RPW Column: A Look Back: Tighe Scott & Jimmy Horton’s Dead Heat At Orange County In ’76

RPW Column By: MIKE TRAVERSE / RPW – MIDDLETOWN, NY – When the Orange County Fair Speedway announced their schedule for 2020, it has listed an event on July 2nd of Modified Twin 50’s along with USAC Wingless Sprints.

The second I saw that Twin 50’s listing, it brought back memories of a Twin 50 race night 43+ years ago. But those memories of July 24, 1976 are still so vivid.

The story of that night actually began 21 days earlier, July 3rd. OCFS had scheduled a Twin 50’s event. The first 50 got underway, but a tremendous crash on the 4th lap halted the race. Many cars were involved including some legendary drivers. Both Wayne and Buzzie Reutimann were involved along with Carl Van Horn, Johnny Haroll, Richie Eurich, Jack Zuidema, Del Buss and Bob Malzahn all sustaining damage enough to end their night.

Just as soon as the track was cleared, a tremendous thunderstorm hit the track and racing was ended for the night. With the URC Sprints and ARDC Midgets scheduled for the following two Saturday’s, the balance of the program was scheduled to be completed on July 24th.

The annual Orange County Fair was occurring on that July day when the Twin 50’s was scheduled to resume. It was to be one of the busiest night’s that OCFS had up to that point in their history. The 46 laps remaining of the first 50 was the first race followed by the Limited Sportsman and 2nd 50 from July 3rd before a whole regular night of racing would begin. All together, there would be 276 laps of green flag action that night with 5 features.

As the first 50 got restarted, it was Bobby Bottcher in the #45 getting out to the lead as Tighe Scott, in his #28, and Jimmy Horton, in his family’s #43, moved into contention. With around 10 to go, Horton moved around Bottcher for the lead and Scott moved into second. Scott got even with Horton on the low side and they battled for the last 8 laps, pretty much side by side. They swapped the lead several times and and they were side by side as they approached the checkered flag.

At the checkered flag, I couldn’t tell who was in front. The officials in the booth couldn’t tell No official word came from announcer Ray Martin as to who the winner was.

Meanwhile on the track, Scott and Horton collided after the checkers and Horton hit the 1st turn wall. Scott continued around the track and pulled into Victory Lane. Although no official announcement had been made, Scott took the checker flag and posed for photos as the capacity crowd really had no idea what was going on. The next thing to happen was Horton running towards Scott’s car and a scuffle ensued as the crowd roared. Cooler heads prevailed and at that time, Martin announced that the race was declared a dead heat until they would have a chance to view the finish line photos that were taken.

As this announcement came down, the crowd got kind of excited. Both Horton and Scott were very popular and as it goes at a race track, everyone had their opinion about what happened, sometimes very loudly making their point. But there was plenty of racing still to go that night and the fireworks between Horton and Scott would continue.

In the holdover Limited Sportsman feature, Brett Hearn started to display the dominance he would show the rest of 1976 in the Pete Van Iderstine #77 as he cruised to victory over Butch Riddle and Russ Meyer.

The 2nd Twin 50 was a much calmer race as Ken Wismer Jr., in the Billy Smith owned #89, held off Sonny Strupp, Richie Eurich and Wayne Reutimann. It was Wismer’s first career win at OCFS.

Hearn dominated the regular Limited Sportsman feature over Don Goodrich and Jeff Yasinsac. The two wins for Hearn were the 2nd and 3rd of his OCFS career and it could be said that on 24th of July 1976, fans of OCFS began to get a glimpse of what Hearn would be doing over the next 43+ years, dominating on the track and driving into Victory Lane.

In the regularly schedule Modified 30 lap feature, it was Wismer again getting the early lead with Scott and Horton moving up towards the front. And again, they made contact with Horton getting the worst of it and tension again rising with their teams, about reaching the boiling point. Horton retired from the event while Scott moved into contention.

At the checkered flag, it was Wismer holding off Scott with Strupp finishing 3rd. For Wismer, the two wins turned out to be the only OCFS wins of his career. The Modified win log that appears in the track program shows that Wismer won his races first on July 3rd and second on July 24th. This is technically correct as the first 50 win was the completion of that program. He did however take the checkered flag for both his wins a few hours apart on the 24th of July, 1976. It’s kind of a quirk in the record books.

After the feature, photographer Bob Perran took a photo of Horton with the trophy from the first 50. I’m assuming the photo was taken in case the call for the win went Horton’s way. I have to say that Jimmy had the most glum look of any victory photo that I’ve ever seen.

After the final checkered of the evening, the fans were still milling around, wondering about the first 50. Who won? Officials still hadn’t made a decision. This was in the days before instant digital photo viewing was available. It would take time before an official decision could be made.

After viewing the photos from the photographers, it was determined that the race would indeed be declared a dead heat. This was only the 2nd Modified dead heat in track history, with the first one occurring in 1962 between Sonny Strupp and Otto Harwi. A 3rd dead heat occurred in 1989 in a 358 Modified race between Stan Sherman and Brett Hearn. Three dead heats in 100 years of racing, truly a rare thing and with modern technology, a thing we most likely won’t see again.

I don’t know what photos the OCFS officials of the day used to determine the dead heat. The Hard Clay program the following week published photos from photographers Jack Kromer, Bob Hess and Sam Rosenberg. All three were standing very close to the finish line. In my eyes, I don’t see the dead heat. I honestly think that Horton had the slight advantage at the finish line. But the dead heat will always be in the record books and those of us that were there that day will of course have their own opinions.

I don’t know why the memories of that particular Saturday in 1976 remain so strong. Maybe it is because it was in my early days of weekly attending the races at OCFS. Maybe it’s because of the unusual events of that night. Maybe it’s because as I think back, they were truly the best times of my life. Whatever the reason, memories of the events of that day still are hanging on.