WEEDSPORT, N.Y. — Billy Decker, Craig Von Dohren and Don June will be inducted into the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame in July.
These eight racing legends add their names to a stellar list of modified standouts that was started in 1992 when the Hall of Fame was established on the Cayuga County Fairgrounds here.
BILLY DECKER
Following his family onto area tracks, Franklin, N.Y.’s Decker bought his first racer from his cousin, Hank — a six-cylinder Tiger car — and went out and won seven times in his rookie season at Penn Can Speedway in 1981, when he was still a kid in high school.
Groomed by his father Floyd—and later mentored by the late, great Jack Johnson—Decker went on to craft a world-class career, starting with his first SBM score at Fonda in 1985 and full-blown mod wins the year after.
In 1988, he found his niche: winning the big ones. In the span of eight days that September, driving his dad’s car, Decker took the Lebanon Valley 200 and 100-lap events at both Fonda and Rolling Wheels.
More than a third of the 308 Modified victories Decker has claimed to date — 128, to be exact — have come in special events of 50 laps or longer.
And he’s particularly shined during Super DIRT Week: Decker grabbed six modified pole awards and won the big-block classic four times on the Syracuse mile.
Decker was the overall Mr. DIRT/SDS champion in 1998, 2008 and 2014. He won 18 track championships at six tracks, while posting victories at 35 tracks in nine states and two Canadian provinces.
CRAIG VON DOHREN
Longevity is the name of the game for Oley, Pa.-native Von Dohren.
Recording his first victory at Big Diamond Raceway on Aug. 1, 1980 before his 17th birthday, and his most recent at Delaware’s Georgetown Speedway in March of this year, Von Dohren has strung together an incredible streak of 43 consecutive winning seasons, second only to Hall of Fame driver Alan Johnson.
Von Dohren is a 12-time track champion at Grandview Speedway, where he tops the all-time win list and has won the Freedom 76 five times.
Von Dohren also sits at the head of the class at Big Diamond Speedway, where he holds four small-block modifiedtitles, and was the 1995 champ and Lebanon Valley 100 winner at the defunct Penn National Speedway during the Tri-Track Series days.
All told, Von Dohren currently has 347 career wins to his credit, at 13 tracks in five states.
In 2021, he finished third in the NASCAR Weekly Series national point standings and was named Northeast Regional champion.
DON JUNE
The late pioneer driver Don June, of Theresa, N.Y., proved to be a natural right out of the gate when he began his racing career at age 21.
June dominated the inaugural season at Edgewood Speedway in 1951, winning 11 feature events at the Alexandria Bay oval.
Racing the No. 117 Ford, June was so unbeatable that many nights they’d start him on the backstretch, a half-lap behind the field.
A master mechanic, June earned the nickname “Stroker” after his experiments with stroking a crankshaft in a Chrysler produced big horsepower gains.
Despite the fact that June’s racing endeavors were curtailed by his military service during the first half of the 1950s, he was the ASCC’s top winner and held his own with the Northern Stock Car Club in the ’60s.
Retiring after being injured in a work accident, June kept his hand in the game, becoming the North Country’s first Hoosier Tire representative and going on to serve as a tech inspector at Can-Am Speedway. Don June died in 1999, at the age of 69.
OTHER AWARDS
In addition, Guy Madsen, Eric Mack, C.J. Richards, John “Ace” Lane Jr. and Mimi Lazarro will receive special awards of recognition.
Madsen, who first owned cars beginning in 1985 and continues to field rides for legendary driver Brett Hearn, will receive the Gene DeWitt Car Owner Award.
Eric Mack, who gained fame working with Stewart Friesen and eventually created DKM Motorsports, is the recipient of the Mechanic/Engineering Award.
Richards founded the Champlain Valley Racing Association and promoted numerous speedways over the years. He will be recognized with the prestigious Leonard J. Sammons Jr. Award for Outstanding Contributions to Auto Racing.
Second-generation photographer Lane will be awarded the Andrew S. Fusco Award for Media Excellence.
Finally, Melissa “Mimi” Lazarro, a victory lane announcer at Fonda Speedway and pit reporter for DirtTrackDigest.tv, will be honored with this year’s Outstanding Woman in Racing Award.