DirtonDirt.com exclusive
Berck, Boen lead Hall of Fame's Class of '25
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
C.L. Pritchett in 1978. (Mike Hill)
ROSSBURG, Ohio — The two winningest drivers in National Championship Racing Association history, one of WISSOTA’s early champions and standouts from Iowa and Georgia are set to join the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame in the Class of 2025.
Kyle Berck of Marquette, Neb., Kelly Boen of Henderson, Colo., Lance Matthees of Winona, Minn., along with Fred Horn of Marion, Iowa, and the late C.L. Pritchett of Baldwin, Ga., were revealed Saturday along with three contributors at Eldora Speedway during the 44th annual General Tire Dirt Track World Championship presented by ARP. | Slideshow
Contributors elected by Hall of Fame voters are former Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series announcer Roby Helm, the track- and race-promoting Izzo family from Illinois and Don Schoenfeld, who founded Van Buren, Ark.’s Schoenfeld Headers more than 50 years ago.
Three others also receiving Hall of Fame honors include veteran series official and promoter Kelley Carlton of Woodruff, S.C., and former World Racing Group president Tom Deery of Ormond Beach, Fla., will receive Lifetime Achievement Awards and veteran promoter Carl Short, founder of the Hillbilly 100 and DTWC, will receive the Baltes-Memmer Award.
The Class of 2025, elected by a 75-member committee and set to join more than 200 drivers and contributors enshrined since 2001, will be inducted Aug. 9 during the Sunoco Race Fuels North-South 100 weekend at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky. A closer look at the Class of 2025 (listed alphabetically):
Drivers
Kyle Berck, Marquette, Neb.: A 15-time regional touring champion among five series, at least half of Berck’s more than 350 victories have come in series events, including a 2004 Northern Xtreme victory at East Bay Raceway Park during Florida Speedweeks. The 55-year-old, fifth-generation grain farmer owns seven Malvern West Late Model Series titles (99 series victories), three National Championship Racing titles (30 victories), two Topless Outlaw Racing Association titles (16 victories), two World Dirt Racing League titles (18 victories) and an O’Reilly All-Star Tour title (four victories). He also owns 16 Lucas Oil Midwest LateModel Racing Association victories. Over 40 years of racing, Berck also owns 16 track titles, capturing the 1996 IMCA weekly championship and two NASCAR Regional titles. He’s the all-time winningest driver on the TORA and Malvern West circuits and second with NCRA and WDRL. While 2005 was a rare season without a championship, he captured $6,000 Nebraska Late Model Nationals in Doniphan, Neb., and was runner-up in the Yankee Dirt Track Classic.
Kelly Boen, Henderson, Colo.: The Rocky Mountain State’s all-time winningest touring Dirt Late Model winner, the long-traveling racer was a nine-time touring champion and grabbed victories on more than a half-dozen tours, including the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series for a 2008 victory at the Belleville (Kan.) High Banks. The excitable, daring driver who often wheeled through the pits on his bicycle was the Western Dirt Racing Association champion four times (2002-05) and the National Championship Racing Association five times (2005-08, ’10). The owner-operator of RoadRunner Fabrication was NCRA’s all-time winningest driver with 59 victories and racked up 20 Lucas Oil Midwest LateModel Racing Association victories, 17 WDRA victories, 15 Colorado Late Model Association victories and 13 Topless Outlaw Racing Association victories. He also scored victories with Southern United Professional Racing and the Comp Cams Super Dirt Series. Among other special event victories was the 1999 Duel in the Desert at Las Vegas (Nev.) Speedway and the 2002 Nebraska Late Model Nationals in Doniphan, Neb.
Fred Horn, Marion, Iowa: A Hawkeye State star in his prime during the 1970s who piled up more than 250 victories, Horn was the 1979 Yankee Dirt Track Classic winner at Hawkeye Downs Speedway, a multitime special event winner at the half-mile Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines and 1980 National Speedway Contest Association winner at Oskaloosa’s Southern Iowa Speedway. The driver of the No. 01 came from a lap down to win 1972’s IMCA Iowa State Fair 300 and the next season was awarded the Iowa State Fair 200 victory after Mike Derr was tagged for rough driving by IMCA officials on the final lap. Other major victories came at Farley Speedway (1972’s Farley 100 Invitational), the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia (1970) and the Topeka, Kan., fairgrounds (1970). Among his further-flung starts, Horn led 148 laps of 1978’s National 100 at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City but settled for second. He won the 1980 World 100 B-main and rallied to finish fourth at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. Horn won track titles at Farley (1972-73) and Eldon (1977) and finished second to Hall of Famer Ernie Derr in 1969’s IMCA points. His Horn Automotive built the motor Jim Dunn used to win the inaugural DTWC.
Lance Matthees, Winona, Minn.: One of the Upper Midwest’s steadiest and most enduring drivers while heading toward 50 years of competition, the 1986 WISSOTA Late Model champion owns more than 300 victories, including 45 at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis., where he was a two-time track champion. Still racing semi-regularly in his traditional No. 90, Matthees was a two-time champion on the Structural Buildings WISSOTA Challenge Series (2008-09) and has eight WCS victories along with two on the Corn Belt Clash Series, one with the World Dirt Racing League and a career-high $10,000 WISSOTA Rumble Series victory at Gallatin Speedway in Belgrade, Mont., in 2008. His winningest season came in 1984 with 29 victories in 55 starts including a triumph in the Yankee Dirt Track Classic at Hawkeye Downs Speedway in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He also won 1987’s South Dakota State Fair Race and 2002’s Thunderbird Open at Dodge County Speedway in Kasson, Minn., where he was a five-time champ early in his career. Matthees has competed on more than 30 tours and has a best crown jewel finish of fourth in 1995’s USA Nationals at Cedar Lake. He owned and operated Matthees Enterprises most of his career, building race haulers and trailers.
C.L Pritchett, Baldwin, Ga.: Winning more than 900 races from 1967-90 as one of era's top racers in Georgia, he captured second-ever event on the National Dirt Racing Association in 1978. Clarence Landers Pritchett, who died in 2016 of a form of dementia at the age of 73, won the NDRA-sanctioned Reed Cams 100 at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C., the second race in the history of the Robert Smawley-founded national tour. Other major victories came in 1975 at the AMC Patriot 200 in Summerville, S.C., the 1983 Stick Elliott Memorial at Cherokee and the 1984 opener of the five-race Southeastern Winter Nationals at Volusia Speedway in Barberville, Fla. His high-profile car owners included Gerald Voyles, Morris Partain and Wendell Roach. Pritchett was inducted into the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame in 2015 to join his father Swayne, a NASCAR racing pioneer who died from injuries suffered in a racing accident in Jefferson, Ga., in 1948.
Contributors
Roby Helm: The veteran announcer and publicist from Etowah, Tenn., has been the voice of many tracks and series, including the high-profile Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series from 1999-2003 as public relations director on the national circuit. Over a racing-connected career of more than 40 years that started at 171 Speedway in Leesville, La., in 1978 during a stint in the Army, Helm has announced in more than half the United States and more than 200 tracks. Besides announcing and writing press releases for several racetracks in Tennessee, where he moved after announcing at Florida tracks from 1981-92, the 66-year-old Helm also announced for asphalt's Hooters Cup Series, the United Sprint Car Series, Crate Racin' USA and briefly in 2024 for the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series.
Izzo family: The Chicagoland family has been involved in promotions in Illinois and beyond beginning in 1988, initially promoting the Kankakee oval and later the dirt track in La Salle. Tony Izzo Sr., already a Hall of Famer as a driver for his hundreds of Santa Fe Speedway victories and nine track championships, served many years as a promoter with Kerry Izzo with children Tony Jr., Kerrianne and Joe serving in various promotional roles over the years. Tony Izzo Jr. formed Sixteens Promotions and along with promoting La Salle with special events at other tracks in Wisconsin and Iowa, he also owned and operated the MARS Racing Series for three seasons.
Don Schoenfeld: A former Arkansas state champion asphalt stock car racer, in 1974 he founded Schoenfeld Headers in Van Buren, Ark., a business that grew into the world's largest manufacturing of headers for circle track race cars. The 85-year-old Schoenfeld's still family-owned business specializes in exhaust parts for Dirt Late Models along with asphalt Late Models, sprint cars and all types of oval-track racing along with truck and tractor pulling and marine applications.
Editor's note: Additional information provided by Bob Markos of the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame.
Correction: Fixes name of Hawkeye Downs Speedway in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
