LouieM

From Richard Prince:

Legendary American road racer Dr. Dick Thompson (left in the photo), known to generations of fans as „The Flying Dentist‰, passed away on September 14th from natural causes at the age of 94.

Thompson began racing relatively late in life with no formal training, no engineering background, and no mechanical experience to draw upon, but he did have that innate ability that defines truly great racers. By the time he retired from the sport after 19 years he‚d driven some of the greatest production and sports racing cars ever created, won class or overall wins in many of the world‚s major racing venues, and earned an impressive nine SCCA national championships. Five of those championships were garnered racing Corvettes, the nameplate with which Thompson is most closely associated, and one that he helped save by transforming competition success into a better car and much improved sales figures beginning in 1956. In a bygone era he drove very dangerous race cars on the ragged edge and with great passion, and he lived to tell the tales, but more important, he was a sweet, sweet man and the ultimate gentleman on and off the track.

I was very fortunate to call Dick my friend for more than 20 years and like everyone who knew him, I love him and will miss him very much.

This photo shows Dick Thompson, Mr. Prince, and Dick Guldstrand



Earlier this year I wrote about his career for the newsletter of the Corvette club I belong to and he was nice enough to send me a thank you note after I sent him the newsletter.

ChattanoogaJSB

We should all be so lucky as to have someone write such great things about our character, sounds like a life well lived !

john neas

Two photos of Dick Thompson in my 56 Sebring car at Monterey in 2002.

rfn026

In '99 (I think) I was at Sebring with Dick. They brought out his old Sting Ray from 1960. I asked Dick if he would rather drive that car again or the new C5R that was at the track. In a nanosecond he replied "the silver one".

Richard Newton

colo63sw

So sad to hear about this. Great write up Louie!
Another great one is gone.

RIP

Tom/99

fyreline

Dick was such a huge part of early Corvette history . . . He was greatly respected, and will be greatly missed.

63Corvette

Very sad news. Dick was a GREAT gentleman. I had the honor to meet him at the SVRA race at Mid Ohio in 1986. I was introduced to Dick by my mentor at that time, Leon Hurd, who owned the 1963 Z06 raced by Dr. Thompson. He will be sorely missed

3JsVette

We lost an icon in Corvette racing history.

Kerrmudgeon

and to a life well lived. We should all be so lucky.

Question I've always wondered about.....Did he start the Mickey Thompson tire company or is it just a name coincidence? :

TCracingCA

:flaghalfmas t:

I found him standing around by himself for a moment without a friend to talk to at the 2002 Monterey 50th Anniversary Historics, which I think was just a fuke moment (I am sure). Thus I had a captive audience and talked for a few moments with him, and turned to tell my Father who he was (sad, but no one impresses my Father which is kind of embarrassing), so then I had to double my sincere and appreciated encounter, doubling my happiness to make up for my Father's luke warm interest in such a great chance encounter which such a great guy. I guess it is an old guy thing! If it was a famous good looking lady, then he would have pushed me out of the way! Thus the great Mr. Thompson signed my Event Program, which I think was up to 22 autographs from 21 Corvette guys and Carroll Shelby was the odd one out of the bunch that also signed that program.

Therefore I think we should start a petition to see who has to donate a car for him to be buried in! Let's see we have Corvette Mike, Terry M., Kevin guy and many candidates to choice from that have worthy cars for such a noble guy! Heck that is the way I want to go out, bury me with it!

PS now I have to go find something related to Dick Thompson that no one else remembers or knows about in my collection of Corvette memorabilia.

TCracingCA

And lo and behold, Vintage Racecar Journal magazine (one of the Vintage racing mags actually is running an interview they had with Dick Thompson in their current issue (October 2014) which appears to be available to view online.

sub006

Most of you have seen the 1962 GM film introducing the C2 coupe and convertible using hand-built pre-production pilot cars. Now the Flying Dentist has joined the other two stars, racer Dave MacDonald and Zora Arkus-Duntov in the great beyond...

mark6669

Met him at a NCRS MAC chapter dinner held at the Charlestown WV horse races back in the early 90's, we didn't see many horse races but we heard hours of great GM racing story's. He will be missed by the Corvette and racing community's.
Mark

sub006

Mickey Thompson became nationally known a few years after the unrelated (AFAIK) Dr. Dick.

Mickey was first known internationally as the first man to break 400mph on the ground. As he couldn't make a return run in the allowed one hour, it was not an official Land Speed Record, which Craig Breedlove set two or three years later.

M/T was one tireless racer. inventor, entrepreneur and promoter, creating stadium off-road racing, introducing new ideas in funny cars and being the entrant of the first Sting Ray to win a major road race, Dave MacDonald's black '63 at Riverside, thanks to Bill Krause's Cobra DNFing, as did the other three SWCs.

You will recall that Mickey and Dave teamed up a couple of years later, making sadder history at the 1964 Indianapolis 500.

He did take a white SWC coupe to Bonneville to attempt some class records with his performance rubber, and the Mickey Thompson tire brand is still around for hot rodders. My son runs a pair of his street-legal cheater slicks on his '63 Chevy II "street gasser".