Fan Appreciation & Harry Peek Tribute Night This Saturday At Fonda Speedway

Story By: RON SZCZERBA / FONDA SPEEDWAY – FONDA, NY – This Saturday, August 7 at the “Track of Champions” Fonda Speedway you the race fan will be honored with a $5 admission charge to the racing events on the Montgomery County Fairgrounds half mile track.

The racing card will be highlighted by the 27-lap Harry Peek Tribute Night event for the Sunoco Modifieds. All other regular divisions will be in action including the Swagger Factory Apparel Crate 602 Sportsman, the Algonkin Motel Pro Stocks, the Montgomery County Office for Aging Inc. Limited Sportsman, and the Fonda Fair Four Cylinders.

Starting time for qualifying heat races will be 7:00 p.m. with a pre-race meet & greet on the front stretch after hot lap sessions for all divisions are completed. So, bring any items that you may want autographed by your favorite driver and get them signed on Saturday night as the drivers and the Fonda Speedway management honor you the race fans!

According to the book FONDA! Harry Peek was one of the new wave of drivers who started to flood the pit area at Fonda around the turn of the decade in 1970. Peek resided in Rotterdam, NY and was bitten by the racing bug at an early age.

After a year in the support division at the Lebanon Valley Speedway, Peek came to Fonda with a Late Model in 1968. He quickly won a total of 23 Late Model features in a little over three years and was crowned the Fonda Speedway Late Model Track Champion in 1969.

In mid-1970 he moved up to the Modified division at Fonda where he won twenty-one times during his career in eight winning seasons. The first win came in just his second week of racing on 8/15/1970 and it was the prestigious Fonda 200 while his last win came on 4/27/1985.

Peek’s race cars were always meticulously conceived and crafted and were numbered #27 after he called George Welch’s widow Bertha and asked her permission to use the car number on his race car. He was one of the first to draw up his race car designs on blueprint prior to construction, and there were those who said that he approached his driving the same way.

“He liked to race as high on the track as he could,” Sue Peek said in the book Fonda! “It came to be known as the “Patented Peek Charge.” He liked starting in the back because he said it gave him a feel for the track. But he was so careful coming through the pack, he always drove two cars ahead of him. He was very fast but very, very cautious. No matter how bad things got, Harry just smiled.”

“Harry was also a founder and early president of the New York State Stock Car Association (NYSSCA), Sue went on to say. “In 1977 he had a bad flip in the first turn at Fonda and got battery acid in his eyes. That proved to be the turning point in his career, he would go on to work at UPS for 20 years and remain active in racing into the 1980’s, driving for himself and pulling off an occasional win at Albany Saratoga and Devils Bowl Vt. His heart problems would not let him be and the gentle Fonda Speedway legend passed away in 1998 of a cardiac arrest.”

So come out this Saturday, August 7 to the “Track of Champions” Fonda Speedway as the racetrack honors you the fans along with one of the speedway’s legends Harry Peek.