Dick Crownover This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. York Dispatch - Sports

   www.yorkdispatch.com/sports/ci - [Cached]

   Published on: 1/9/2006   Last Visited: 1/10/2006

   Past Miscellaneous: The generation of race fans who followed the sprint-car circuit at Williams Grove, Selinsgrove and Penn National during the 1970s will always remember the golden tones of this year's Past Miscellaneous inductee, Dick Crownover.
   
   A race fan from early childhood, Crownover was working as a radio disc jockey when he began meeting promoter Jack Gunn to "carry" reel-to-reel tapes of racing action to his radio station for play during the week. In 1969, Gunn called to ask Crownover if he'd like to become a race announcer at Selinsgrove.
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   Crownover was there during that whole time, and stayed on a few years longer.

2. 2. Auto Locator Racing.com  This, That and the other...

   www.autolocatorracing.com/arti - [Cached]

   Published on: 4/30/2004   Last Visited: 11/5/2007

   FORMER TRACK ANNOUNCER Dick Crownover of Williamsport will return to Selinsgrove Speedway on May 2 for the 3rd Annual Middleswarth Potato Chips Jan Opperman Memorial as part of the Susquehanna Valley 410 Sprint Series. Crownover retired as the voice of Selinsgrove Speedway in 1983 after 13 years behind the microphone. He will share memories of his days on the public address system while Opperman was blistering the track with the crowd when he returns on May 2.

3. 3. Sports: Friday, June 7, 2002

   www.dailyitem.com/sports.htm - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/7/2002   Last Visited: 6/7/2002

   SELINSGROVE - Jan Opperman didn't make a favorable first impression on Dick Crownover.
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   Former Selinsgrove Speedway announcer Dick Crownover, standing in victory lane Sunday night during the inaugural Jan Opperman Memorial, has plenty of great memories of the late sprint car driver.
   
   "I thought he was weird," said Crownover, who was the public address announcer at both Selinsgrove and Williams Grove speedways during Opperman's Central Pennsylvania reign in the early 1970s.
   
   "But that was because I didn't know him personally," Crownover said. "To look at him, he was really different, with his long hair and his outgoing, flamboyant style."
   
   In those days, most in the area had only seen hippies on television.
   
   "He was the first to move here. All the race car drivers had buzz cuts, so he really stood out," Crownover said.
   
   Crownover, who made his first visit to the Selinsgrove Speedway in 20 years to take part in Sunday's inaugural Jan Opperman Memorial race, said it didn't take him long to take a liking to the visitor from California.
   
   "Once I got to know him, I became a very good friend of his," Crownover said.
   
   Crownover, of South Williamsport, said, "He was friendly, he would talk to anybody. He took the time to talk to the fans. The other racers didn't do that."
   
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   He wasn't a bit bashful," Crownover said. "But when he got in a race car, that was even more spectacular. He drove like a demon."
   
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   Crownover, who learned about Sunday's program through articles in The Daily Item saved for him by his brother-in-law, Robert Plank of Middleburg, gave several old Selinsgrove Speedway programs to track officials Sunday night.
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   Crownover, 62, doesn't need the programs. He's got plenty of memories.
   
   He recalled a night when he was driving to Williams Grove to announce the races and was stopped at a traffic light in Mechanicsburg.
   
   "My car started to move through the intersection. Someone was pushing me. I looked back and all I saw was a wall of wood," he recalled. "I had a little Saab and that's all I could see."
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   Unbeknownst to Crownover, it was Opperman behind that wall of wood, driving a push truck towing his race car, the No. 99 owned by Selinsgrove's Luke Bogar Jr.
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   When I got it into gear and looked back again, I saw Jan laughing his head off," Crownover recalled.
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   He stayed with them and he beat them," Crownover said.
   
   "I know a lot of guys who were also-rans who never even won a heat race at Williams Grove or Selinsgrove who would go to New York and win races."
   
   Crownover, who announced for the late promoter Jack Gunn at Selinsgrove from 1968 to 1982, and at Williams Grove from 1972 to 1982 (as well as four years at the former Penn National Raceway), once asked Opperman how he knew when a car was really hooked up.
   
   "He told me ‘if I can sing ‘Hello Dolly' and the rhythm of the race car matches up with the rhythm of that song, I know I'm going to win the race,' " Crownover recalled.
   
   "He had that particular talent that he could converse with the mechanics and tell them what the car was doing. He knew the cars very well and he had been in a wide variety of race cars. Most of the guys locally didn't race all over the country like him."
   
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   However, when Crownover visited a dying Gunn in a Carlisle hospital in 1980, the former announcer learned that Opperman's preaching hadn't been in vain.
   
   "I had the awesome privilege of leading Jack Gunn to the Lord on his death bed, partially because of the time Jan had talked to him," Crownover said.
   
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   Crownover also recalled being a regular visitor of Opperman's when the latter, while living in Beavertown, was a patient in a Williamsport hospital receiving physical therapy after the racing injuries.
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   Opperman wasn't eating well and Crownover knew that one of his favorite treats was a chocolate milkshake.
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   Crownover began taking Opperman a chocolate shake every day.
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   "He really appreciated that and the fact that someone was coming to visit him," Crownover said.
   
   Crownover once asked him, "Aren't you getting itchy lying on your back" and Opperman replied ‘There is one advantage to lying on your back - you can only look up.'
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   "That kind of stuck," Crownover said.
   
   Not a bad sentiment from that weirdo he first met 30 years ago.
   
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