Freddy Fryar passed away this morning, 4/29/2020, at 84

[NickHolt]

This from Marc Fryar, Freddy's son. 

I am sad to say my dad, my hero, my friend, my favorite racer, my mentor passed away this morning.

He was a hero to many people in the racing world. He raced across the country for many years. He has been inducted to several Hall of Fames, has many track championships, a couple national championships & has over 800 feature wins.

Thanks for the memories dad.

[FryarFan]

Prayers to the Fryar family.

That great racetrack upstairs just got one of the best in the history of racing added to the main event.   And a great all around person to boot.

Thanks for the memories....especially that magical 1978 Hiway 16 season, the 1979 Labor Day weekend win in flames, winning All Pro race #2 in Corpus, couple of incredible Snowball wins, TROC wins, and a ton of highlights.   

May God Bless

Billy

 

P.S. One of the greatest pit area quotes, after backing the #46 into the 3rd turn wall on the first lap of qualifying at San Antonio and having to go to Waldo's #10 for the weekend, greeting everyone with........."I'm Freddy Fryar and I wreck race cars"

[HiTech]

RIP  .. . never met him . BUT HIS NAME WAS EVERY WHERE  ,every conversation about great short track racing always seemed to have freddy  the first one mentioned .. 

GOING to ad a thought .. listening to  freddy   talk .. I thought if this man had gone on to be a 7 time  nascar  champion  all that could not  hold a candle to life of racing he had .. .. a true storied  life that many have never had the chance to live ..I tell a lot of stories but I could sit and listen to this man for weeks on in .. and still only hear a third of his life ..  ONE  LUCKY MAN  and many lucky poeple who knew him and watched him race .. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 1, 2020 by HiTech

[j.j.&s.racing]

rip his grand son is caring on the tradition

[texasprd]

I saw him win the LM feature the first time Dad and I went to Highway 16 - I guess it was the year Pan American closed down. To the best of my memory, he was the red Nova. Jimmy Finger was leading. Fryar caught him coming out of 4 and went high - Finger went high to block. Fryar went low and he was gone!

 

RIP, and prayers for his family!

Edited April 30, 2020 by texasprd

[RodneyRodriguez]

Sad Day for so many of us. Freddy meant so much to many of us old timers. Had to do a tribute to him Weds evening. LIsten to him in the 2018 interview he did on RUSS, so many great including most of these on the thread. There will always only be one Freddy Fryar. RIP Sir thank you for the memories.

 

[ron.brown11]

I never got to meet Freddy, but did get to watch him race some in the 80s. But I learned a lot about him because of how highly Nick Holt spoke of him so many times, when we were together at the track. What a driver!! God Bless the Fryar family, and that includes so many that were close to him. As family isn't always blood relatives. 

[NeilTPS]

Freddy Fryar was one the very best stock car drivers to base his racing operations in Beaumont Texas for many years.

He rightfully earned the nickname, “The Beaumont Flyer - Freddy Fryar". My professional contact with Freddy was when he raced at Texas World Speedway where I was Race Director. He won Texas Race of Champions #5 in 1980 in his #14 Chevrolet Camaro and again in 1984 in TROC #8 when Freddy raced his unfamiliar #46 Chevrolet Camaro into the TWS Victory Circle.

He was also a three time winner of the Texas Grand Prix in 1983 and again in 1986 as Freddy Fryar won the fall event in his familiar - #14 - Chevrolet Camaro. On March 8, 1987 Freddy Fryar raced his #14 which was a Pontiac Firebird to the win.

RIP - “The Beaumont Flyer - Freddy Fryar".

Posted by his friend Neil Upchurch

Founder ... TIDA Late Model Series ...Texas Race of Champions at Texas World Speedway ... Texas Pro Sedan Series

[NickHolt]

22 hours ago, ron.brown11 said:

I never got to meet Freddy, but did get to watch him race some in the 80s. But I learned a lot about him because of how highly Nick Holt spoke of him so many times, when we were together at the track. What a driver!! God Bless the Fryar family, and that includes so many that were close to him. As family isn't always blood relatives. 

Freddy Fryar was a genius. 

He knew more about a racing suspension than anyone I ever met, and I've met some pretty fair suspension folks over the years.

I witnessed nearly every race he ran at the San Antonio half-mile, but I didn't just witness, I studied everything he did in the pits.  I've seen him add tiny amounts of air to the left rear if the car was a tiny bit too loose halfway between turns 3 and 4. Couldn't have been an eighth of a pound of pressure. And I've seen him put his hands on the right front tire after coming in from practice to see exactly how the tire was interfacing with the track. No tire pyrometer.  Just his hands and brains. And I've seen him make an adjustment on a jacking bolt that was maybe a quarter-turn.  Just enough to raise or lower the front vertical roll center the amount the seat of his pants was telling him the car needed.  

One day I asked him about what roll centers he was running.  "What you talking about, son? I don't know all that fancy gibberish. i just know what my car needs and I give it to her."

OK. About that time I recalled something someone on Ed Sczech's crew told me one day when I was talking all the suspension talk. "You know what an expert is, right Nick?  Well and "ex" is a has-been and a "spurt" is a drip under pressure."  It fit like a glove at that point in my life when I was still trying to figure out just how roll-couple distribution, roll centers and jacking effects interacted.

Well, he did.  Freddy had all that figured out long ago. He just didn't know what it was all called by us "experts." He knew exactly how it all worked because I saw him playing with minor adjustments that impacted all three of the variables I was trying to get a handle on. And with each half turn here and half turn there, that Nova would shave off a tenth or two in the corners. 

Rest in peace, Freddy. And thanks for sharing your greatness with us for all those years.

Nick Holt

[rails]

Nice story Nick