During his Hall of Fame career Doug Wolfgang racked up hundreds of sprint car victories, but often forgotten are a pair of 1982 USAC Silver Crown Series triumphs.
The return of USAC to two of Wolfgang’s regular haunts, Pennsylvania’s Williams Grove and Port Royal Speedways in recent years, provided the backdrop for the South Dakota resident to reminisce about his time racing big cars.
“I loved driving those things,” Wolfgang recalled. “They were really a lot of fun. Obviously, at the time I ran them I was racing 80 to 90 percent of the time with a wing. But to me they just felt so good. I felt right at home. I don’t know how many starts I made, but it was probably less than a half dozen.”
While his time in the series may have been brief, one race sticks in his mind. It was a July 4 victory at New Jersey’s Flemington Speedway.
The National Speed Sport News headline after Doug Wolfgang’s 1982 Silver Crown Series triumph at Flemington (N.J.) Speedway. (NSSN Archives)
“I was supposed to race at Williams Grove, but it rained out. I was going to ride over to Flemington with Gary Stanton, but because we got rained out at the Grove he went directly to Flemington,” Wolfgang recalled. “My wife was with me, so I called Lynn Paxton who borrowed a primo 1965 Ford Falcon for me. It had about 380,000 miles on it. It was just great and we drove over from the Harrisburg area to Flemington, which took a couple of hours.”
Wolfgang kicked things off by posting the best qualifying time and there was nothing left to do but wait for the pomp and circumstance to begin.
“They lined us up cockeyed to the world on the front straightaway and Gary Bettenhausen, who was racing for Tim Delrose and A.J. Foyt, was second fast. Since I was a rookie, Gary proceeded to sit me on the front tire of my car and tell me what to expect at Flemington since I hadn’t seen the track.
“Then, he told me if you wanted to pass on the bottom pull up beside someone and point to the bottom and point up if you are going high.”
With a laugh, Wolfgang said Bettenhausen added, “‘Now, when I go to lap you, I’ll do that to you.’ I said, ‘I’ll keep that in mind.’”
The problem with Bettenhausen’s plan was that Wolfgang was convinced he had a superior car.
“We took off and I let him take the lead at the start,” Wolfgang said. “I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but Gary Stanton’s car was in a different league.”
In truth, it was a period in series history when many teams were not investing in new equipment. Wolfgang added, “The other cars in the field had not progressed with the times. They were iron sleds. Now that isn’t true today. So, I followed Gary for six or seven laps and I couldn’t stand it anymore, so I passed him. It was an easy race to run because the track had a digital lap counter, so you knew where you were at. Around lap 75 or 80, I was ready to lap him.”
That’s when things got interesting.
“When I came up alongside Gary, I pointed down and he chopped me into the inside guardrail,” Wolfgang recalled. “Then, I came up alongside him again and pointed up, and he slides me up to the fence.”
Recalling the moment, Wolfgang said, “So, I backed up about 30 feet and gassed it off the corner. You know those cars had that single bumper and that 75-gallon aluminum fuel tank. I hit him square in the bumper and made that about a 40-gallon fuel tank and went on and won the race.”
The fun was only beginning. Long after the cars were loaded, Wolfgang had an encounter he won’t soon forget.
Keyword: Doug Wolfgang: Silver Crown Interlude