Lazzaro the Legend
Utica stock car driver raced ’in the zone’
Originally published May 21, 2000

By RON MOSHIER
Observer-Dispatch

UTICA — It’s a good bet an old-school, stock car racing great like Lou Lazzaro never used the phrase, “in the zone,” to describe how dominant he was in the 1960s and 70s.

But when Pete Lazzaro heard a hot-handed Reggie Miller speak of it on a can’t-miss night when the Indiana guard led the Pacers to an NBA victory, it reminded him of his late father’s winning ways.

“I hear a guy like Dan Marino or Reggie Miller talk about being in the zone because every shot is falling and I think to myself, ‘That describes my father,’” Pete Lazzaro said.

“But my father was in a zone for 20 years. How many people can say that?”
Not many.

Over six decades, in fact, Utica’s Lou Lazzaro dedicated his life to racing, and to winning stock car races.

When he was at his best, there was none better. At his worst, only time passed him by, and only time took its toll.

Nearly a year to the day after recording his 113th career win at Fonda Speedway, just a month after learning he would be inducted into the Greater Utica Sports Hall of Fame on June 4 and only minutes after climbing out of his racecar once more, 65-year-old Lou Lazzaro lost his race against time.

He suffered a stroke at Fonda, slipped into a coma and died May 1, 2000.
Lou Lazzaro, “The Legend,” however, is sure to live on, largely because of the 250-plus career wins and many track championships, but mainly for the indelible mark the man and his legacy left on an ever-growing legion of fans — including many converts who during his heyday, when Lazzaro was in that zone, loudly booed him because they thought he won too often.

That’s how dominant Lazzaro was in 1969, when he won 11 times and finished in the top three in 15 of 16 races at Fonda — so dominant, that many fans turned against him.

“Some people hated him, like they hate Jeff Gordon now,” said Pete, 39, one of Lazzaro’s six children and a crew member for years.

“But I wouldn’t have traded it for the world because I knew they hated him because he was so good.

“I remember sitting in the stands and hearing people say, ‘That’s Lou Lazzaro’s son.’ That made me feel like a king,” Pete said. “He was a hero, he wasn’t our father.”

Besides all of the wins, the unflappable Lazzaro stood the test of time, and then some.

Physically, he returned from a life-threatening intestinal illness that sidelined him for the entire 1984 season, and he came back from quadruple-bypass heart surgery in 1996 to race, and win, again.

There were hardships financially, too, but despite lacking the funds and the horsepower needed to keep up with the changing times and escalating costs of remaining competitive, Lazzaro kept on racing and kept on winning, much to the delight of fans who revered him as a folk hero, a symbol of hope for the blue-collar, common man who perseveres and beats the odds stacking up against him.

“This age stuff,” he would mutter, “I don’t even want to hear about it. I am what I am.”

As far as Lazzaro was concerned, it was the retirement question, not the man, that was getting old.

“I’m sick of it,” he said. “I’ll know when to quit.”

He never did. He couldn’t.

Racing was his life until the day he died.

“He said he wanted to go when he was racing, and that’s what he did,” said Peter “Junior” Bianco, Lazzaro’s life-long friend and longtime crew chief. “He wouldn’t have given up. That wasn’t him. He wanted to be there.”

Lazzaro was the strong silent type, a quiet man with a simple plan and an endearing will to win.

He enjoyed hunting and fishing. He didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He didn’t have a lot of money. He just raced. And his life is an awe-inspiring evolution from a teen-ager drag racing in the streets of Utica to an incomparable legend whose memory will live on forever in the hearts and minds of family, friends and foes.

“He always said, ‘If I quit racing, I’ll die anyways,’” Pete Lazzaro said.

His father grew up on Gilbert Street in East Utica, not far from the old Bennett’s Field race track that helped fuel a need for speed and competition.

He won his first race, a qualifier at the old Columbia Raceway off Route 28 near Richfield Springs, and then years later admitted, “I didn’t know what I was doing, but I liked it.”

With the help of Bianco and Vinny Maugeri, racing quickly became a labor of love for Lazzaro, who went on to win at least one Fonda feature in 20 consecutive seasons, from 1961 to 1980.

“That’s why he’s as good as he is, because he loves what he’s doing,” said Lou Lazzaro Jr., the oldest of his six children, after his father’s induction into Fonda’s Hall of Fame ten years ago.

Longevity wasn’t the only thing that, in the end, made Lazzaro so likeable. It was the way he won races, often dusting the competition with an outdated, underpowered, beaten and battered racecar — a feat he was most proud of later in life — that commanded respect.

It wasn’t easy but Lazzaro, who saw himself as “the little guy” when it came to dollars and cents, said a few years ago, “I feel good about the way I did it.”

At Fonda, he won a race in a track-record 30 different seasons, and he won on both dirt and asphalt surfaces, often using the same car. He was nicknamed “The Monk” and his No. 4 — now retired at Fonda Speedway — with the familiar maroon and white Thomas R. Proctor High School colors, and ever-present dog Blackie were part of the northeast’s stock car racing landscape for years.

He won 10 track titles, four at Fonda and three at Utica-Rome Speedway. He won four New York state championships and he once finished ninth in the Permatex 300 sportsman race at Daytona International Speedway.

In 1990, Lazzaro was inducted into Fonda’s Hall of Fame because track officials figured he’d never retire. In 1993, the Drivers Independent Race Tracks (DIRT) organization changed its rule — the one stating a driver must be out of racing for at least three years — so that Lazzaro could be inducted into the DIRT Motorsports Hall of Fame.

And when he won for the last time on May 15, 1999, the Fonda Speedway faithful showed their appreciation with a loud and lengthy standing ovation.

“That’s what keeps me racing, I guess, making other people happy,” Lazzaro said. “That’s what I like.”

In the end, everybody liked Lou Lazzaro, too. Not because he won stock car races, but for the way he won people over.

The Lazzaro Legacy

• Won an estimated 250-300 races at 24 tracks in four states and Canada, including 113 victories at Fonda (his first on May 20, 1961 and his 113th on May 15, 1999, at age 64).
  
  
• Won 10 track point championships, including four at Fonda (1964, ’69, ’77, ’78), three at Utica-Rome, two at Victoria and one at Albany-Saratoga.
  
  
• Was New York State’s NASCAR point champion once in Sportsman Division (1964) and three times in Modifieds (1969, ’71, ’72).
  
  
• Was only two-time winner of All-Star League title (1968, ’71).
  
  
• Had a streak of 20 straight seasons (1961-80) with at least one win at Fonda, and won at least once at Fonda in a track-record 30 different seasons.
  

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