Les Ritchey

[jimmihawk]

I was suprised not to see Les Ritchey on here ,he was the guy that ran a shop called Performance Associates in Calif.And tuned and drove some of the baddest Fords in Super Stock A/FX in the early 60s untill 65 when he was killed in a drag race.I have searched the net and have found little about when and what strip he was killed at or what car he was driving,anyone with info.please post here .If you have any old Hot Rod magazines from 62-65 you will see Les in there many many times .He tuned for guys like Gas Ronda and was the founder of the Ford drag team,and won lots of races.R.I.P Les

[Gator]

Les died in a racing accident in '65 (maybe '64)..i'm thinking in Az. ?
He was the Ford leader in the day..Very sad loss ..over 40 years ago.
He was a hero of mine.
RIP Les

[draglist]

Yeah, RIP from way back. But we track the recently passed friends here. Holy cow, what a job it would be to go back and get everyone. Don Ewald takes a pretty good shot at it on WeDidItForLove... bp

[Bucko]

You can read details about the fatal crash of Les Ritchey and over 230 other drag race driver deaths on my new website: Drag Racer Deaths. The URL is: http://dragstripdeaths.webs.com/
Ritchey died at Fontana in 1966 while match racing Hayden Proffit in those wicked factory experimental cars. I used to watch Ritchey regularly at Pomona. His death and others like Wenderski, Mulligan, and Mudersbach who I had seen were probably the catalyst to motivate me to create this tribute website.

[draglist]

Thanks for the update, Bucko. You have a very interesting site. A sad subject to be sure, but tastefully done and full of info. bp