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SPOTLIGHT ON: Deery A Short-Track Pioneer

Rockford Promoter Keeps Racing Running In The Family

The Deery family of Rockford, Ill. is one of the best known and successful family names in American short track racing. The family’s core business has been the tough .250-mile banked oval of Rockford Speedway, which itself is a slice of racing Americana, since 1948.

Hugh Deery, an insurance salesman, and his wife, Jody, purchased a stake in the track in 1959, and by the mid 1960s became its sole owners. They entered the track ownership business with little knowledge of racing and built it into a nationally-known, award-winning, star-making facility. All eight of the Deerys’ children worked on their “family farm,” and many of them made their own motorsports careers away from Rockford.

It wasn’t just the Deerys that found success at Rockford, either. NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Director John Darby’s first job in race officiating came at Rockford. Despite the nature of a tight, unforgiving track and some of the toughest short track racers in the country, John Knaus won seven NASCAR Late Model division track championships at Rockford as well as a NASCAR Whelen All-American Series regional championship in 1994. His young crew chief son, Chad, went on to work for Hendrick Motorsports and become a four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion crew chief with driver Jimmie Johnson.

The Deery’s ownership of Rockford Speedway continues to generate terrific outcomes, despite the shaky start in 1959.

“We had no experience in promoting races whatsoever,” Jody recalled. “We had a partner in the track that knew race cars and Hugh knew business. I had never been to a race.”

The couple had a lot to learn. He was an insurance agent whose only racing experience was working for a friend who provided the wreckers for the Indianapolis 500 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. She was a nurse.

Originally childhood neighbors in Darlington, Wisc., Jody was a pen pal to Hugh while he served as an air traffic controller during World War II. Post-war, Jody and nursing student friends would host Sunday dinners for their gentlemen friends. The catch was that the guys were asked to bring something to contribute to the meal.

“Hugh always brought the biggest grocery bag, so we invited him a lot,” Jody said. “We double dated sometimes. One night we double dated at a country club dance. Somehow, we left our dates and ended up with each other. We spent the night in a telephone booth talking.”

They married in 1948, not knowing that Rockford Speedway had opened that same year.

Fast forward to 1959 and the couple’s first year as partners in Rockford Speedway, where Hugh set into place the cornerstone of Rockford’s success. He believed short track racing should be promoted as entertainment, and that his customers should be entertained.

“Hugh loved the circus because that was entertainment,” Jody said. “We’re not in the racing business, we’re in the entertainment business,” he’d say. “In order to put on a show, we have to entertain.

“He wanted to take care of the kids with Gold Rush nights and kids’ clubs. He had grocery cart races, outhouse races, just silly stuff. He’d try any gimmick. Newspaper drop races. Bank deposit races. The trailer races and school bus races evolved from that.

“The racing purists tolerated it, but lots of new fans came to see it and then they became race fans,” Deery said.

For real race fans, the Deerys established the post-season National Short Track Championships, which is still a huge Midwestern motorsports happening. Dick Trickle was the first NSTC winner in 1966. Winners over the years include a who’s who of the all-time greats: Joe Shear, Mark Martin, Jim Sauter, Junior Hanley, Mike Alexander, Tim Fedewa, Rich Bickle, Butch Miller, Steve Carlson and Ramo Stott among them. This year’s 45th annual NSTC is scheduled for Oct. 1-3.

The eight Deery kids -- Gunner, Ted, Jack, Susan, Tom, Brad, Chuck, and David -- all had Rockford Speedway duties at age 5. Tom is a former NASCAR vice president and current World Racing Group president and COO. Chuck is the longtime promoter of LaCrosse (Wis.) Fairgrounds Speedway. The younger brothers have all had track promoting stints, while Susan is ingrained in the family business operations. Oldest brother Gunner is an M.D. specializing in infectious diseases, while Ted builds those igloo-type domes used by highway departments to shelter substances such as road salt across the nation.

The family faced crisis with the sad, unexpected death of Hugh Deery in 1984. It was the same year he signed Rockford Speedway into the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series family of tracks.

“Hugh always included me in everything to do with the track, too," Jody said. "I knew what had to be done and so did all the kids. People said I couldn’t do it and the kids couldn’t do it. We all had to do our part and it worked.

“I was entering a ‘man’s world’. Women couldn’t go in the pits anywhere. I had to earn respect from men, and it took a few years.”

At the time, Jody, Eileene Daniels, wife of the NHRA’s Bob Daniels, Sue McKarns, partner with her husband John in the ARTGO Challenge Series, and Mt. Clemens (Mich.) Race Track promoter Cyndy Winkler were all highly-respected within the American short track business community. It just took someone on the competition side of the equation to ease into the leadership roles these professionals were growing into.

“Jody Deery led the way for women in this sport as a front office, take charge leader,” said NASCAR Vice President of Corporate Communications Jim Hunter. It was Hunter who flew to Rockford to finalize NASCAR’s first sanction agreement for Rockford with the Deerys in 1984.

“She continues to serve as an inspiration to young women today who have a passion for the sport,” Hunter said. “She has definitely been a positive influence within the sport for many years.”

“There are a lot of successful women in the racing business now,” Jody said. “Things have changed. Women driving race cars are no longer a novelty. They are accepted as race cars drivers. They’re ‘just one of the guys,’ except maybe for Danica. She’s a star.”

Growing Up Deery

Hugh Deery liked to let life experience be a teacher to his children. Pre-Interstate road trips were the perfect classroom.

Tom Deery likes to tell a story about his dad sending the kids in to pay for a gasoline purchase, and then quiz them about what they learned. What merchandise was closest to the cash register? Was the clerk friendly? Were the restrooms clean?

Riding down the road, they played a game and got points for spotting certain sites. The winner got to choose the restaurant the family had dinner at that night.

“Hugh wanted them to know where they were and what they were seeing, and make them aware of what was around them,” Jody said.

Things worked out pretty well most of the time.

“Hugh saw a house with a well with a rope and bucket," Jody said. "And he sent the kids to the house to ask to use the well to get some water to drink. He wanted them to see how the rope and bucket worked.

“The person told the kids they could, but that the water might not be drinkable. A cat had fallen in a few days earlier.

“It might have taken a week to get to Florida. He’d stop to see anything he thought the kids would learn from.”

And those roadside historic markers?

“We must have stopped to read more of those than anyone, ever,” Jody recalled.

Deery Family Titlists

One of the greatest awards American short track operators can receive is the Racing Promotion Monthly Auto Racing Promoter of the Year Award. The annual award winner is selected by their peers –  fellow short track promoters.

The Deery family has collected four RPM ARPYs at two tracks.

Hugh Deery won the award in 1976 and then posthumously in 1984, for his promotion of Rockford.Speedway and his message that “we’re all in the entertainment business.”

Ten years after her husband’s passing, Jody Deery was selected as the award winner in 1994.

In 2000, LaCrosse (Wis.) Fairgrounds Speedway promoter Chuck Deery won the same award his parents had received earlier in his life.

Jody with her sister Ruth (in front of her) and 19 of the 37 members of the Deery family. Courtesy of the Deery family