with Dana Rowe
One of the great things about being a writer, and especially a journalist, is that you get to meet incredibly fascinating people. I pretty much got going as a journalist on my college newspaper, the SMU Torch. (Southeastern Massachusetts University, now University of Mass, Dartmouth.) Down the road, I started writing driver profiles for the Seekonk Speedway programs.
Adrienne Venditti was my first boss at the program, and gave me my first assignment. A couple of brothers who were racing in the Formula Four division, very much like today’s Sport Fours. They were plumbers and boilermakers. Their Formula Four had a roll cage made from boiler tubing. Extremely strong. Had they hit the wall, they’d probably have gone right through it. They showed me a shock mount they were building out of boiler plate. They were using these huge Stilson wrenches and monster threading dies like it was a plumbing shop . . . and of course, it was. Needless to say, with all the weight, they weren’t frontrunners, but they had the time of their lives doing this.
She gave me many incredible assignments. Dave Humphrey was probably most memorable. Dave is not only a great champion, he’s a hell of a story teller, and this led me to . . . well, let me just spin the yarn for you.
The article became a recapitulation of several stories he told about his storied career. My favorite part includes the great sportscaster, Chris Economaki. When Dave was working his way up through dirt sprint cars down in the Pennsylvania/New Jersey area, Chris was learning his trade in the towers, calling the races just like current Seekonk ace, Kevin Boucher.
Dave told of one race at the state fair in Bedford, PA. He was out in practice and Chris Economaki was in the tower atop the stands on the mic. Dave came out of turn four and put the hammer down on the half-mile dirt. Halfway down, he realized that a rock had flown into the cockpit and jammed his throttle wide open. He could see the water truck wetting down the track going into turn one and knew he had to make some fast decisions. Dave concluded he had two choices: the fence or the truck. He elected to do the fence. “It looked softer,” he said.
The sprinter went through the wood, down the embankment and the nose caught on the ground at the bottom, turning the racer into a pinwheel. He and the car flipped right on through the side of a barn. The car’s tail took out the barn’s overhead beam as it flipped around and then landed upside-down in a huge vat of chicken feed that was on display. “That probably saved my life,” Dave explained. “It cushioned the landing.” Nevertheless, he had a separated shoulder and had been knocked out, cold.
He remembers that Econmaki had jumped out of the tower, ran down through the stands and into the barn, arriving about the time that Dave came to. “He was the first one there.” (Dave didn’t realize that his crew chief had gotten there while he was still out.) They got him out of the car and chicken feed and into the ambulance. Great story.
But here’s where it gets better: I was writing the story up for the program at radio station WBSM-AM in New Bedford after my shift as news anchor . . . using the typewriter in the news office. I decided it would be great to get Chris Economaki’s take on this. One journalist to another. Chris had retired from ABC Sports and was now Editor of “National Speed Sport Magazine”. I said “what the hell” and dialed the magazine. Worst possible outcome: he’d turn me down. Turns out his secretary answered the phone.
I explained to her what I wanted and asked if he might be available for some comments. She put me on hold for a minute, came back and said, “Chris will talk to you now. I’ll transfer you.” The intimidation factor set in.
But I guessed that the element of surprise might be best, and had a plan. The phone clicked and a single word: “Hallo!” came across the line. It was laden with the Economaki snarl, as I call it, heavy on the nasal. Half-shouted; at broadcast level, like I’d just been doing on-air. BUT! The voice, the inflection . . . I could hear things like, “This is Chris Economaki and I’m in the pits at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with Gordon Johncock!” and, “Now Mario Andretti is coming out of turn four and headed for the finish . . . “ echoed in my brain. I charged into my plan.
I introduced myself and then said: “Chris, Dave Humphrey tells me that you were the first one to him after he drove that sprint car through the side of the barn at Bedford, Pennsylvania.”
There was a pause. I imagine memories were rushing back to him. Then I heard the drawing in of a great breath of air, just like I did immediately before starting a news broadcast.
Here it comes.
“Was I there? Was I there?” he broadcast. “I’ll tell you I was there!” And he launched into the story, pretty much exactly as Dave Humphrey had told it. And as he began, I realized I was sitting at the only phone in the newsroom where I couldn’t flip a switch and tape record the whole thing. I had the great Chris Economaki telling me a story and sounding as if he was calling the Daytona 500 on Wide World of Sports -- and I couldn’t preserve the sound of it. I was taking notes in a panic that I would lose even a single word of it, and the maestro was locked into what he did best, and talking a mile-a-minute. It was one of the most incredible moments of my journalistic career. Thanks to Dave Humphrey and Chris Economaki, and of course to Adrienne for handing me this plum of an assignment.
I’m sure Chris Economaki and I had a conversation afterwards, but I can’t remember a bit of it. My memory hung entirely on the moment – those few stunning seconds that perhaps the world’s greatest track announcer was telling me what was at that moment the greatest racing story the world would ever know.
The article wrote itself after that. Friends of Dave were throwing a dinner in his honor asked me to speak, after reading my story. When they called me, I stood up and told them the story I’ve just told you. Over the thirty years since, I’ve continued to tell it and I never grow tired of the telling.
Just like right now.