A Rockford Speedway Race Car #77 Left Behind at a Closed Auto Shop

I don’t say the name of the racer or the shop, on purpose. It keeps people from stealing from the place or tearing it up. What I can say is that this old auto body shop has a race car sitting out back, a #77 that was once used in a 1991 Rockford Speedway race.

My grandfather recognized the driver from the track he used to race on. I couldn’t locate any footage of the car. I only found a single photo of him online, and I don’t know what happened to the owner or whether he is still alive.

What we found

The shop itself is well boarded up, so there was no way inside. Out back the yard tells the story. There is a mound of tires, and a trailer where I thought I heard noises, but when I went to check it was empty.

The owner pretty much stored his vehicles at the back of the property. There are a couple of cars, and a truck with another truck on it. One trailer had the city of Rockford on it. One truck was used as a kind of tow truck, and he had another little trailer nearby.

I thought the Ford was really cool, with a Snap-on sticker on it and the windows blown out. Oddly, he had a tire chained to the front of it, which I thought was strange.

Then the race car. I like that number 77. The sponsors are still on it, including Celebrate Life Donate Blood and Pro Shocks, and a lot of others. On the hood is a little Elmo toy, which I corrected to Big Bird.

Next to it is Big Al, the tow truck, and the side of it has completely rotted out. There are vines growing through it, all dead now, but I bet it looks really pretty in the summer with all the greenery. Bees like it too.

The 77 is also painted up top. In a separate room, with the door in the way, there were chairs, some tires, and what looked like part of an engine. I also saw a Chevy hubcap and the hood of an older truck. Not too much else.

The shop still has a full service sign. It looks like somebody tried to open the garage. There was a tiny window opening, and through it the shop looked absolutely full. The door itself was locked.

The track behind the car

The car is tied to a place that has also closed. Rockford Speedway ran for 76 years. The Deery family bought an interest in it in 1959 and had sole ownership by 1967, and its general manager said the surrounding area had turned into a retail corridor. In February 2023 the track announced that the 2023 season would be its last, with the roughly 50 acre property moving to a developer for commercial use. Racing ended that October.

So the track my grandfather watched races on is gone too. The shop is still there, with the tow truck, the tires and the #77 in the back.