The Kutztown Komet 100 will be run at the Action Track to honor this outstanding driver (Special thanks to EMPA for the Adam info) Known everywhere as the “Kutztown Komet,” Pennsylvanian Freddy Adam (January 31, 1931 – February 1, 2013) had a clean-cut image and hard-charging driving style that usually found him challenging for the win. And when the races were over a big crowd of fans was always ready to meet the cigar-smoking, crew-cut driver with the white racing uniform and black Wellington boots. A car owner before he was old enough to drive in a race, 17-year-old Adam built a 1938 Ford coupe from junkyard parts in the garage next to his mother’s restaurant – Adams’ Coney Island Hot Dog Shop – and put Jimmy Delcamp in the seat. But when he turned 18, he immediately became an owner-driver and took his Modified to the old Yellow Jacket Speedway in Philadelphia. There, the eager youngster started from the pole but he never made it to the checkered flag as he pushed his car so hard that he blew its engine. That, however, would not be the last time that such a thing happened as Adam always drove his cars as hard as he could for as long as he could – even if it meant that it might cost him a victory – because of the advice that he got from his father Titus who told him that if he was going to be a race-car driver that he should “put the pedal to the metal and keep it there.” A carpenter by trade, Adam competed at more than 40 tracks in the Middle Atlantic region and drove for an amazing 57 car owners during 45 years (1949-1994) of competition. He also won four track championships – three (1960 & 1964-1965) at the old one-third-mile Hatfield (Pa.) Speedway and the final Modified title (1959) at the old one-fifth-mile asphalt Dorney Park in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Not shy about helping his car owners in the shop when repairs or modifications had to be made, Adam is best remembered for his drives in EMPA Hall of Fame member Joe Bullock’s No. 76 coupes and sedans, the No. 14 “Mushroom Special” 1936 Chevrolet coupe of Meme DeSantis Sr., and his own No. 8 Modifieds. Adam selected the No. 8 so that everyone would know who was in the car when it was upside down and these various editions of his handiwork included coaches and coupes in the early 1960s and early 1970, plus a selection of Mustangs, Gremlins and Pintos when the 1930s coupes and sedans later became too hard to find. The only driver to have raced at the old Reading (Pa.) Fairgrounds in every Modified season (1961-1979), Adam’s 20 Reading victories include the first accomplished with a late-model-body when he won on August 4, 1972, with his No. 8 orange and white Mustang. But it was on August 13, 1967, at Reading when Adam was involved in one of the most unusual things in racing. While driving Bullock’s red No. 76 Ford-powered 1936 Chevrolet coupe, he and Jackie Evans – in the maroon No. 77 1936 Chevrolet coupe owned by John Lux – engaged in a spirited battle over the last 13 laps of the Sunday night feature event on the old half-mile layout to eventually cross the finish line under the checkered flag in a dead heat. During his long career, Adam won six 100-lap races including the last race of 1964 at Reading. Plus, he had two wins (1968 & 1970) at the old 1-1/8-mile dirt Nazareth (Pa.) National Speedway. But his most famous victory took place on October 11, 1964, when he won the last Langhorne (Pa.) National Open to be run on the old one-mile dirt circle. There were 212 entries that year with a purse of over $20,000 on the line and a crowd of over 31,000 jammed Langhorne’s grandstands and infield to watch 63 starters take the green. In a memorable conclusion to the event’s final dirt edition, Adam – who ran up front for most of the day in Bullock’s red and white No. 76 421-cubic-inch Pontiac-powered 1938 Chevrolet coupe – took the lead with just two laps to go in the crash-marred 100-mile race and held off pole-winner Ken Shoemaker to earn the $4,000 victory by less than a car length.
Posted on: Tue, 15 Jul 2014 13:28:11 +0000
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