CHUCK GEAR

Promoter that dreamed of big events remembered.....

The new owners of Elkins Speedway ran the richest race in the track's history a year after they bought the quarter mile dirt oval with the hillside grandstands.

They were proud of the event, but they'd give anything to change it's name. The $10,000 to-win Late model special--The Chuck Gear Memorial-- was run in honor of the enthusiastic co-owner whose big dreams helped improve racing at a track that had seen better days.

A lively man everyone described as happy-go-lucky, Gear was suddenly stricken with stomach cancer in February. After treatment in Pittsburgh, Pa, Baltimore, MD, and the Sloane-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, Gear died on May 22.

The self-employed forestry consultant was only 29. And while Gear helped hammer out last year's schedule, including a Late Model biggie around the Fourth of July, "he didn't think it was going to be his memorial".

The track misses the slim man full of fire and brimstone who steered his four-wheeler around the pits to fulfill his endless duties. How does the track miss Gear most? "I don't even know where to start," D. Jay Miller replied .

Gear and his four partners took over the track in July 2000. They promised improvements, and before long, un-mowed grass was mowed, unpainted surfaces painted, thin purses were boosted and the wall in front of the grandstand was dug up to widen the narrow front stretch 20 feet.

"They hope to put this place back on the map," veteran driver Chuck Harper said. While Gear's background was motocross racing (he raced four-wheelers himself) he was eager to learn what stock car drivers needed in their home racetrack.

"He liked to listen to what racers wanted," said Late Model driver Robbie Scott, who became good friends with Gear. "We liked that." "He was really The Man," said Late Model driver Tim Senic.

"I think he went to sleep at night thinking about what he was going to do with the racetrack." After the drivers met Gear, they usually wanted to come back to Elkins Speedway, Senic said. "He made you want to come race at the track."

"I bet you couldn't walk through these pits and find someone who'd say something bad about him," Senic added. "You didn't want to cuss him because he was so nice--so you found another (Co-owner)."

Although Gear is missing out on the continued rebirth of the racetrack, the owners still have big plans. None of Gear's dreams will die, his best friends said.

"We're going to do it for him."