The usual formula for success as a race driver is a mix of aggression, selfishness, no fear, some ruthlessness, a healthy ego and an unfailing belief that nobody is better. But let me tell you about a guy who didn't fit that template.
He was as clean on the track as he was off it. He always seemed thankful for the opportunity to earn a living as a race driver. He admitted when a car or a track scared him. He respected his competition as well as the people who helped him get going. He was smooth, smart and seldom crashed. He never bragged about his wins or ever ragged about his luck.
To my knowledge, and I lived, raced, dined and laughed with him on and off for 40 years, he was liked by everyone and that's not rare in racing -- it's unheard of.
Most of us became a Larry Rice fan the first time you met him and that perpetual smile and infectious laugh made friends from Williams Grove to Ascot Park all the way to Perth.
He went from a farm boy in Linden, Ind. to USAC champion to rookie of the year at the Indianapolis 500 to the television booth and his demeanor never changed. He was always a prince of a person.
Rice, who died Wednesday in his Brownsburg home of cancer at age 63, packed that pleasant attitude along with his helmet from 1968-91 and it almost masked the fact he excelled as a racer in the rough and tumble midget and sprint circuits of USAC's heydays.
He was the most quiet, unassuming bad ass race driver who ever sat in a car," said Steve Chassey, who battled with Rice all through the 1970s and 1980s. It's almost hard to believe that such a nice guy could capture the 1973 USAC midget title, be a two-time USAC Silver Crown champion (1977-1981) and win 23 times (15 midgets, 5 dirt, 3 sprint) during his career. Make no mistake, Larry's likeable nature vanished when he strapped in and nobody was more focused or any grittier behind the wheel. He was fair and clean but he was tough. Pancho Carter, as fierce and as fast as anybody who ever sat in a sprinter or midget, isn't in the habit of throwing around compliments but always respected his Brownsburg neighbor.
"Larry was a tough competitor, in everything, and I'd rank him right up there with the guys who I thought were tough, (Tom) Bigelow, (Larry) Dickson and (Gary) Bettenhausen," said Carter, a four-time USAC champ in a recent issue of Sprint Car & Midget Magazine. "He was always right there in the top five, no matter what we were running. And he was a good, clean race driver who respected the fact you could get hurt in these things. I think that's one of the reasons we got along so well."
Starting out in his dad's midget (named 'Ol Blue) in the late '60s, Larry quickly caught on and was hooked up with legendary owner Bob Higman's by 1972. They towed and worked on that midget all over the country as Carter clipped them for the USAC title but Rice came back to win the championship in 1973. A Ball State grad, Larry was teaching school in Crawfordsville while learning the ropes of racing and had to make a decision: stay in the real world and be a weekend warrior or try to make it as a professional race driver.
Obviously, he opted for the latter and upon that decision, moved to Indianapolis where he bought a home about a mile east of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. That's where his generous side really surfaced. I rented me one of the bedrooms. Soon to be USAC star Chuck Gurney came back from California and occupied the basement. Indy driver Larry McCoy nested upstairs and aspiring racer Mark Alderson lived in the driveway in his motor home.
Larry The Landlord only had one rule: no working on engines in the basement but his house was always open and sometimes he wasn't even sure who that was sleeping on his floor. When Gurney stepped out with a married woman and was tailed home by her rather large and angry husband, Rice put up signs pointing to Larry's Room, Robin's Room and Chuck's Room so he and I wouldn't get shot.
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