Merced Speedway will honor local legends Sunday night

Merced Speedway will honor its successful past drivers with the annual “Legends of Merced” on Sunday night. Retro Valley Sportsman cars and drivers, as well as fully restored race cars, will parade around the speedway beginning at 6 p.m.

One of the legends is Atwater’s Tom Friesen. When Friesen joined the Navy as a teenager, greater Merced and the Central Valley were riding high – bustling with development and humming with agriculture-related industries. Friesen came home eager to join the trade union with the skills he learned in the service.

“The Navy taught me things a teenager never dreamed of learning,” Friesen said. “I came back and joined the carpenters union. I helped build five or six schools in Merced.”

Those jobs and his Navy training gave Friesen the opportunity to start a weekend career that he dreamed of as a young child. He wanted to be a stock car driver.

“I was just a little kid and remember going to Merced Speedway when there were 120 cars in the pits for a special show,” Friesen said.

He watched his dad, John Friesen, race with the “Pombo and Corn bunch” and other legendary drivers from the 1960s.

Military service had Friesen put his dream on hold. He started racing at age 22 – at a time most racers were starting in their teen years.

“I worked hard all day at my job and worked hard all night on my car – I had a lot of catching up to do,” he said.

He became so obsessed with racing that he worked long hours in the winter months, shortened his hours in the spring, and took the entire summer off – just to race.

“I even went to work in Saudi Arabia one winter to earn enough money to build my last race car,” he said. “That’s how much having a winning race car meant to me.”

His bright orange Chevrolet Vega stock car couldn’t be missed on the Merced quarter-mile.

“I won a few races, finished second in some big races, but always had a lot of fun,” Friesen said.

Now 67, Friesen raced with the legends he will swap stories with on Sunday night. People like Gary “The Kid” Rocha.

Rocha, 66, was the youngest of a dust-covered, hardscrabble group of drivers who tried to outsmart their opponents with cunning strategies.

Just a teenager, Rocha helped another legend – Rod Poor – build cars in his modest Merced garage. Poor, in turn, built Rocha a 1956 Chevrolet stock car to race at Merced Speedway.

“Rod taught me a lot. A teenager hanging out in a stock car garage sure learns fast,” Rocha said.

Poor was hard to beat in his day. Rocha raced against Dennis Moomjean and Vic Irvan using tricks he picked up while being mentored by Poor.

“I was a rookie, and Rod told me, ‘Take Moomjean in a car length deeper when you go into the turns,’” Rocha recalled. “I put him in the ‘marbles’ (outside edge of the track surface) and passed him.”

Two weeks later, Rocha tried the same move on his teacher.

“Rod slammed on his brakes, dropped under me and took me out to the marbles,” Rocha said. “He said, ‘That will teach you to use the tricks I taught you on me,’” Rocha said.

Poor took Rocha to racing’s premier events as he moved up to NASCAR and traveled to Oregon and Washington.

Poor, who lives in Oregon and works irrigating fertile green fields near Crater Lake, is still fond of his racing days.

“There are times I miss Merced – the people, the racing,” he said. “But those were different times then. Where I am now, I can’t get any closer to God.”

Rocha agrees that times have changed.

“We didn’t pick up a phone and order parts, we made them,” Rocha said. “We were chassis builders, body fabricators, engine builders.”

Rocha pointed out that the Krumm brothers of Merced were considered master inventors and innovators at the time.

“Rene Krumm experimented with building better suspension for race cars,” Rocha said. “He told me they drive the car hard into the first turn and ‘then we would know if what they built worked or not.’”

Rocha, who is retired, helps out at Shannon Pump Co. in Merced and helps his 13-year-old granddaughter, Jayden, with her go-kart racing endeavor.

Sunday at Merced Speedway – The “Legends of Merced” program will feature a full program of International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) Modified and SportMod racing; as well as the Valley Sportsman, Limited Late Model, Hobby Stock and Mini-Stock divisions.

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. The grandstand opens at 4:30 p.m.

This story was originally published August 21, 2015 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Merced Speedway will honor local legends Sunday night."