Chautauqua County native Dick Barton has amassed over 200 late model victories during his more than four-decade racing career. (Submitted photo)

Dick Barton has always had a fascination with speed.

For over four decades, he has translated it into the type of success on the track that legends are made of. The career numbers can easily cause a double-take:  1,304 super late model starts, 232 feature wins, 541 top three finishes, 721 top 5s, and 45 series championships.

Then again, those were knew Barton as a youngster might not be surprised how the lifelong Chautauqua County resident turned out.

“I’ve always had a passion for speed,” Barton said. “As a young boy, I’d race you to the tree and back.”

Barton recently earned yet another honor – the Twin State Sportsmanship Award at the 37th annual Twin State Auto Racing Club banquet in McDonald, Ohio. Twin State President Dick Berry cited Barton for his exceptional sportsmanship and outstanding ability over a 40 year career in motorsports. The Twin State Auto Racing Club, based in Youngstown, Ohio, is an organization of stock car racing enthusiasts from Eastern Ohio and Western Pennsylvania.

Barton’s success is not surprising to those who have raced with him. His drive to win is what has defined Barton’s career, said longtime crew member Randy Anderson.

“Dick hates to lose at anything whether it’s golf, cards, or simply walking across the street,” Anderson said. “He wants to win, he expects to win and he always gives a full effort.”

EARLY DAYS

Speed on four wheels for Barton began as a 12-year-old in go-karts. From the start, racing was a family affair – his father, Clarence, and mother, Oleta, served as his pit crew. Success came quickly – at age 15, Barton became Western New York Kart champion.

As Barton grew older, the passion for racing grew as well. He first got a taste of stock car racing at 18 when he began to race open-wheeled sportsman cars with his uncle, Rod. Barton helped his uncle work on his sportsman ride and drove in heat races while Rod would race the features. Following Barton’s graduation from Falconer High School in 1972, the two built their first car together from the ground up.

“We built them right from scratch,” Barton recalled. “We used a Camero front stub, Chevy two-side rails. They were built truly from the ground up. I couldn’t have done it myself. I owe everything I ever achieved in stock car racing to my uncle. He took me by the hand and taught me the whole sport of automobile racing.”

His first win came in Erie, a 50-lap race in his second year of racing. He collected 13 feature wins through 1980, but the burdens of racing’s financial and time commitments along with marriage and prospects of a new family nearly brought Barton’s career to an end. He sold all of his equipment and set out for a new way of life.

Barton is looking for a ride after longtime owner Ron Nielson retired following last season. At age 55, Barton still has the desire to race.

“I was out of racing,” he said. “I was changing my life. I was going to forget about racing.”

That’s when a bit of fate stepped in and created what would become one of the best team combinations in area racing history.

TAKING THE SHOW ON THE ROAD

During the summer of 1980 three men, John Lilly, Delbert Seekings and Gary Zepka, were in need of a driver for their team as theirs was on a three-week vacation. Already friends of Barton, they approached him to fill the seat during the weeks their driver would be gone. Following the fill-in role, not only had the team owners liked what they saw, but the racing fire had been re-lit within Barton.

“When I got hooked up with those guys, it was fun again,” Barton said. “They offered me the opportunity to do what I’ve always loved to do and that’s race. I said I’ll ride this train as long as these guys will have me.”

The team captured nine feature wins and the 1983 Stateline Speedway Sportsman championship. The greatest success, however, was to come following the 1984 campaign when the new owners of Stateline and Eriez Speedways abolished the Sportsman division. Barton and his team jumped to late models and never looked back. The first season brought six feature victories and the Eriez Late Model track title.

Local success gave Barton the ability to race far and wide.

“We started having some success around here, so we said, you know what, let’s take our show on the road,” he said.

By that time, Barton and his team, dubbed Race Team 14, were racing far outside just the confines of Western New York. The weekend warriors hit the track up and down the East Coast and won from Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and as far away as Florida. The next year, it was 14 feature wins and the Calvacade Late Model Championship, awarded to the top late model driver in the Western Pennsylvania area.

Track championships at Stateline and Sharon Speedways followed. Barton took checkered flags across the mid-Atlantic states and finished sixth in the dirt track world championship in West Virginia in 1989. In 1991, the team hit the track an astounding 66 times with 54 top 10s. Wins in highly prestigious events earned Barton headlines – in ’91, he claimed the win in the STARS sanctioned NAPA 100 at Stateline, a $10,000 to win event, his largest pay day to that point.

Race Team 14 disbanded following the 1992 season, but a union with a businessman from Pennsylvania kept Barton in victory lane.

MOST MEMORABLE VICTORY

Victories came in his new No. 28 in Hagerstown, Md., Pittsburgh and throughout the region. 1996 brought perhaps Barton’s most impressive season – 18 victories and track championships at all three tracks Barton and his team, owned by Ron Nielson, visited on a weekly basis. The team continued to scorch the track year-in-and-year out, including his biggest pay day ever, taking home the $15,000 first-place prize for a race in Indiana, Pa. In 2003, Barton’s accomplishments earned him induction into the Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame. But his favorite moment was yet to come.

In 2006, Barton became the first local driver ever to win a World of Outlaws Late Model Series event, taking the checkered flag at Stateline. Winning a race against the series’ regulars stands out in Barton’s mind above all other accomplishments in racing.

“There wasn’t anyone who wasn’t a full-time traveler with the series that had won a race with them,” Barton said. “The reason it’s so special is these guys do it for a living. That’s all they do. I have the utmost respect for the World of Outlaw drivers. I’ve raced with them a lot of times, but that one night I happened to beat them.”

Perhaps most impressive about the victory is that it came nearly 40 years after he’d first gotten behind the wheel of a stock car.

“His ability to adapt his driving techniques as the sport has evolved sets him apart,” Anderson said. “The way a race car has to be driven today is vastly different than the way it was when Dick started in 1972. Dick has kept up as the sport has changed.”

In 2005, Barton eclipsed the 200-win mark for his late model career. His career has been successful in part because of a balance between aggression and patience on the track.

“Dick is a very smooth and patient driver,” Anderson said. “His car is always under control. He rarely gets himself into bad situations in traffic and seldom wrecks the car, a huge plus for the crew.”

Quick to brush off the height of his accomplishments as a driver, Barton points to the work of his crew throughout the years.

“The secret to my success is the people I’ve surrounded myself with,” Barton said. “The cast of characters has changed over the years, but throughout it all, I’ve always had a really good team. People don’t realize; this is a team sport.”

RACING FUTURE

Now 55, the resident of Ashville has come to a crossroads of his career. Following last season, longtime team owner Nielson retired, leaving Barton searching for a ride for the upcoming season. Ever the threat to win, Barton claimed eight victories as recently as 2008. And while he no longer desires to travel the East Coast, he still has the fire to race locally. Until the time for hanging up the helmet comes, the race Barton most wants to talk about is the next one.

“We’ve never got caught up in (success),” he said. “ As soon as you reflect, it’s time to retire. And I haven’t stopped to reflect.”

Though the future remains unclear, the legend Barton has created on the track is undeniable.

“I want to be remembered as a clean driver, someone who was aggressive, but clean,” he said. “When I started out in this late model game, I had hoped that maybe someday I could win a heat race. To achieve all that we’ve accomplished is more than mind boggling. If I can’t get a ride (for 2010), then it’s been a hell of a ride.”