Twin Tier's Billy Van Pelt Headed to Dirt Mod Hall of Fame By Robin Yasinsac-Gillespie That old adage “nice guys finish last” certainly doesn’t hold true for Billy Van Pelt of Westfield, PA, the latest driver headed to the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame. Induction ceremonies will take place on Thursday, July 24 at the Hall of Fame Museum, located on the grounds of Weedsport Speedway in New York. Unlike many in the sport, Van Pelt didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps. “Before I was born my dad tried to race and the car started on fire and he bailed out of it. Then and there, he decided that he was a better mechanic than he was a driver,” Billy recalled. Years later, when eldest son Curt and a neighbor started putting a race car together in the family’s garage, Jim Van Pelt still had his reservations. “He kept an eye on them for a few weeks to see what they were doing,” said Billy. “And they kept at it.” The senior Van Pelt saw the kids were serious and got involved. “Curt and his friend were supposed to take turns operating the car,” Billy related. But Dad had other ideas: “If we’re going to put all this time and money into it, then let’s do it for you,” he told Curt. Starting in Late Models in 1977, Curt’s driving career took off. Touting 10 years of winning results, he was offered a championship-caliber ride and vacated the family car in ’87. Billy—the youngest of four kids, who’d never raced anything but snowmobiles and three-wheelers with the exception of a one-time fling in Curt’s old Late Model—was asked to fill the seat in the Modified. “It was a huge learning curve! In the three-wheelers, you had to run as hard as possible,” explained Van Pelt. “I spun out a lot in my first year—people hated me because I was driving it too hard and spinning out all the time. At Woodhull you can’t run like that—if I had gone to Thunder Mountain, Five Mile Point or Canandaigua I probably would have been all right. But at Woodhull, you have to go slow to go fast.” It didn’t take long for Van Pelt to master Woodhull’s one-third mile bullring across the state line in New York. He completely dominated that place for years. “I had quite a few wins in dad’s car there,” said Van Pelt. “One year, we won 11 in a row. The next year we won the opener so that was 12 in a row. Another year, we missed a show to attend a Formula One event in Montreal—and we still won the championship.” But after a decade in Dad’s car it was over. It had gotten to be too much for Jim Van Pelt, physically and mentally. “Dad was a machinist—we built a lot of our own stuff. He would buy a part and take it to work and on his own time he would copy it,” Van Pelt described. “That’s how we could afford to race for so long. We started with very little and just continued to build it up.” Fortunately for Billy, in came Ted White, who purchased the car and took over the team after Dad’s departure. And the success never stopped. By that time, Curt had stepped away from driving, serving as race director at McKean County Raceway. “I told Curt that we had an extra car—so come and play with us!” said Billy, who enticed his big brother back in the seat. “We had a run on at Woodhull for almost the entire year, finishing first and second—it was a blast! “We had such a great time racing together.” The eldest and youngest Van Pelt brothers shared ample success, despite two totally different styles—on and off the track. “I’ll get in the car and go out there and run it—if it’s not right, I figure out how to drive it differently,” Van Pelt explained. “Curt is meticulous—he can tell you there is a problem in the front end, there is a problem in the rear, we need to do this or that. He helped to build my program up even more—he made us better.” When car owner Ted White bought Woodhull Raceway in 2010 and disbanded the team, Billy was certain his career was over. He was still young, not ready yet for retirement. Luckily, along came Kevin Chilson, who already had a two-car team. He was willing to put Van Pelt behind the wheel of a third car. Between stints with Chilson, he also drove for Grant Hilfiger. “I was so fortunate—I’ve never owned a car and I’ve always had quality rides,” said a grateful Van Pelt. “Dad and I did great together in the beginning; we started a good thing and it just grew from there.” In his 35-year career, Van Pelt racked up 30 championship titles—an incredible 23 at Woodhull, two at Black Rock (now Outlaw), one at Freedom Motorsports Park, and four in the traveling T-3 All-Star Series, where he was the only champion in the tour’s four-year existence. He has 242 confirmed career victories at eight different speedways in New York and Pennsylvania. Unexpectedly, Van Pelt decided to call it a career in August 6th of 2022, following a special $5,500 win at Woodhull, driving for Kevin Chilson. “Kevin told me the Sunday before that at the end of the season we would call it quits,” recalled Van Pelt. “After COVID he really wasn’t coming to the track as much—he was spending all of this money for me to race and he wasn’t really enjoying it anymore. So I told him if I could win the race then we would call it quits. “If I go out on top, then they never beat me,” Billy reasoned. “We went out on top.” But he was not only known for his success behind the wheel—Van Pelt made himself available in the pits and garages, helping a slew of other racers get their setups right. And continues to do so. “When I was racing, I helped everybody because if they were better, that made me better,” was Billy’s thinking. “I didn’t do it for a living, I did it as more of a hobby. “I had to laugh when the Short Track Super Series showed up at Woodhull—I had guys that normally wouldn’t talk to me coming up and asking me questions.” So he’s still around racing. These days, he attends far-flung events with his two brothers, and spends more quality time with wife Susan. And he is currently the race director at Freedom Motorsports Park. “Last year was my first shot at it,” explained Van Pelt. “I agreed to it because it was only eight races—I like that schedule. It’s different and I’m enjoying it.” But he plans to stay out of the race car seat. “I got in a car last year—I was helping a guy out, made some changes on the car and when he came back in he couldn’t tell me what I needed to know,” said Van Pelt, who decided to test the new setup himself—and timed a half-second faster than the regular driver. “On Monday I ended up at the chiropractor. That was my M.O. the last few years I raced: on Monday or Tuesday I would be at the doctor, putting myself back together.” It’s clear to see why Van Pelt is known for being such a good guy—his love for the sport is apparent and he still can’t get enough. How does this new Hall of Famer want to be remembered? He considered his legacy. “That I have a good personality and I was a lot of fun to race with—and a good, clean driver.”
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