At the Winterfest World Of Wheels car show in Sioux Falls this weekend, promoters Dave and Karen Leisinger 'borrowed' the late Ron Roddel's race car from it's new owner, Bob Sherwood, and had a very nice display set up to honor Ron.
Ron was one of the original founders and served with Dave and Karen on the Board Of Directors for Winterfest, whose proceeds go to fund childrens cancer programs, a cause that was very dear to Ron.
Of course, his drag race 'family' and friends know Ron as one of the people who, along with Bob Sherwood, founded Midwest Class Racers. To see what MCR developed into, from that humble start, was a source of great satisfaction to Ron.
Even after seeing the car at Bob's shop as much as I do and having been from bumper to bumper assisting Bob with a thorough refresh of the complete car over the past year.....seeing it in that setting as a tribute definitely pegged the 'emotional meter'.
Steve Koppien (kneeling rt.) and I were able to spend some time there with Marv Lovro (standing), another of Ron's long time friends. Marv was the starter at Thunder Valley for many years as well as being the Official Starter at countless NHRA Division 5 Divisional events and many, many NHRA National Events. We joke with Marv that he's the single most photographed person in NHRA Division 5 history!
Thanks so much to Tom Olsen for the picture. -Al
