It hardly seems possible that it has been thirty-one years today that I sat in the grandstand at Salem and witnessed one of the greatest drivers of all time perish in an accident as the he received the white flag.
Watched that race and accident live on ESPN. Was devastated. Saw Rich run many times. Stood on the loud pedal, and ranks up there with Foyt, Stewart, and Hewitt as one of the best short track open wheel racers of all time. Could drive anything, and was as good on pavement as he was on dirt. Didn't matter, midget, sprint, silver crown, Indy car.
Originally Posted by Dougherty20:
Watched that race and accident live on ESPN. Was devastated. Saw Rich run many times. Stood on the loud pedal, and ranks up there with Foyt, Stewart, and Hewitt as one of the best short track open wheel racers of all time. Could drive anything.
I watched it on TV also, I was crushed.. The night I lost my hero.
RIP mad dog.
l also watched it live on ESPN that night. I was still drinking back then and after witnessing what happened, I got hammered and missed work the next day. Even though I've lived in MA my whole life (so far), I've always been drawn to open-wheel racing. Maybe it was watching all of the tape-delayed races shown on the Wild World of Sports back in the day, back when AJ, Mario, the Unsers, and all the others still ran on dirt. I appreciated what Rich Vogler accomplished. It was so cool that he had his pilot's license and would fly himself to races. He was a racers racer and was definitely one of the best to strap in and mash the pedal.
