After her husband Dan’s accident, Tisha Curry didn’t want to continue racing. However, she persisted, which resulted in mod 4cyl track championship at Bethel Motor Speedway and a win on Sunday.
In July, while working as a track official at the Swan Lake, New York, paved oval, Dan responded to a crash with a car on fire. While cleaning the track, a car struck him. Dan was flown to a hospital for several surgeries over a week’s time. With plates and screws holding his leg together, the Curry family spent the summer traveling back and forth to the hospital, a four-hour round trip.
“I was stressed, I was aggravated, [and] I told him I’m done racing,” said Tisha Curry, of Swan Lake, New York. “My husband would not let me quit racing. He encouraged me to continue on.”
The Curry family field supports six four-cylinders. While Tisha races in the mod 4cyl class, their daughter, Kylee, competes in the novice division.
“Dan brought more and more cars to the divisions,” Tisha said. “He built engines and cars. Without the ability to walk or support his own body weight, he couldn’t do that during his recovery.”
Tisha Curry found out that the four cylinders were running during Sunday’s special Brett Deyo-promoted event just two weeks ago. She had a tired engine from a season of racing and a recent 100-lapper. With Dan recovering, Tisha and her two daughters, Kylee and Emily, changed the engine in her Honda in preparation for the race.
“Dan told us what we needed to do and we did it — the three of us,” said Tisha. “We pulled out the Honda G23 Frankenstein motor and put in a regular Honda B-series motor.”
After winning the feature on Sunday, Tisha dispatched a four-wheeler to pick up Dan and bring him to victory lane.
“We told him to lean on the car and put the crutches behind him,” Tisha said. “We made a family photo with Emily and Kylee. It was a win because of a true family effort.”
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.
