From Left to Right: Kurt Stemmer, Richard Hoffman (my father), Kerry Norris, Rob Hoffman, Dave Norris (Kerry’s father and a former HAR driver), Tom Hoffman (my uncle) and Gus Hoffman aka Old Timer (my grandfather and founder of HAR) The year was 1987 and was our first year back in sprint cars after a 9 year layoff. The uniforms were from our Indy car team in 1984. The track was Millstream Speedway, in Findlay Ohio.

My father and I had gone to Lawrenceburg Speedway almost every week in 1986 as spectators and the racing bug was biting hard. Over the winter he told me that if I fixed the body on our old Crew Cab dually and repainted it, we could get a sprint car to run Lawrenceburg on Saturday nights. I held up my end of the deal and he held up his. We bought a 1987 Gambler and a Gaerte 410. We had no spares as this was just going to be hobby racing on Saturday night only. My father said if something broke we would roll the car in the trailer and drink beer the rest of the night.

We won the feature in only our 3rd race and while still high from the win Kerry mentioned that they run Sunday at Millstream Speedway in Findlay, OH. So we went up there and ran the next day and won that race as well. The picture was taken either after the race or the following week. Being a novice set-up man for dirt sprint cars, I probably frustrated Kerry to the point where he quit mid season and we picked up Indiana Andy Hillenburg to finish the season.

To make a long story even longer, by the end of the summer we were running Bloomington on Friday nights, Lawrenceburg on Saturday nights and Millstream on Sunday unless the WoO, USAC or All Stars were running close, then we would try our luck with them. That eventually grew into running for and winning our first USAC championship in 1989 and here we are 20 years later enjoying our 9th USAC championship.

Thanks for bringing back so many pleasant memories from a single picture!!

Rob Hoffman