WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Clyde Lamar, the well-known owner of the Tri-C Motorsports sprint car team on the West Coast, died Tuesday night.
He was 86 years old.
Though he never drove a race car, his career as a car owner began when he fielded a supermodified at Capital Speedway in West Sacramento, Calif., down the street from his shop in the early 1970s.
While comprehensive records are difficult to find, Lamar enjoyed success with numerous drivers such as Gary Patterson, Dave Bradway Jr., Paul McMahan, Bobby McMahan and Tommy Estes.
During the mid-2000s, he partnered with Jonathan Allard and together they won numerous races. Other drivers to pilot the No. 3c Tri-C entry included Willie Croft, Carson Macedo, Terry McCarl and D.J. Netto.
After working with Tanner Thorson during the 2019 season, Lamar retired from team ownership in order to spend more time go-kart racing with his grandchildren.
In addition to his time as a team owner, he served as the director of the Northern Auto Racing Club, now known as the NARC-King of the West Sprint Car Series. He also created the Gold Cup Golf Tournament to support the Gold Cup Race of Champions at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, Calif.
Lamar served on the board of directors of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum in the late 1980s and early ’90s and was instrumental in raising funds to build the museum in Knoxville, Iowa.
“In the early days, people weren’t sure this thing was going to fly,” said Bob Baker, executive director of the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum. “It took people like Clyde to convince other people that the sport needed a Hall of Fame. Without the support of people like Clyde, we never would have gotten the museum off the ground. People like him laid the foundation for what we have today.”
Lamar was also successful away from the track. He owned Tri-C Machine in West Sacramento and invented a method for recycling radial tires into a compound that is used as an alternative to asphalt to pave roads.
His son, Burney Lamar, was a driver who made 59 starts in the NASCAR Xfinity Series with a best finish of second while driving a car owned by Kevin Harvick at Daytona Int’l Speedway in 2006.