My name is Rick Crow. If there's one thing people who know me can agree on, it's that I love to tell stories.
But before I started telling racing stories, I was busy making a few of my own.
My racing career spanned three decades, from the 1980s through the 2000s, competing in six NASCAR racing divisions and accumulating more than 100 career victories, four track championships, multiple track records, 3x Rookie Of The Year, 3x Most Popular Driver, Irwindale Speedway record for most consecutive main even wins with thirteen.
My racing accomplishments include:
1982: Walt James Stadium Dirt Track Champion.
1989: Saugus Speedway Figure 8 and Street Stock Rookie Of The Year along with qualifying track records in both the oval and Figure 8.
1994: Saugus Speedway NASCAR Grand American Modified series Rookie of the Year.
1995: Kern County Raceway Late Model series Track Champion.
1995 Kern County Raceway Super Late Model series Track Champion.
2006: Irwindale Speedway NASCAR Pure Stock Track Champion.
Along the way, I competed in Street Stocks, Figure 8s, Sportsman, Modifieds, Grand American Modifieds, Late Models, and Super Late Models at Southern California tracks including Saugus Speedway, Madera, Cajon, Las Vegas, Mesa Marin Raceway, Orange Show Speedway, Kern County Raceway, ASCOT, Santa Maria, Stockton, Blythe, Havasu, Roseville, and Irwindale Speedway.
From setting a 1995 Late Model track record and winning the prestigious 100-lap West Coast Shootout at Kern County Raceway and a repeat 1996 West Coast Shootout at Orange Show Speedway. Setting the consecutive main event wins record at Irwindale Speedway at thirteen. I experienced short-track racing as a fan, driver, crew member, fuel man, crew chief, driver coach, and spotter across the west coast at every level of racing.
Racing gave me more than trophies and memories. It gave me a front-row seat to the people, personalities, rivalries, and relationships that made this sport what it is.
I created Short Track Stories to preserve those memories, tell the stories behind the photographs, and give a voice to the people history too often overlooked.
That passion eventually led me to write ENCUMBERED — California to France: The Unauthorized Version of NASCAR's West Coast History, a book that challenges the traditional narrative of NASCAR's past and brings its forgotten Western history into focus.
I'm not a professional historian. I'm a former racer, a researcher, a storyteller, and someone who believes the truth matters, even when it challenges the story we've been told
I spent a lifetime chasing checkered flags. Now I'm chasing the stories that got left behind.
— Rick Crow
