Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Friday, October 07, 2005
Jeff Brown Column: Trickle put Wisconsin racing on the map
I could give you a lap-by-lap accounting of his career and his incredible accomplishments, but you have probably already read that say, a thousand times.
I could tell you where he grew up (Rudolph, Wis.) and how he made it from small-time short-track racing to the biggest of big-time racing, but my guess is that you know that, too. Just a quick computer (Google) search of Dick Trickle’s name resulted in 431,000 entries. Enough said.
But did you ever stop and think beyond Dick Trickle’s accomplishments?
Did you ever consider that in Wisconsin, Dick Trickle means to racing what Brett Favre means to the Green Bay Packers, what Robin Yount and Paul Molitor meant to the Milwaukee Brewers or what Lew Alcindor (sorry, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) meant to the Milwaukee Bucks.
To many folks, Dick Trickle is racing.
So while you may bump into Trickle and share a story or two this weekend at the 36th annual running of the Oktoberfest Race Weekend at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway, stop and think for a moment where short-track racing would be without him. Trickle isn’t the only one, but he was the biggest name during his era — which spanned more than three decades — which really put Wisconsin racing on the national map.
Sure, Wisconsin natives Jim Sauter and Dave Marcis, and more recently Ted Musgrave, Scott Wimmer, Travis Kvapil, Johnny Sauter and Matt Kenseth, have made an impact on the national scene, but I’d be willing to bet that you could go to any track in Wisconsin, or the Midwest for that matter, and most fans — young and old — would know of Dick Trickle.
Grandfathers and fathers have watched Trickle perform his magic on short tracks from West Salem to Slinger to Wisconsin Dells to Kaukauna. Now, those fathers are telling their sons and daughters about perhaps the greatest short-track driver ever. This weekend, hundreds of those stories will be told once again as the 64-year-old Trickle jumps behind the wheel yet another time for the ARTGO Reunion 100.
What does the man who owns more than 1,200 short-track victories think when people refer to him as “The Legend?”
“I feel I have lived during one of the best eras of racing there ever was,” Trickle said. “From Rudolph, Wis., to Daytona, it has increased 1,000-fold. When I first started racing you were looked down upon. Now, you’re a celebrity and I’m not just talking about myself. Even if racing hadn’t gotten so popular, I would still have done it.”
It’s hard to argue that part of Trickle’s popularity, his legend if you will, stems from the fact that he made a name for himself the old-fashioned way — he earned it. He started racing in 1958 with little money, and didn’t just want to win. He needed to win.
“My living was the payout. I needed to do pretty well to maintain the car and pay my bills,” Trickle said. “As the years went on I got better and better (sponsorship) deals and contingency money. Everybody wanted to have their equipment and name on my car.
“I still had to pay all the motels and meals and travel expenses. I had as many as eight people working for me full-time when we raced up to 120 shows a year.”
In talking to Trickle, you get the feeling the guy would have raced for free if he could have found someone to pay the bills. I get the same feeling about Favre, who truly is one of the few NFL players who I believe plays because he loves the game.
That rare love, combined with an infectious and outgoing personality, is another reason why Trickle’s popularity skyrocketed in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Here was an average guy from Nowhere, Wis., who partied hard, drove hard, and carried the same blue-collar work ethic with him wherever he went.
How could you not like the guy? Well, maybe if you were a competitor of his, but still you had to respect what he did and what he meant to racing. If you were in a race with Dick Trickle in it, that race was something special. Sunday’s ARTGO Reunion 100 will be no different.
What we all knew and loved about Dick Trickle was taken to the national level when Trickle, at age 48, jumped behind the wheel of a Winston (now Nextel) Cup car in 1989 for 28 races. Trickle earned Rookie of the Year honors that year when he recorded six top-5 and nine top-10 finishes, finished 17th in the points standings, and earned $273,432. I seriously doubt there will ever be a 48-year-old Nextel Cup rookie of the year again.
Trickle’s knowledge and experience of how to build, set-up and drive a race car were huge assets in his early Cup years, but Dick being Dick is what enamored him to the fans. How many other Cup drivers do you know outside of a select few that have the national popularity that Trickle still enjoys?
“I love Wisconsin, but it made my life better (when he went to Cup racing). I had done about everything in short tracks that you can do. It was a new challenge for me to come down here and it gave me a new look on life,” Trickle said. “It was a different battlefield that gave me a new lease on life.”
A life he could have never imagined growing up in Rudolph, Wis.
Jeff Brown can be reached at (608) 791-8403, or e-mail at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com
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