past present future

A Racing Policeman Helped 'Hatch' a 27 Year Racing Frenzy

By Gene Ostrowski
October, 2006

Mountain Top, PA's Bob Hatcher spent the latter half of the late 70's at Numedia Dragways helping his buddies drive straight for ¼ mile. However, that was about to change, in 1979, when Carl Fey asked Bob's father-in-law, Ed Barber Sr., to store his late model stock car in his garage. From then on, Bob found himself traveling every weekend to The New Evergreen Speedway (now Mountain Speedway).

Along with helping Fey, at the track, in 1980, the all Mountain Top crew, consisting of Hatcher, Ed Barber, Billy and Fred Hoppersberger, Fritz Hady, Ed and Tom Mayka, Jack Fey and Rod Aton got together and built 2 demolition derby cars to run at one of the special events at the track. Mountain Top's Eric Aideldinger and his brother Jay were to be the drivers. It ended up that they both tied for the win. Eric "The Racing Policeman" was then a Fairview Township police officer. After a taste of victory, Eric now wanted to driver in circles instead of beating up on his brother in demos. That was all these guys need to hear. They found a two door Chevy Nova and within a week had it painted yellow and black with the #75 on it. With some technical help from Berwick's "First Racing Family", the Spencers, they were ready to race in the street stock division at Evergreen. By the 1980 season's end, Dean Kline had locked up the crown and Aideldinger ended up 10th in points that season with a best feature finish of second.

Hatcher noted that in 1981, the street stocks were allowed to run 10 inch Goodyear Slicks, which were sold to the teams for $25 a piece. They were supplied by Jimmy Spencer and Jerry "Magee" Miller and were scrubs that were used in Goodyear testing for NASCAR.

Aideldinger showcased opening day with a feature win in 1981 and followed with four more throughout the season. Eric and the Mountain Top Racing Team ended the season with the Street Stock championship, winning by a mere 20 points over legend, Dean Kline and 40 points over Pete Comstock. The hard fought battles those early years were run against racers such as Gerry Roushey, Lee Benjamin, Tom Pettit, Harry Ahouse, Bill Denke, Tony & Ricky Ross, Jim Kashula and Tom Dawson. "It seemed like I cleaned blue paint off our car every week, while, at the same time, Dean was cleaning yellow paint off of his with a few black Roushey streaks thrown in for good measure", noted Hatcher.

The '82 debut brought the team three more wins and within 40 points of defending their title, when Charles Spencer ceased operations at New Evergreen Speedway, which did not reopen again until 1988. Hatch recalled "I was standing next to "Bugsy" when he counted 33 heads in the stands and said that was the end of the season".

In 1983 they decided to run their Nova on the dirt at the 1/2-mile Nazareth Speedway. "We had 1 heat win and was leading the feature with 6 laps to go when the clutch went out on a re-start and Eric wound up on the losing end of a 6 car bank shot into Nazareth's turn 4 wall which sent the car to the scrap yard on Monday morning. At least we got 35 bucks for it" said Hatcher. Meanwhile, using rules from Shangri-la Speedway, the team built a new '74 Monte Carlo street stock, which was renumbered # 12. They used that car to race at Shangri-la and the RoC at Pocono International during the years Evergreen was closed. There were a good number of past, current and future Mountain Top drivers that were either crew members or just helping out on that Monte Carlo those early seasons. Names such as Rod Aton, Mark Swartwood, Wayne Lowe, Ricky & Tony Ross and Jackie Fey (Dale Fey's dad) were those on the list.

In '87 Aideldinger purchased the Monte from Ed Barber Sr. and moved on to racing at Mahoning Valley Speedway, where he won five of nine starts. For Hatcher's own weekly racing fix, he found himself doing something very different. What became available was a Margay methanol dirt track go-kart with his 16-year-old nephew, Ed Barber III doing the driving. His Dad, Ed Jr. owned the kart and they spent that year racing at Greenwood Valley Speedway in Millville, PA. However, with renamed Evergreen Raceway slated to reopen in '88, he needed to get back to where he felt most comfortable, with the Street Stocks. Hatcher continued "I helped out Mountain Top's Jimmy Ayre in 1988 with a car he bought from Bill Alishofski and then took up an offer from Dean Kline to work with him in 1989. The funny thing here was the bitter rivalry that had existed between Aideldinger and Kline in the early 80's and "Here I was, where no one believed that I would ever wind up, but we all fit together well and the deep friendships survive to this very day".

In 1989 Dean had a controversial "under slung" chassis Camaro Street Stock and raced to six feature wins and also ran second to Richie Jensen's 410 dirt Late Model during the street stock/late model shootout. New Jersey's Dave Reynolds won the Street Stock title that season.

In 1990 Kline jumped into the Modified ranks after purchasing the '88 2nd place points car of Mike Uhrin. Opening day offered up a direct hit into the 3rd turn wall and a trip to Troyer for a double clip job. It really never got much better the entire season. Earlier that season, Dean won the rained out street stock/late model shootout with the old Camaro, while running against a field made up mostly of real late models. The same season, Frank Holby, (an old friend of the Kline's from Plains PA), bought Tommy Brown's (Brick, NJ) street stock and tagged along with the team each week. Hatcher recalls, " I felt much more at home with Frank's Chevelle than with the Modified so that is where I spent most of my season".

In '91 Hatcher and the Kline crew began building a new metric street stock for Dean, plus a Monte Carlo Thriller for Kingston's Ray Toney. Towards the end of that year, Hatcher's brother-in-law, Ed Barber Jr., asked if he thought he could build a street stock from the ground up for him to drive. "I told him 'I guess we'll find out', and I took him up on his offer", noted Hatcher. They torched out an old cage, which was purchased from fellow racer Don Kellow and also set a field on fire in doing so! Then they gutted a very used Oldsmobile Cutlass and a new street stock was built for the following season. The only thing that Hatcher wanted from Ed for the work was his old car number, 75. Barber agreed.

Barber started racing in '92 as a 40-year-old rookie. He had six heat wins and two feature wins to his credit, along with a tenth place points finish. Kirk Buchanan from nearby Dorrance, PA won the title that year in his #11 Monte Carlo SS.

They rebuilt the same car for the following season and put an all white aftermarket Cutlass body on it. That year they took it to victory lane five times while running 2nd in points behind Nescopeck's Chuck Schartzer for most of the season. That was the year that Hatcher put the words 'White Lightnin' across the tail panel. The team name kind of stuck and they received quite a bit of press from that. After the death of Ed's mother in September, they ended their season short and sold the car to Allentown's Keith Bachman.

In 1994 Barber bought a '89 Troyer from Mike Uhrin and made his move into the modified ranks at Evergreen, Tioga & Clearfield (Central, PA Speedway). "With the modified not being my favorite form of racecar, I migrated over to Drums PA's Jack Cassidy and his ex- Mike Rodriguez street stock numbered 31, said Hatcher".

In 1995 Evergreen re-named the street stock division to the Pro Stock's. A few years back the street stock development was not necessarily being looked at as closely as it could have been and they had migrated into home built late models instead of street stocks.

So, the '96 season led Ed Barber back to Evergreen and the Pro Stocks. The welder came out again. "Even though I was building a new White Lightnin' for Ed, I never turned my back on Jack and a lot of the new things designed into the latest version of the # 75, found their way into the 31 (Cassidy) also", noted Hatcher. When Ed won his feature in May of '96, while driving the new car, Jack was right there in second at the line. That was also the first year where three link rears were allowed; Ed and Jack were one, two with that set up. They also had to weigh 3100 pounds in order to run that 3 link.

Barber became ill a short time after that and the new car was sold. It became the yellow # 67 of Blaine Barry, from Bath PA. added 6 more wins to the chassis. That year, Hatcher also spent some time with John Cool from Dallas, PA and his # 44 Thriller. He continued with the pro stocks and Cassidy, in which they built a new mount for the '98 season. It was a brand new 'offset' chassis.

Over the following years and after a hand full of feature wins, Jack drifted away from the weekly grind of racing and Hatcher found himself back racing with Dean Kline and Blaine Barry running in a very familiar chassis. Hatcher recalls, "Working with Blaine's car was like meeting up with an old friend again. I said, after Jack stopped racing, that the next car that I built would be my own". So recently, he and his partner, Mike Wuorio, built a brand new # 75 Intrepid body car. The plan was to run in the pro stock division with Mike doing the driving duties. Being that the money was coming out of their pockets this time, they made the flea market rounds and all the racer's garage sales in which they have incorporated parts from Rod Aton, Alan Decker, Kirk Buchanan, Todd Stehle and Grant Andrews into a very inexpensive racecar. A very used Morgantinni engine plus an open trailer that was purchased from Frank Holby. The deal was completed with some engine freshening from "The Gas Man", Jerry Brighthaupt. The pro stock division was dropped prior to last season and right now Hatcher's car sits in his garage and waits for a better day when it can come out and play.

Although not certain what the future may hold for his race team, admittedly, Hatcher wants to make the return to short track racing. "I've taken a year or two off and came to realize that racing is all I know. There's a bunch of stuff I can't remember anymore, but the memories of this particular track just stick in my head".

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