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Ronnie Bouchard – Master
Winston Cup Performer
and auto dealership magnate. (Dick
Berggren Photo)
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9/25/12
FAST FITCHBURGERS
On Saturday, September 15, popular Fitchburg,
Mass., resident and New England Auto Racing Hall of Famer Ron
Bouchard held a cookout for the racing community at his pristine new
auto dealership in nearby Lancaster. It was a warm, friendly event
with lively discourse about our sport, past and present.
One
of the most curious threads of discussion was about Ron’s hometown
itself. That moon over Fitchburg, a small city an hour west of
Boston, must be a rare one – the one that shines on those special
places that grow great race car drivers.
The roster of Fast
Fitchburgers goes on and on, with no sign of slowing. There are the
Bouchard Brothers, Ron and Kenny, both Winston Cup stars; Ray Hill;
Reino “the Flying Finn” Tulonen; top-flight midgeteer Ray Burke;
Frank Michaelson; Pete Fiandaca; Tinker Progin; Al Becker; and Jean
Michaud, just to name a few. Each towed back to Fitchburg a trove of
tales from wheelin’ down the exhaust circuit.
Ron Bouchard
himself was a natural, born in the right setting – a championship
racing family. He won his very first outing at age 14 in Brookline,
New Hampshire. By the end of the seventies, he had notched north of
200 modified victories. He ran for luminaries such as Marvin
Rifchen, Lenny Boehler, and Bob Johnson.
In 1981 he became
one of the very first Northerners to campaign seriously in Winston
Cup, running 160 events. In just his 11th appearance, he snatched
the Talladega 500.
Ron wears one big ol’ grin when he tells
about the 1986 Daytona 500 aboard Mike Curb’s Valvoline hunchback
Pontiac. “We still had a ways to go and a pit stop but we were
running strong – about fifth. I radioed in to Mike Beam that the
throttle was stuck wide open. He said to bring it in, but I said no
way. He asked how in the hell were we going to pit. I told him I’d
come in, shut it down, jam on the brakes. Then I’d put it in gear,
they’d push me a little, I’d snap it on, and then speed shift
through the gears. We did it and got a good finish, but Mike was
just shaking his head!”
Talk about on the gas. Can you
imagine what the other drivers were thinking about that Valvoline
car? It must have looked pretty jumpy with Ron switching it on and
off in restarts. And good thing that was before pit road speeding
penalties!
And then there’s Fitchburg’s own “Travelin’ Man,”
Pete Fiandaca. He was in bombers in the ’60s, modifieds in the ’70s,
and late models in the ’80s, ’90s, and 21st century. Is it possible
that anyone in the Northeast has done more racing – from Canada to
New Smyrna – than this understated, industrial variety Hall of
Famer?
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Fitchburg’s Pete
Fiandaca, likely one of the East Coast’s most
traveled short trackers ever. (Howie Hodge Photo,
Dave Dykes Collection)
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One time in the fall of 1974
Peter heard about a show in Fort Dix, New Jersey. He recalls, “I’d
never been there, but all the names were in the pits. I won the heat
and started behind Frankie Schneider. I was nervous – all wound up –
and I got to hammering his bumper. He motioned me to back off and I
did. Then, a few laps later when took the lead, he waved me by. It
was something. He just wanted to get a good finish. And he did.
Third, behind Gil Hearne.
“When I won, Gil came over and
said, ‘I’ve never seen anyone so fast in the middle of the turns
since Ed Flemke was here, but I’ve seen much better tires in my junk
pile than those on your car.’ I thought, ‘Geez, they were like that
when I got here.’
“We got to be buddies. He invited me to his
house and gave Stevie Bird and me enough used tires to run a couple
of weeks. Gil also had a whole bunch of used and broken parts piled
up. I asked him about that. He said he was going to return all that
to his sponsor, so his sponsor would know he used everything and was
honest and had not sold anything. I learned that lesson from him and
have always tried to do that since. So, you could say that Gil
helped me that day and for the rest of my life.”
Down the
street is Jean Michaud who arrived in Fitchburg with a bit of
Quebecois in his voice. He started racing up there at the turn of
the sixties, winning every race but one with a flathead-powered
square top his first year. Two years later he was sportsman track
champ at Granby.
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Johnny Rutherford (L) signs a hood for
nationally acknowledged Offy expert
Jean
Michaud. (Ken Paulsen Photo) |
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One of Jean’s most passionate memories involves Monroe
County Fairgrounds, the wide and majestic half miler near Rochester,
New York, a mandatory Friday night stop in the heyday of the NASCAR
sportsman division. In one of the track’s final races, Jean recalls
driving for the famed owner Germain Chouinard and outrunning Dutch
Hoag and the rest of a full, throaty field. He led for 170 laps and
began “counting them down” for what would have been his biggest win
ever. That’s when one of the rear end housings broke. Still today,
50 years later, he wears the disappointment on his sleeve.
When Jean came to Fitchburg, he jumped into asphalt modifieds. And
he sure had a way with a welder. He built cars that won for many
teams – for the likes of Bobby Smith and George Summers at the
Oxford, Maine, opens and Fred Doolittle at Martinsville.
After a fling with Busch North, genial Jean hung up his goggles in
the 1990s, but his notoriety only grew. He soon purchased the Offy
equipment owned by retiring Johnny Pawl out in Indiana and has
become known in vintage circles nationwide for his exquisite
workmanship in rebuilding racing’s most sonorous engines.
Who
wouldn’t have wanted to grow up in Fitchburg?
© 2012 Lew Boyd, Coastal 181
If you were interested in this
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