Speedway honoring Ted Stofle on Sunday

Ted Stofle’s car is carefully unwrapped every year at this time for everyone to see, hear and touch. It will be on display at Merced Speedway on Sunday, as the track presents the 35th memorial race honoring native son Ted Stofle.

Stored carefully in a Chowchilla barn, the car is a rolling monument to a young driver who compiled an incredible record in a time when stock car racing was in its heyday. Stofle, from Merced, seemed destined to be a NASCAR superstar, but he was tragically killed in a hunting accident on Chowchilla Mountain.

Two men whose lives were forever changed by Stofle’s passing perpetually care for the car that catapulted the name Stofle into the national spotlight.

Ted’s brother Gary Stofle and crew man Tom White have kept the car in the condition it was after being raced in 1980. Since then, decades have changed the cars that race at Merced Speedway. For generations of new drivers, racing lore comes to life when they see the Stofle NASCAR Late Model stock car.

“My life was changed drastically by Ted’s passing. I was making plans to go back East to be on his crew,” crewman White remembers of that Friday in September 1980. “I got the call around 3 a.m. on Saturday morning. Ted’s death really messed me up.”

Many people in the racing community were shaken. Stofle had amassed some incredible records. He had 44 starts in the racing season he died. He won 27 times. This was accomplished when 40 cars were competing for 20 spots in the feature event.

Ted Stofle would have been 62 years old today. His daughter, Melissa, who was 1-year old when her father died, gave birth to his first grandchild, Ashley Souza, this past year. Gary Stofle, two years older than brother Ted, was instrumental in his brother’s successful career. He and family members have watched many memorial races over the years.

“The races are quite an honor,” he says. “Never would I have dreamed that 35 years later my brother would still be remembered this way.”

Ted’s ability to drive came from his father, Clifford, even though Ted never knew it. Clifford was the Chowchilla Speedway champion in 1952 and ’53. He died in 1995, still heartbroken over his son’s death.

“Dad was quite a driver, but Ted never saw him race,” Gary Stofle explained. “When Ted was born, dad walked away from racing.”

Gary and Ted hung around neighborhood racers. Racing was so popular, cars dotted every Merced neighborhood at that time. The Stofles wound up helping Planada’s Odell Brewer with his stock car. It was the summer of ’73 that Gary and Ted bought a car together, and prepared it to race at Merced Speedway.

“Ted was a late bloomer. He was 19 when he got behind the wheel – but he was immediately successful,” Gary remembers. “He progressed from hobby stocks to the premier local NASCAR division in six years.”

Bobby Borba from Borba Farms, who became a well-known engine builder, started building and maintaining Stofle’s engines. The Stofle team lived and breathed racing. They won 110 feature events from 1974 to 1980.

“Ted was very humble. Even though he had complete natural ability to drive a race car, he never bragged about it. He was like Dale Earnhardt,” Gary Stofle continues. “I had to do all the bragging about him.”

The Stofle team kept an incredible pace that gained them national attention. At the time he died, Ted Stofle had won 15 of the 18 races held that year at Merced Speedway. He was a six-time champ at the local track. If he completed that season, he would have most likely been the NASCAR national champion.

“We found a way to keep racing. We totaled a car on Wednesday night, borrowed a car to keep racing and built a new car in five days,” Gary Stofle said of the days when there were four or five nights of racing. “We raced two nights on dirt, two nights on pavement – every week. I don’t know how we did it, but we did.”

Stofle’s car is a 1965 Chevelle on a 1957 Chevrolet chassis. The car won 70 features in its day.

This week’s ritual is a like a religious experience to White and Gary Stofle.

“We unwrap the car and fire it up, and it brings memories of a time so different than today,” Stofle said. “Then we wrap it up tight again and try to live our lives for another year after the loss of my brother – a racer who frustrated his competitors, yet had so many friends in racing.”

Ted Stofle Classic on Sunday Evening

The Ted Stofle Classic, sponsored by Shannon Pump of Merced, will take place 6 p.m. Sunday evening at Merced Speedway. The Hobby Stock main event will be 89 laps, to commemorate the number on Stofle’s car. Gary Stofle will drive brother Ted’s car on the pace lap. There will be a break after 50 laps, then the final 39 laps will be completed.

In addition, the IMCA Modified, IMCA SportMod, Limited Late Model and Mini Stock classes will be racing. Normal admission prices are in effect for this special event.

Merced Speedway is located inside the Merced County Fairgrounds, 900 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way in Merced. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for senior citizens and $8 for children 6-12. A family four-pack of tickets admits two children and two adults for $32. Racing begins at 6 p.m. The grandstand opens at 4:30 p.m.

This story was originally published July 10, 2015 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Speedway honoring Ted Stofle on Sunday."