I’ve known Ronnie Dunstan for damn near fifty years – we’ve raced together, traveled together, and had more fun together than any two people should be allowed. He has a demented sense of humor, a trait I find particularly amusing, he’s absolutely bullheaded and loves to argue, although he is almost categorically wrong about everything WE argue about, and he has been a true friend in both word and deed for these many years. After a few years of taking home trophies at local drag strips and making a few bucks on Allentown, PA streets with his sweet, big horsepower ’58 Chevy convertible, Ronnie’s racing career started where most aspiring Lehigh Valley racers start – in the stock cars on the flat fifth mile asphalt at Dorney Park. Ronnie cut up a perfectly good 1940 Mercury coupe for his first oval track effort and when a street rodder lamented the car would have made a great street ride, Ronnie explained to him, ‘Well, you $%&#@ up, you should have been here last week!’, before he returned to torching the fenders. Ronnie later took his #14 to the dirt at Grandview before moving to late models in central Pennsylvania, where he notched multiple late model championships, driving Bob Bender’s fast #17 Ford. Once on the central PA scene, Ronnie also moved into a series of sprint car rides, often running both sprints and late models on the same program. Ronnie became a household racing name with rides in the McMillin Bros. Engineering sprinter #5 out of Wampum, PA, Wilbur Hawthorne’s #35, Dot Carnival’s #81, and later won a Williams Grove sprint feature in Kenny Weld’s roadster when Weld was ‘on the shelf’ with a broken arm. Over the years Ronnie drove for an assortment of sprint car owners including, Johnny Crawford, Jim Seidel, George Nesler, ‘Scats’ Anfuso, Gary Collucci and others. In addition to becoming a regular in the modifieds at the Reading Fairgrounds in the 1970s, Ronnie began dabbling in the midgets, picking up Offy rides with the likes of Bob Kline, George Weiser, and Ken Hickey, one of the top midget owners of all time. Dunstan will always be enshrined in the Allentown Fairgrounds history books with his 1976 SMRC midget win in the Ken Hickey Offy, the final event ever contested on the Fairgrounds half mile. In 1979, Ronnie won the SMRC midget championship, driving for Ken Hickey and added three more consecutive SMRC titles in 1980, 1981, and 1982 at the wheel of Bill Keller’s Sesco. The Dunstan / Keller combo also added an ESMRA midget championship in 1984. While the sprint car victory lanes had the biggest paychecks, his sprint car crashes were also often ‘big’ and over the years Ronnie has been the ‘guest of honor’ at some of the best medical facilities in the area. I can recall visiting Ronnie in the hospital at Flemington, NJ after his Collucci sprinter was t-boned in turn two by Bucky Barker’s husky sprint car entry in September of 1982. Ronnie’s aluminum seat was about twelve inches wide when medics removed him from the car, his pelvis was in 3 or 4 pieces and his hip, leg, ankle, and knee were fractured – not tap dancing! When I entered his hospital room the next day, Ronnie was quick to thank me. He told me I didn’t need to go to that amount of trouble as he pointed out his hospital window. Outside Ronnie’s window was a prop airplane towing aloft a banner reading, ‘Welcome to Flemington, RON’. Of course, the banner was welcoming President Ronald Reagan to Flemington, where he was to deliver a speech later in the day. Since Ronnie was already smiling, I told him nothing was too good for my pal. We both laughed. Less than five months later, on February 3, 1983, Ronnie put Bill Keller’s Sesco midget into victory lane at the high banked concrete track at National Stadium in Kingston, Jamaica. I know what Ronnie went through to get himself ready to race by February – my hat was off to him! During the first Jamaican practice session I was on track with Dee Taylor’s #7 Sesco. The entrance to the infield pits was between turns one and two, so at the end of the session I went high on the track in turn one to help with the 90 degree left to the pits. When I turned the car left at the top of the track, the right rear hit a lip on the concrete, throwing the rear of the car to the left. Now I’m heading down the banking, leading with the tail. I finally turned to the right to head up the track and away from the congested pit entrance, got the thing out of gear, and managed enough brakes to stop the car, when the car tips over backwards, landing perfectly balanced on the cage. I have flipped race cars, but I’ve never done anything like that before or since. There were enough helping hands to gently put the Taylor car back on its wheels and the only damage was a few paint scuffs on the roll cage – obviously, a professional ‘Tommy Tipover’ – and we ran the car with no ill effects. As the crew pushed the car to the pits, I was not really in a talkative mood – I just wanted to make sure everything is O.K. with Taylor’s midget. First the promoter comes rushing up and offers to fly me to Miami for a complete medical checkup – I declined. Then a well-dressed fellow arrives, earnestly asking if I’m all right. I assured him I was fine and kept pushing the car toward the pits. Well, the second guy was Stephen Moodie, the Jamaican sports car champion, who was supposed to drive Lou Cicconi, Sr.’s second VW midget in the series. As luck would have it, the next person Stephen Moodie runs into is Ronnie Dunstan and Moodie blurts out what a spectacular accident he’s just witnessed. ‘Hell, that was nothing,’ Dunstan assured him, also giving him all the details of how spectacular midget flips can be. Then Ronnie gave Moodie an account of his most recent sprint car crash and the accompanying injuries and rehab and ends his tutorial with, ‘If you don’t get these things upside down once in a while, you’re probably not going fast enough!’ After less than five minutes with Ronnie Dunstan, the Jamaican champion retired from midget racing without ever turning a wheel and installed his brother, Mark, in the car for the series. Apparently, Mark Moodie was expendable. In the late 1980s Ronnie decided to go USAC champ car racing, put together a car with help from Laverne Nance and host of local benefactors. Dunstan was voted USAC’s Most Improved Driver in the Silver Crown division in 1989 – a tremendous honor. Of course, Ronnie was asked, ‘Geez, just how bad were you last year?’ Although with my Firestone tire service schedule I couldn’t travel with the car as often as I would have liked, I was proud to have the Weisel Racing Equipment ad on the side of the car. When the fiberglass bodies on Legend Cars were first introduced in Florida in February ’93, I stopped in Charlotte on the way home and became the first out-of-North Carolina dealer for the spec racers. Although I was involved with the Evergreen promotion at the time, I envisioned a traveling series, running both dirt and pavement, ovals and road courses. To make it all work, I needed a name. The name was Ronnie Dunstan. By 1993 Ronnie had sold the Silver Crown car and phone calls to pilot midgets and sprint cars for 40% were no longer coming. So, we made a deal to go have some fun with these new Legend Cars. I lettered our car with a big red #1 as a tribute to the Harold Cope cars which were famous in the eastern PA area in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and after a few exhibition races in 1993 we headed for Canyon Raceway in Peoria, AZ as a part of our annual trek to the season ending USAC midget 100-lapper at Ascot. Although the Legends were the undercard to the World of Outlaw sprint cars, all the races were nationally televised. Ronnie finished second to drag racer Ricky Smith on the way to California and won the main event on the way home. We earned $500 for second and $1,000 for the win – enough money to pay for the trip for Ronnie, mechanic Bill Stoner, and me. Try that today! I especially enjoyed all the flak Dunstan got from his sprint car pals when he finished second to a drag racer the first week. He was ready to race, elbows up, on the way home. This trip defies description in the space allotted, i.e. we started the trip in Orefield, PA, stopped in Charlotte to have a new car for CA racer, Dan Guinn, loaded on the double trailer to join our #1, and headed west to Oklahoma City – the first gas (diesel) I put in my van was in New Mexico –see who’s smart enough to figure that out! Ronnie took the first Keystone Legends Tour championship in 1994 driving my #1, went on to drive for several different owners in subsequent years, and became the 2006 Masters Division, Legend Car National Champion in 2006. I’d like to thank Bear Schlosser, Mike Batz of Linda’s Speedway, and everyone who attended the Ronnie Dunstan Tribute Night last Friday night. If those are the last laps Ronnie Dunstan takes in a race car, I’m proud they provided a view from the seat of my #1.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 01:36:05 +0000
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