When he won his first sportsman race, Colton Perry needed a moment to collect himself in victory lane. After his father, Chuck, passed away in March, Perry questioned whether he still wanted to race. Perry didn’t even qualify for the first two features of the season at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania.
“Losing my dad was completely unexpected,” Perry, of Topton, Pennsylvania, said. “He was always at the track to see me race.”
Perry started racing with hobby stocks in 2016 at the paved Mahoning Valley Speedway in Lehighton, Pennsylvania. Not only was his father there for him, but his grandparents, too — Clarence and Beverly Ruppert. When his grandmother saw Perry struggling the first two races of the season, she had a heart-to-heart talk with him.
“It was my grandmother who gave me a boost,” said Perry. “She said my dad would have wanted me to keep racing. After she talked to me, I was the most poised I have ever been this week at the racetrack.”
Last Saturday, Perry qualified for the pole. However, the feature win didn’t come easy. With four laps to go, Jesse Hirthler made contact with Perry in between turns three and four, causing Perry to relinquish the lead.
“My car went up the track, I hit the brakes hard — so hard the car almost stalled — and then I got back on the gas and kept going,” Perry said.
After the caution came out, officials set Hirthler back two spots and Perry restarted on the pole.
“I wasn’t going to let that spot go,” said Perry. “I kept the bottom to make sure no one could pass me.”
When the green flag flew, a vibration made it difficult for Perry to follow that plan.
“My car was way loose,” Perry said. “Driving off of turn four, I was on pins and needles. I kept my foot flat to the floor.”
After crossing the start-finish line first, Colton Perry was overcome with emotion.
“I didn’t know whether to be happy and laugh, or just cry when I won the race,” said Perry. “It had been a rough few weeks. I had so much on my mind, and I was just trying to make my Dad proud.”
Despite being at the controls of the modified, Perry refused to take credit for the victory.
“It was a win for my grandmother, Beverly, and my wife, Amber, who pulled me aside and calmed me down,” Perry said, adding his stepmother, Cathy, cried with him in victory lane. “It was a win for my grandfather, Clarence, my cousin Mike Stofflet, and my great-uncle Paul Ruppert, who worked on the car all week. I just drove.”
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.
Photographers
The Outside Groove contributor from Macungie, Pennsylvania, has covered the sport since 2012. Sabo serves as the official track photographer of Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Photography is a family ordeal for Sabo. He shoots with his daughter, Abby, at Shellhammer Dirt Track in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. At Grandview and other venues Sabo travels to, he and his father, Stephen “Poppa Pepper” Sabo Sr., capture the night’s action with their cameras.
