After a hard crash that left Tom Moore Jr. with a concussion and a wrecked race car, he decided to call it a career. His friend Eric Kormann wouldn’t let that happen, though.
“My car was destroyed after it hit the infield wall — I was done,” Moore said of the aftermath of the August 29 crash at Georgetown Speedway in Delaware. “I stripped the car, took the 602 engine out, and left it sitting in my garage.”
Kormann, of Carneys Point, New Jersey, first raced with Moore in 2008. In fact, Kormann beat Moore for the 2009 championship at New Jersey’s Bridgeport Motorsports Park. Nowadays the two enjoy watching their children, Charlie Moore and Hannah Kormann, compete in .25 midgets.
“Our families became close through the kids racing,” said Moore. “My son wanted me to keep racing after the crash.”
Charlie got his wish when Kormann called Moore.
“Eric told me, ‘You don’t want to go out on an accident,’” Moore, of Middletown, Delaware, said. “He offered me to get in the cockpit one more time before deciding to never race again.”
Two weeks before the Short Track Super Series race at Pennsylvania’s Port Royal Speedway on October 10, Kormann parted ways with his car owner. However, Kormann had a chassis without an engine. He proposed that Moore put his engine into the car. Then, Kormann would drive it at Port Royal Speedway and Moore at Delaware International Speedway on October 21.
Port Royal rained out, but Moore got his chance to return behind the wheel at Delaware. He started 13th and finished seventh in the 20-lap 602 sportsman feature.
“Eric was really excited,” said Moore. “The fact that the car, which was sitting for two years, could come out of the garage and run as well as it did was thrilling for him.”
Was the race at Delaware International Speedway the final one for Tom Moore Jr.?
“It changed my mind,” Moore said. “By the end of Saturday night, we were talking about getting another sportsman car. I felt very comfortable driving.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
