Larry Rice USA (Read 2,866 times)

[thunderbird1]

Many midget fans from the seventies will be saddened to know that Larry Rice from the USA has lost his battle with cancer and passed away on Wednesday 20th May 2009 aged 63.
Larry will be best remembered as a solid no nonsense racer but also a great personality, a great smile and a laugh that would make even the toughest person, melt.
Western Springs and Ruapuna fans will no doubt remember his travels with the "hippie" Gary Patterson. They were billed as the teacher and the preacher. Larry was definately the teacher.
When Larry finally retired from racing he became the "voice" of Saturday Night Thunder on ESPN. He has also commentated for the IRL and with the Indy 500 coming up, it is worth noting that he had a couple of tries racing there as well.
Larry won the 1973 USAC midget title, was a 2 time winner of the Silver Crown series in 77 & 81 and in the hotbed of speedway racing that is the US, managed 23 main event wins, 15 in midgets, 5 dirt and 3 sprintcar.
He was inducted into the US National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1993.
Hopefully other people will have some great memories and perhaps Pall Mall will have a pic or two.
R.I.P. Larry

[emrc]

Ricey was a great guy! he loved New Zealand and it loved him.
While not the most spectacular driver that ever raced he was a great steerer and a favourite wherever he went.
Two moments that stick with me are the night that he drove Roger Gleesons Sprintcar in 1977 at Ruapuna in one race...thats all it took to show us what non wing racing was about!, and then there was the legendary night that Larry and Gary Patterson crossed the line in first equal place at Ruapuna- holding hands!
He was not one of those smart arse imports, but a guy keen to help the locals. He was also a darn good broadcaster- he had been there and done that
I guess the Indy 500 broadcasts will never be the same

RIP Rice a roni

[scw]

yes. Larry will be surely missed.


Sleepy Tripp, Kevin Olson, Larry Rice

[cards]

So I tune into ESPN this afternoon to watch the replay (didn't get to see it live) of the Indianapolis 500.

And Rice is doing the commentary and I thought,"what's going on here ?"

And as I watched I suddenly realised it was last year's race !!!

So I rang Sky to see what was going on and was told they'd had heaps of complaints but that the feed was direct from the USA.

Seems like someone at ESPN head office picked the wrong tape up off the shelf ... and ... as it was played out in its entirerity around the world to people expecting to see this year's race, I would suspect that someone at ESPN will be minus a job tomorrow !

So the uninformed will think Scott Dixon won again.

Still it was good to hear Larry again.

[pallmall]

So sad, Larry was a real gentleman, and a great driver.

Larry was a Guest of Honour at the Brisbane vintage midget event last year, I wasn't able to go, but really wanted to just to see Larry have possibly his last drive in a midget.