John Hotchkiss

In 1973 Butch Dowker, Spike Miller and John built a ’69 Camaro that Butch Fedewa drove for them in ‘74. While they were in Fla. racing it, Fred Seltenright was helping us,and out of the clear blue he called me “John Boy” and of course it stuck. In ‘75 John Boy raced his way to Rookie of the Year at Butler with a little 327 engine. He went on to win numerous heat and pursuit races until the late models were kicked out in 1983, with a who’s who of drivers like Don Taylor, Joe Dorer, Farmer Budwitt, “lil” Joe Bennett, Joe Romeo, Ben Snider, Bob Flinn, Gary Fedewa, Dick Crup and so many of the great ones. John was devastated at the time but that move made me venture out to MORE tracks like I-96 on Friday nights, Hartford on Saturday and Owosso on Sunday when it was dirt. He was leading the points in ‘83 at Hartford when the track closed.

When Tim Fedewa moved to North Carolina he left his short track car for John to campaign, and he ran it to second in points to Doug Finley in ‘92 at Spartan Speedway. During the winter of ‘92 John was whining to George Gustafson about only running at one or two tracks. He wanted to travel, so George got John hooked up with Jesse Fordyce, who had a sprint car without an engine so John had my late model engine converted to a sprint engine and went on to win the Rookie of the Year in the SOD series which at that time ran dirt and asphalt.
The next year he bought an awesome car from Tony Nosal that Gary Fedewa raced to many feature wins and fast times. In July of’ 1994 my crew and I took the car south to run at the famous Hickory Speedway in N.C., but we were making such good time on the highway we had time to go on down to Florence S.C. just south of Darlington to race the Friday show at the I-95 Speedway where we promptly lapped all but Dave Steele and Steve Butler, which was one of the very highest of my highlights. He sold that car to some friends in South Africa and they won track Championships with it around Johannesburg.

In February of 2000 John had the opportunity to go to South Africa along with 6 other drivers to race our cars that we sent over against them. He had the honor to drive Art Braithwaite’s car and was able to win his last feature at the Dunswart Speedway.
Tony Nosal reminded me the other day that racing has provided us with most of our friends ARE one big family.

John’s biggest THANKS go to his Mom Tressie and his late Father Owen for all he put them through, They were my real heroes.