMoody dropped off a ’64 Ford for Terrafino to use on the USAC stock car circuit. Gerken and
Lutz turned in three “top 10” finishes at the “Milwaukee Mile” during the ’64 season. In 1967,
Terrafino got back behind the wheel once more and won his only feature race of his career at the
Rockford Speedway in his short track Chevy.
Joe Shaheen was the founder, builder and promoter of the
Springfield Speedway, affectionately known as “Little
Springfield.” The dirt track operated from 1947 through 1987,
featuring midgets, hot rods, early stock cars, supermodifieds,
sprint cars and late models. The owner of a team of midgets
and a hot rod, Shaheen saw Chicago area midget racer Johnny
Roberts win the first feature race at the quarter-mile dirt oval
on June 7, 1947. There were no jobs at the track that Shaheen
couldn’t do. It was not unusual to see him driving the grader,
preparing the track on race day. Over the years, the greats and
near-greats of auto racing competed on the Springfield dirt,
including drivers in USAC and World of Outlaws
competition.
Former Chicago area resident and racer, Ted Musgrave, was the
evening’s special guest speaker, talking about his days as an
area stock car competitor and, later, his career in NASCAR
racing, where he competed in NASCAR ‘Cup and Truck
competition. Musgrave, a second generation driver, who
watched his dad, Elmer, race for many years, was the 2005
NASCAR Truck Series champion, scoring a total of 17 truck
wins during his career.
Possibly the highlight of the evening were the on-stage interviews of former Soldier Field racers
and champions – “Tiger Tom” Pistone and Sal Tovella as they recounted their “wild and wooly”
stock car racing days in Chicago. Both hall of fame members, Pistone and Tovella were
teammates for a while at Soldier Field in the early 1950s, learning together the “ropes” of Andy
Granatelli’s promoted races. Pistone was the recipient of the hall of fame’s Pioneer Award.
The founder of the Illinois Stock Car Hall of Fame, Art “Fireball” Fehrman and his wife, Pat,
were honored with special awards for their hard work in making the hall of fame a success.
Art now has a display case at the Hall of Fame to document and
honor him as the Founding Father of the Hall of Fame.
In addition to Art and Pat, other hall of fame board of directors include Wayne Lensing, Jerry
Gille, Stan Kalwasinski, Karen Tyne-Duncan, Michael Papp and Earl Clement.