Remembering Chevrolet Racer Fatalities From Past Septembers – Part 2

Driver fatalities deserve to be remembered with proper respects paid to the deceased. Whether at the start or the end of the season, professional or amateur, old or young, these racers will forever live on in the pages of history and we remember them here. Continuing from part 1 of this series, which paid homage to Wallace Coleman, Bob Jusola, Tony Clinkard, Stefan Gilboy, Sonny Horner, Les Ley, Jim Shampine, Al Chamberlain and Dinho Bonotti. We continue marching on through the month and the tragic losses.

September 8

Erick Morales

Erick “Maco” Morales of Ensenada, Mexico, was the co-driver of Eddy Gonzalez of Chula Vista, California. They crashed their unlimited Class 1 HMS-Chevy buggy just 15 seconds into the second portion of the Terrible’s Primm 300 off-road race, held near Primm in Nevada on 8 September, 2007. The car came down hard in a bumpy section entering the first turn after the start and rolled several times about 100 yards from the starting line. The Motorsports Medical Services Rescue team, a paramedic team of fire fighters and trained fire fighter from the SMD trophy tuck team were immediately on seen to administer CPR and all possible help to revive Eric.

Morales was declared dead at the scene, Gonzalez, 32, was transported, treated and released for a back injury at University Medical Center in Las Vegas. Morales was the second racer to die in a race of the SCORE Desert Series in 2007, on 02 June 2007 Chris Lokken was killed in the Baja 500.

Morales was an experienced competitor, he had raced in off-road events since 2002. In his career he had been the co-driver of Marcos Núñez, Eddy González and Norberto “Popeye” Rivera. Morales left a wife, Claudia Verónica, and three children, Erick Junior, Sofía and Alejandro.

September 12

Dickie “Mr. Chevrolet” Harrell

On 12 September 1971 he was killed at Toronto International Raceway when his Chevrolet Vega funny car crashed into a light pole at the end of the drag strip.



He was competing in an elimination run when a right front tire blew at the end of the quarter-mile. He apparently was unable to pop the chutes and the car, travelling about 200-mph, veered to the right and directly into the pole.

On the date of the accident he was in second place in AHRA’s point standings for the funny car championships with two major wins in the season. 

Dickie started racing at the age of 14. After 3 years in the Army, he got back into racing and by the mid sixties, he was traveling all over the country to race.

In 1965 he went to work for Nickey Chevrolet and after a couple years started his own performance shop in St. Louis, Mo. In 1967 he worked with Fred Gibb on the “Little Hoss” car and also with Don Yenko engineering on the “Yenko Super Camaro”. He continued with Gibb and helped take the ZL-1 to the Nationals. 



Born in Phoenix, Arizona, Dickie’s family moved to Carlsbad, New Mexico, where he lived until 1965, except during his service in the U. S. Army. 

He was survived by his wife Elaine and their two daughters, Valerie and Kim.

Mark Martinez

Mark Martinez crashed his cherry-red Super Pro E.T. Chevrolet Corvette during a run at the Albuquerque National Dragway, in New Mexico. Martinez was driving in the the right lane when his car shot across the left lane and crashed into the wall going over it. The car caught fire and it took about a minute before someone arrived with a fire extinguisher and helped Martinez to come out.

Martinez was conscious and walked after the accident. His burns were considered extensive but not life-threatening. The driver was first airlifted to the University of New Mexico Hospital and the following day he was transported to the Maricopa Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ, which has a famed burn center. Unfortunately Martinez developed pneumonia and an infection that caused his death ten days after the accident, on 12 September 2006.

Mark Martinez had raced dragster for 18 years, he had been New-Mexico runner-up in the Super Pro division in 2004.

September 14

Steve Engel

Steve Engel crashed his Pro Mod 1963 Corvette during the U.S. Nationals at the O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. His car went out of control during a run and crashed almost head-on into the track’s left barrier.

He was airlifted to the Indianapolis Methodist Hospital where the doctors found he had six broken vertebrae in his back. It seemed at first that Engel’s life was not in danger, but after two surgeries and several days of improvement he suddenly died on 14 September 2008.

He had 21 years of experience as a drag racing driver. In the last years of his career he competed in the JEGS ProMod Challenge and had won his first event in this category at Bristol the same year of his death.

Steve Engel was from Shandon, Ohio and was the owner of a trucking company and trailer manufacturing company. He left behind a wife, Tonya and two sons, Steve Jr. and Mikey.

September 16

Rob Slotemaker

Rob Slotemaker was a teacher at the anti-skid school in Zandvoort and played an important role on the development of Formula 1 driver Jan Lammers’ career. He was killed during a Camaro-only race, held at Zandvoort.



The Swedish Camaro Superstar Cup circus, coming back from the UK after a race at Donington Park, had scheduled an event at Zandvoort on Sunday, 16 September 1979: nineteen regular drivers of the Swedish series entered the race – some of them were well known former professional racers as Reine Wisell, Ulf Granberg, Bengt Nilsson, Ulf Larsson and others – and the grid was enriched with six Group 1B Chevrolet Camaro of the Produktietoerwagens boven 2500 cm3 series, a Dutch touring car championship, Rob Slotemaker drove one of them. The Dutch Camaros proved to be less than competitive compared to the Superstar rules (larger wings, bigger tires, higher performance engine). 



Shortly after the start of the 12-lap race, Ulf Larsson opened an advantage of almost 30 seconds over all the other competitors, then the pace-car entered the track due to an extensive deposit of oil on the road surface, and after the re-start the engine of Michael Strauch’s car blew up, and he crashed lightly into the barriers behind Hunserug. A while later the race doctor’s car parked behind the stranded Camaro and the marshals started waving yellow flags. When Slotemaker arrived to the scene, he had already lost control of his car that possibly spun on the oil spilt by the other Camaro and slammed sideways into the doctor’s car. The impact broke Slotemaker’s neck and he died on the spot. It was utterly ironic that the anti-skid expert died after spinning on oil. 



After the accident the organizers cancelled the EFDA Formula Ford 1600 race, despite it was the main event of the weekend. Presumably it happened because the Chief Medical Officer of the track was at hospital. 



Rob Slotemaker had a twenty-five year career, he had his debut at the age of 25, in 1954 he participated the Rallye de Monte-Carlo. 

September 17

Don Pratt

On the seventy-eighth lap the 250-lap Sunoco Race of Champions 250 Chevy Cavalier driver Don Pratt hit a cement wall barrier almost head-on. He suffered fatal injuries in the accident. 

The race was part of the 39th annual Nascar Race of Champions. After Pratt’s accident the cement barriers were removed for the next race. 



Seven years earlier Don Pratt had been involved in another very unfortunate racing fatality that resulted in the death of track official Mike Brady at the Lancaster Raceway in Lancaster, NY. Brady was going to hand a flag to Pratt, the race winner of a Modified heat event, for a victory lap around the circuit, but Pratt did not see Brady, hitting and killing him.

September 18

Richard DeKneef and Merle Hill

The accident that claimed the lives of Richard DeKneef, 53 year-old from California, and his co-driver Merle Hill, 41, of Ely, Nevada, occurred during the annual Silver State Classic Challenge, a high-speed race car event held in Nye County, in northern Nevada.



It happened at approximately 1:00 pm on Sunday, 18 September 2011, at mile marker 35 along the course of the race, a 94-mile stretch of the State Route NV-318 which was closed for the occasion. While traveling at a very high rate of speed, 20 miles south of Lund, Nevada, Richard DeKneef lost control of his 1994 Chevrolet Camaro when one of the tires blew out. The vehicle rolled several times and caught fire. Both its occupants were killed upon impact. 



This was the second fatal accident in 24 editions of the race, since the death of Terry Herman, on 10 May 1992. The Silver State Classic Challenge, which debuted in September of 1988 as a showcase for vintage racing cars, was the first authorized open-road racing event in the United States in fifty years.

September 24

Ted Kallos

On lap 16 of the 20 lap semi-main, during the final weekly ECSCRA program of the 1977 season, Ted Kallos’ 1969 Camaro convertible spun in the south turn of the 3/8 mile paved oval and was hit broadside in the driver side door by the car driven by Ernie Bartley. The cars carried into the concrete crashwall where Bartley’s car, which reportedly suffered a stuck throttle, pinned Kallos’ car against the wall. Kallos was transported to Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, California, where he passed away from his injuries. 



Kallos had raced for thirteen years and was in the first year of a two year term as a member of the ECSCRA Board of Directors, serving as Sergeant-at-Arms for 1977. Kallos’ best seasons were 1972, when he finished 13th in ECSCRA super stock point standings in their lone season on dirt at South Bay Speedway, and 1975, when he finished 18th in point standings. A career highlight came on 06 September 1975, when he drove superbly and held off a strong field of challengers to win the only main event of his career.



A San Diego County resident for 20 years, he attended Hoover High School in San Diego and owned and operated a service station at Main and Division in San Diego. A resident of Spring Valley, California, Theodore Kallos was survived by his widow, Jeraline, and their five children: Janet, John, Katherine, Nancy and Theodore. He was buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery in San Diego.

September 25

Keith Cowherd

At Irwindale Speedway in 1999, Keith Cowherd’s and Shawn Davidson’s Chevrolet S-10s came together at turn one on the seventh lap of the race, following a restart. Davidson hit a padded area of the wall, but Cowherd hit an unpadded area on the outside wall. Davidson was able to get out of his truck while Cowherd needed help from safety officials. The race was immediately red-flagged while the men were attended to.

The race was declared over because of damage to the padded area of the wall into which Davidson’s truck crashed.

Davidson, of Mammoth Lakes, was taken to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, where he was treated in the emergency room and released at about 2 a.m. with bruises and minor leg injuries. Davidson returned to the track after being released to gather his equipment and truck and return to Mammoth Lakes.

Cowherd died of massive head injuries at Santa Teresita Hospital in Duarte, California, at 11:25 p.m. on September 25, 1999. 

Cowherd was married to Margaret, and had three children, Cynthia, Brian and Nick.

September 28

Frank Gorichky

Frank Gorichky, a driver from West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, died in a seven-car pile-up at Hagerstown Speedway, Hagerstown, Maryland on 28 September 1969. The accident occured on the 4th lap of a 20 lap race. Gorichky was taken to Washington County Hospital, but doctors could not revive him.

Although the race was the Mid-Atlantic Championship for Supermodifieds, Gorichky’s #7, owned by the Kosier brothers, is to be regarded as a sprint car with a roll cage and wing on top. At the time of this accident there was still a mix of this type car and the older supermodifieds. So the term used since the early 60’s in Central Pennsylvania was Supermodified. The next year, 1970, the term was changed to Super Sprints at all Central Pennsylvania tracks.

Gorichky began racing in the fifties and became the 1967 Blanket Hill Speedway champion driving for the Kosior Brothers. He won races at several tracks, including Blanket Hill, Butler, Mercer, Selinsgrove and Susquehanna. He won his last race at Lernerville, Pennsylvania, just nine days before his death.

Gorichky was survived by his wife, Joyce Marie, and two children, Frank, Jr and Kerry Lynn.

Gone But Not Forgotten

 In our own small way, we wanted to remember these Chevrolet Gladiators that battled for supremacy at the racetracks for the fan’s enjoyment and personal pride. The racing world is a lot better because of these drivers and our world is a little emptier without them.  One last lap around the track as we say “Rest in Peace” to these bow tie warriors.