RockCrawler.com The Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame Announces the 2014 Class of Inductees

RockCrawler.com · Jun 20, 2014

Reno, Nev. (May 19, 2013) – The Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame (ORMHOF) announced today the 2014 Class of Inductees. Del Albright, David Ashley, Marty Fiolka, the late Nye Frank, and Bill Sanders will have their names added to the venerable list of those who have committed their lives to the off-road community.

The five Inductees’ widespread accomplishments cover a number of arenas in the sport including off-road racing, and acting as pioneers of the industry, journalism and advocacy. Their legacies will be celebrated and displayed for the public, in Gallery Four within the famed National Automobile Museum – the Harrah Collection – located in Reno, Nev. They join names synonymous with the sport including Parnelli Jones, Malcolm Smith, Rob MacCachren, Larry Roeseler, Walker Evans, and Rod Hall, as well as many others who have worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make the sport prosper and grow.

The Induction Class was chosen by an eighteen-member voting panel on the basis of significant contribution to off-road motorsports- beyond wins and sport affiliation.

All nominees must have at least fifteen years of experience and involvement, as well as have built, designed, driven, maintained, owned, prepared, piloted, promoted, or ridden an off-road vehicle or supported the off-road industry. They are characterized by their desire to win, the mastery of their field, and their courage to innovate. Each Inductee has made a significant contribution to off-road motorsports in at least one of the following aspects: Business, History, Design, Engineering, Prestige of the Sport, and/or Growth of the Sport.

This year’s Induction Ceremonies will introduce a new venue, as the Inductees will be honored Sunday, November 2, 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada at the South Point Hotel and Casino. For further information, visit the ORMHOF website: www.ormhof.org or email at info@ormhof.org.

BIOS:

Del Albright has shared 33 years of wisdom, knowledge of leadership, and supervision to help keep public lands open to the public. He has spent time working on trails, attending meetings, writing letters, joining and starting organizations, and meeting with legislators to effectively save access to public lands. While he is known for doing all of these things, in addition to being the ambassador for the Blue Ribbon Coalition, his most significant contribution to off-road motorsports sets him apart from others in land-use: educating and mentoring the OHV community. His extensive background in leadership, supervision, and management has allowed him to mentor many other land-use advocates through Recreational Leadership Training courses and Volunteer Leader and Land Stewardship classes. Del has also mentored smaller groups, such as 4×4 clubs, as well as “Friends of” organizations that have modeled themselves after the Friends of the Rubicon, which Del was a principal founder of many years ago.

David Ashley has been engaged in off-road motorsports for 43 years. He has successfully raced motorcycles, buggies, off-road trucks, and stadium vehicles. His career started as a young man, when he won a gold medal for the United States (and his Yamaha sponsor), in the Six Day Trials in Austria. At age 18, Dave was involved in a tragic head-on collision that ended in a fatality. This accident inspired Dave to vow to make off-road racing a safer sport. In his pursuit of safety, he chaired the drivers’ safety meetings for many of his races, as well as worked with race promoters to avoid hidden hazards. He also worked with many less experienced drivers, sharing techniques to avoid problems. Dave took his passion for safety to vehicle manufacturers and, for the last 22 years, he has worked with the transmission, safety, engine, chassis development, motorsports and special vehicle teams (SVT) of Ford Motor Company, as a consultant in their testing, research, and development efforts. Dave’s current assignments include: test driving for the Safety Rollover Airbag Sensor team, building the Raptor Race Vehicle for international competition, and working for Roush, as the manager for Ford Off-Road Track Safety.

Marty Fiolka’ s involvement in off-road motorsports demonstrates a broad reach with his ability to intermix public relations, marketing, journalism, broadcasting and other expertise into one effective representation for the off-road industry. Marty is well known for his ability to perform extensive research, publishing his first book “1000 Miles to Glory”, and writing countless articles for Dirt Sports magazine. He was also the Associate Producer for the movie Dust to Glory and now Executive Producer for the Baja Social Club. He has been instrumental in preserving the history of the sport, in many areas like organizing a parade of historic race vehicles from Tijuana to Ensenada as part of the 40th Anniversary of the Baja 1000; helping to re-launch the legendary Meyers Manx, and supporting Mr. Meyers to race his final race in 2014; and growing the new NORRA vintage rally movement. Marty continues to build an off-road motorsports legacy, with a number of ongoing projects that will further document and celebrate the sport.

Nye Frank’s successful career as a designer and car builder proved that he had a unique and comprehensive understanding of performance-from conception to completion- of not only vehicle development, but also the planning and strategy needed to win races. His work with shock absorbers in the 80’s was far ahead of its time. He is best known for his innovative use of air shocks with the Mazda program in MTEG (Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group) and later with Rob MacCachren in SODA and CORR. Many of the concepts Nye created have now been adopted by the industry, such as his approach to suspension tuning and the relationship between springs and shocks to form a complete suspension. He also designed and built a Pro4 truck for MacCachren with an unheard of and unconventional four corner air-shock system; the team was so dominating that CORR outlawed the suspension, after MacCachren’ s team captured three consecutive Borg Warner trophies and several season championships. Nye was drawn to off-road racing because of the lack of overbearing rules that suffocate many forms of traditional racing. He led the way in new concepts in all aspects of the sport.

Bill Sanders was one of the original editors of Four Wheeler Magazine; he lifted the sport from obscurity to the public recognition, by faithfully covering nearly every off-road race of significance from Baja to Las Vegas. When it came to the building of the industry, Bill and Four Wheeler offered story after story on manufacturers struggling to gain recognition. He worked on the human interest aspect as well, by doing feature articles on the drivers who engaged in the major races, and promoting many who are now fellow ORMHOF Inductees. Besides being involved with the monthly magazine, Sanders took time to become a real off-road racer. He was able to find help to build a Toyota FJ, which he ran in the 1973 Mexican 1000 resulting in a Class 3 victory; it was the first Toyota vehicle to win in the Baja. Bill helped to grow off-road motorsports into a sport with worldwide recognition during the early years of off-road racing, and provided a place for those who were also supporting the sport to showcase their work.

For further information on the Induction Ceremony or ORMHOF, contact: Shelby Hall at shall@ormhof.org.

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