The 1968 Tony Bettenhausen Memorial Race
As remembered by the winner – Buck Hinkle
(Illiana Motor Speedway will host the 47th annual Tony Bettenhausen Memorial 100 presented by Lisa Thomas Salon on Saturday evening, September 13. 1968 race winner Buck Hinkle wrote the following narrative regarding his late model stock car victory 40 years ago.)
It is hard to believe it has been 40 years since I won the 1968 Tony Bettenhausen Memorial at Illiana Motor Speedway ( Schererville , Ind. ). I’ve run countless races in my career, won my share, but the Bettenhausen is one race I remember as if it were yesterday.
I knew this would probably be my last chance to run the 100-lap event for plans were already in motion to move my family to southeastern Kentucky in the spring of 1969.
The week leading up to the race was pretty simple; all I had to do was normal maintenance – change the oil, adjust the valves and mount the tires, etc. The only tires I had were worn-out Hoosiers. Back then, you didn’t replace tires every week to be fast, you changed the tires when the tread was gone.
Larry Berwanger, a friend and fellow race car driver, talked me into purchasing some low-profile 12 ½ inch wide Goodyears used on road race cars. He was using the same compound tires on his race car. Through the corners, he was extremely fast. Larry took me somewhere in Chicago and we bought a few “slightly used” tires. Luckily, the stagger worked out because I only purchased four tires.
The Bettenhausen race was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. The race track opened at 10:00 a.m. and qualifying started at 12 Noon. After I loaded my race car and was ready to leave, that’s when I found out my only pit crew member, my brother, Bill, wasn’t able to be there because of prior commitments. It was never told to me what type of commitment, so I left for Illiana by myself.
When I arrived at the speedway and was pulling into the pit area, the first person I remember seeing was Ray Nichels (the Plymouth/Dodge factory stock car builder from Griffith , Ind. ). He was standing by his son Terry’s race car with a few other men. Later, I found out they were Chrysler factory reps.
The pits were full. I was a little late. When I found a parking spot and got ready to unload, I was approached by a man who introduced himself as Ed Heck, a Holley Carburetor technician. He asked me what kind of carburetor I had. I told him it was a three-barrel Holley. He said he could do some tune-up modifications that would help the performance of my engine. I gave him the okay, took the carburetor off, handed it to him, and he went to work. By the time I got the carburetor back and installed it on my engine, all warm ups and practice laps were over and qualifying had begun.
When I finally got my car in line for qualifying, there were approximately 10 cars ahead of me. My car and engine were cold, so I kept the engine running to try and warm it up. I did not get in any laps to test the Goodyear tires, so my qualifying laps would be the first time I had to test this new tire combination. When it was my turn to run my qualifying laps, the engine was loaded up with fuel and it took one and one half laps for it to clean out and begin running on all cylinders. I qualified second out of 44 cars!
Qualifying second insured me of starting in the back of the field. After time trials, the lineup was set, fastest qualifier in the rear, inverted start for all cars. We didn’t run any heat races, so the only time I had on the track was the two qualifying laps.
When the 100-lap race started and the lead cars took the green flag, I was entering the third turn. After that, I began passing cars. My race car handled and ran better than it ever did. I could pass cars whenever and wherever I caught them, inside, outside, it didn’t matter. I remember coming up behind Whitey Gerken (1968 Illiana Champion). We had raced each other very competitively every week, not giving each other one inch. But when I came up behind him, Whitey moved to the high groove, stuck his hand out the window and motioned me by. Later, after the race, he told me that he knew that my car was faster and wasn’t going to hold me back. The same thing happened when I caught up to Jerry Kemperman (1968 Raceway Park Champion).
It took me fourteen laps to come from the back to first place. After I took the lead, my “big block” Chevy was turning more RPM’s than I wanted (on the smaller Goodyear tires), so I eased out of the throttle and didn’t run it so hard at the end of each straightaway. You’ve heard the saying, “slow down and go faster.” That’s exactly what happened, even though I drove the corners slower, with the lower gear ratio (by using smaller tires), the car came off the corners like a rocket. I was turning laps almost one full second faster than I qualified.
The race was caution-free until lap 86 when someone blew their engine and dumped oil in turn number three. The track crew cleaned up and spread oil dry down the back straight and also in the turn. The race finally resumed. I led the remaining cars to the green flag and, with only 10 laps to go, I was extra cautious going into the oiled down number three turn.
Being an Illiana weekly competitor, I ran the low groove. Rich Senneker went to the high side, next to the wall, and passed me before we got to the front stretch. The very next lap, I re-passed Rich and never looked back. Well, actually I was looking back in my rearview mirror on about lap 96 and I saw Senneker’s car go up in smoke with a blown engine. There was no caution and the next thing I saw was the checkered flag.
The race ran in 37:10.04, and after 40 years, the record, as far as I know, still stands.
Check out Illiana Photo Scrapbook No. 5
Footnotes:
A resident of the Black Oak area of Gary, Ind., Thomas “Buck” Hinkle became the first area driver and Illiana track champion to win the annual Bettenhausen 100 lapper at the half-mile paved northwest Indiana speedway. A month shy of his 27th birthday, Hinkle piloted his 1964-vintage Chevelle convertible No. 56 to the victory, which paid first prize money of $500. With the sponsorship of Happy Hair Beauty Salon, the rapid-running white race car had carried Hinkle to the late model stock car championship at Illiana the year before. The race was originally scheduled for October 6, but was postponed to October 13 because of rain.
Hinkle’s best qualifying lap was second only to Bob Carnes. The Kalamazoo , Mich. driver turned a lap of 22.56 seconds in his ’57 Chevy No. 42 to grab fast time honors. Carnes ended up finishing third in the 100-lap chase behind Hinkle and runner-up Ray Freeman of Crete , Ill. and his ’67 Chevelle convertible No. ME2. 34 cars started the race.
Hinkle, who was a mechanic at Smith Chevrolet in Hammond , Ind. at the time, remembers building the car himself in a little old backyard garage.
“I probably didn’t have $2500 in the whole car,” reminisced Hinkle, who began racing stock cars at Illiana around 1964 after being involved in drag racing. Hinkle followed the footsteps of his cousins, Rabon and Raleigh Hinkle, who were both early late model champions at Illiana.
By 1969, Hinkle and his family had moved to Kentucky . Hinkle lives in the town of London , where he operates Hinkle Performance Engines. After his 1968 Bettenhausen 100 victory, Hinkle would compete a few more times at Illiana, but would concentrate his racing efforts at tracks near his new home, in addition to competing in some NASCAR Late Model Sportsman events. Hinkle’s competition down south was pretty stiff with the likes of Bobby and Donnie Allison, Neil Bonnett, Red Farmer, L.D. Ottinger and Freddy Fryar being in the lineups. He raced pretty much on a regular basis until becoming the promoter of the Corbin Speedway in1978. Hinkle continued to race once in awhile until the mid 1980’s.
Winning the Illiana season track championship title in 1967 over Terry Nichels and Ray Young, Hinkle finished second in the points in both 1966 (behind Young) and 1968 (behind Whitey Gerken). Hinkle made his final Bettenhausen 100 appearance at Illiana in 1972.
The current Illiana Bettenhausen 100 race record is 33:59.163, set by Pat Kelly on September 17, 2005. Records are meant to be broken with Hinkle’s record standing the test of time for many years.
Stan Kalwasinski
END