Greg Weld Dies, another automotive Legend lost
Greg Weld, KC’s wheel man, dies at 64
By JIM PEDLEY
The Kansas City Star
Greg Weld, founder of Weld Wheel Industries, died of a heart attack Monday.
The passing of Greg Weld, a Kansas City-born driver and auto-racing entrepreneur who died of a heart attack Monday at age 64, will make the mood much more somber this week at the famed Knoxville Nationals in Iowa.
That’s according to Bob Baker, executive director of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, whose phone has been constantly ringing and whose office has been besieged during this hectic racing week.
On Monday, Baker said only a few of the callers and visitors wanted to talk racing. The majority wanted to talk about a person.
“They are talking about Greg,” Baker said.
The Knoxville Nationals is a sprint-car racing event, often described as the Super Bowl of sprint-car racing, where more than 100 drivers compete for the top spot. It’s an event Greg Weld won in 1963. Fans and competitors journeying to Knoxville this week will no doubt be talking about Weld because of the major role he played in the sport.
Weld started his career in racing as a driver. He drove sprint cars in the 1960s in the U.S. Auto Club series. Weld won 21 USAC sprint-car races and also was the USAC sprint-car champion in 1967.
He also drove in the Champ Car series, which was sanctioned by USAC at the time, in the 1960s and ’70s. He made one start in the Indianapolis 500, qualifying 28th and finishing 32nd in 1970.
“He was as good as they get,” said Cecil Taylor, longtime Weld friend and former crew member for A.J. Foyt. “Foyt, everybody had the greatest regard for him. He looked like Joe College when you met him, but when he got on the track, he was a driver.”
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