Statistical Consultants
While the ARRA historians are quite adept at ferreting out the statistics that make up the bulk of their research efforts...there are times when it is necessary to reach out to those more familiar with the subject being researched. That is where our large and varied group of racing fans with a vast knowledge of racing in their world and their regions are called upon to lend a hand in our efforts to dig down deep to get the facts and get them right. We would like to recognize these people who are oh so valuable to our existance as a research group. This page will be added to as more and more of these vital persons steps up with their information.
Rick Shive - Rick Shive started attending races at Flemington with his Mom at 2 years old with friends, while his Dad was in the NAVY. He was instantly hooked, and hasn’t looked back since. Being a native of Upper Black Eddy, Pa from a big racing family Hoop Schaible was his racing hero. In fact one of Rick’s later racecars was painted and lettered like Hoop’s 95, complete with Hoop’s sponsors. He just knew that someday he would race, and at the age of 19 he hit the track at Flemington and Nazareth in his number 62 sportsman. For various reasons he ended up not racing anymore after 1980, but soon returned as a car owner with his brother Randy driving. This lasted until 1984, then from 1985-1987 he fielded a sprint car with URC, with Rod Hanna, Mike Auer and briefly Randy driving. Marriage and children put a halt to racing until 2013 when he came into possession of a go kart. Returning to to the driver’s seat, Rick competed at Snydersville, Shellhammers, West End Fairgrounds, and New Reading Fairgrounds from 2013-2018. Won several features and two track championships at Snydersville. His driving career ended for good in 2018 due to an injury following a crash at Snydersville. He continued as an owner one more season with Matthew Rodenbach winning a bunch of races and another championship at Snydersville. Rick early in life gained a reputation for remembering things nobody else did. Racing was the primary subject, but other aspects of life were easily recalled. Quite often someone would say “Ask Shive, he probably remembers”. With the advent of racing message boards and social media he quickly became a “go to guy” when somebody had a question nobody could answer: “Who is this, what chassis is that, who drove the Statewide 3 before Horton”? He tends to be long winded in his answers, figuring that if somebody asks a question he may as well give all the information ha has available. He’s been told many times “You know everybody”, and if he doesn’t, he knows somebody who does. Not by any means a statistician, instead just a vast memory bank of information. Rick is a well known lettering artist, lettering hundreds of racecars since 1976. He lives in Bethlehem, Pa with his wife Judy, they have two grown daughters.
Andy Hickok - My racing journey began with my Dad and Mom taking myself and my siblings to Albany Saratoga Speedway and Fonda Speedway fairly frequently in the early 70’s . In 1977 Albany Saratoga was converted to a clay oval and I started attending every event they held and started writing down the race results. In 1978 my best friend and neighbor Kim Duell started racing at the track which started my 40 plus years of working on a pit crew , first with Kim and later with his son Scott . In the early 90’s I approached track promoter Bruce Richards about additional history of the track as I’ve always been a “stats” guy , he told me track PR man Tom Boggie had a lot of the track history but he didn’t freely share it . It became my mission to get the most complete history of the Speedway by scrolling through hundreds of micro films at all the local libraries. Since those days now friend Tom Boggie and I have compared notes and agree on all the tracks wins lists . I moved to Florida in 2021 but continue to keep track records and provide info to track announcer Dan Martin and anyone else who is interested in the track records .
Brian Bedell - My Mom and Dad took me to the races when I was an infant and I have been involved in the sport for well over 57 years. My whole life I have been involved in the sport. My Brother Boomer owned race cars for 20 years and then owned a family speed shop for 36 years – Boomers Performance.
Along the way I formed a close friendship with Kenny Tremont Jr. and travelled all over with his race team and kept all of his racing statistics since his career started. I have kept records on most all dirt tracks but Lebanon Valley has been my home track. I have kept all of the history for Lebanon by keeping statistical information as well I help the tracks announcers – John Stanley and Dan Martin each week with prepared notes on all the drivers and up to date history about the valley of Speed.
Besides all of this – I have been part of the New York State Stock Car Association for many years. (NYSSCA) has also been a big part of my life. I served on the Hall of Fame committee since 1995 through to the present…..helping the organization with information on the nominees and inductees. I served as the Club President for 3 years from 2006 - 2008 and was honored to do so.
Overall, I have lots of information on the sport of auto racing, but Northeast Dirt Track Racing has been my passion.
Frank Bush - My main area of interest is Accord Speedway. I went to the very first race held on July 15 of 1962. Living only 2 miles from the track I virtually grew up there. I also have knowledge of Onteora, Arlington, Tri-Valley, Rhinebeck, Cairo and Middletown. I have always liked the history and having recently retired and have been working with Fred to complete the history of Accord Speedway.,
Mark Flamisch - Auto racing has always been a part of my life since my very early childhood in the mid-1970s. As a family, my parents, brother, and I spent many Sunday nights in the 4th turn bleachers at the Nazareth ½ mile speedway near our hometown of Belfast, PA. As kids, we loved the cars, the action, and couldn’t get enough of it. Many Saturdays were also spent at Orange County in Middletown, NY, along with rare trips to Flemington, Reading, or Dorney Park. As we grew older, we expanded our horizons to the small block tracks of Big Diamond, Grandview, and once in a while, Penn National.
Although she didn’t do it weekly, my mother used to write down the line-ups at the “big” events such as those at Nazareth National, and Eastern States at OCFS with an assist from myself. These were very detailed and always re-written neatly into the programs well after the events were completed in order to get the names and spellings as correct as possible . This led me to take the line-ups myself beginning with the 1987 Nazareth opener, and I haven’t stopped since. I still re-write, (or now type) them after the event to get them as accurate as possible. As a result of keeping all of our programs, and later racing papers year after year, my brother and I have ended up with a huge collection of programs from all over, along with almost four decades of racing papers, which come in handy when looking up racing information. I have always enjoyed keeping track of things and organizing data, so creating racing databases fits right into my “wheelhouse” so to speak.
With the demise of Nazareth in 1988, we spent even more Sundays at Penn National in the late 80s-early 90s as our new Sunday night “home” track. By the time I graduated from college at Lebanon Valley in 1995, we had started to attend the nearby sprint car tracks of central PA more regularly. Prior to this time we had only been to a handful of shows at Williams Grove and one at Selinsgrove, but by the later 90s, we were at Williams Grove and Lincoln more than anywhere else. As my parents grew older and attended races less frequently, my brother and I continued to expand our racing horizons further from our eastern PA base, taking racing trips once a year to tracks in Indiana, Ohio, New York, and southern Canada; mostly for sprint car races, but occasionally for the modifieds that we grew up with. Although my brother and I don’t get to quite as many races as we used to, we still get to about 30-35 a season at about 15-20 different tracks a season. Mostly dirt, be it sprint, modified, micro-sprint, we enjoy them all. There is still a thrill at the start of an “A” division feature even after all of these years! We’ve been to well over 90 different tracks, and hope to hit 100 soon.
Even after 35+ years, I won’t go to the races without my trusty clipboard and pencils to write the nights line-ups. It’s led to doing other research projects/databases for myself that I enjoy doing very much and as long as I am able, I see myself continuing to maintain this enjoyable hobby.
Kurt Wood - I've been a lifelong race fan, my Dad spent much of the 60's and 70's at Beech Ridge and Oxford Speedways here in Maine. In the late 90's I realized that there was a whole world of NASCAR that wasn't recorded anywhere, Modified, Sportsman, Short Track Late Model, Modified Special, East Coast Late Model, and a number of other completely un-documented series. So I started doing internet research and bought all the old racing papers and magazines that I could afford and started making notes. I have many old yearbooks and record books and started using the track points standings as a starting point for documenting as much as I can find. I'm happy to send what I can to ARRA as I have time.
Shawn Shields - My first memory of going to a race was Five Mile Point Speedway when I was Five years old (1975) and the very first racecar I saw on the track was the “The Pink Panther” of Chuck Akulis and from that point on, he was my favorite racecar and driver. I have gone to numerous racetracks across NY and PA and a few in NJ. I started doing racing updates quite a few years ago when I started Riding the Cushion on Facebook and had a fun time but things just got crazy as people wanted more results, etc and I decided myself to hand that over to the rest of the guys and gals who were helping me at the time. I took almost a year off and then decided to start Shawn’s Racing Updates and just covering the Northeast Dirt Modified scene as that is the class I love!
ARRA has welcomed me into their family and have helped with the Southern Tier tracks that were added to their extensive list of tracks they provide on their site so people can enjoy the history and such from across the country.
Honorable Mention Consultants
Vicki Gehris - Grandview Speedway
Grant Buck - Southern Tier (NY) racing
Justin Beltrame - Moc A Tek Speedway
Tom Boggie - Albany-Saratoga & other NY Speedways
Doug Woolley - Wall Stadium