The Official Site of Area Auto Racing News and Len Sammons Productions Area Auto Racing News
By EARL KRAUSE
Will Cagle, one of the greatest of the Florida-based Modified drivers that invaded the northern dirt and paved tracks of the 1960s into the 80s, has passed away following a fall at his home in Tampa on January 27 and complication that developed afterwards at the hospital. A story in the AARN February 4th edition informed of him being in critical condition.
Will’s wife Barbara, always with him in racing and life during their 67 years of marriage, was by his side along with other members of his family. Barbara was the love of Will’s life, he was also very proud of his children Bill, Cindy and Vicki; grandchildren Chad, Gerry and Richie; and three great grandchildren.
Barbara said that Will had entered the hospital with a head injury after falling, and then complications developed. Will was 86-years-old, but has always been young at heart and active long after he stopped competing.
He has not only won in Modifieds but also with Supermodifieds, Late Models and open-cockpit cars. Barbara, who has consistently kept records on Will’s career, has documented that he has 498 wins going back to the 1950s, between the Northeast, Florida and southern tracks, and recently discovered three more for the total.
In fact, Will Cagle was recognized as one of the “Top 25 Dirt Modified Drivers of the 20th Century” in a Area Auto Racing News poll, with a panel of key journalists who covered racing in that era offering their opinions, in 1999… and was ranked number seven in that esteemed group of racers. Then, in recognition of the 50th year of Area Auto Racing News, he was honored as being one of the overall “Top-10 Race Drivers In the 50-Year History Of Area Auto Racing News.”
And, he has been honored with induction in many racing Halls of Fame in the north and in his native Florida.
Whether in his own, signature No. 24 Modifieds; or in cars fielded by others that had his own “special touch” for handling or under the hood, Will made his living as a professional race driver.
He first came north to race in 1959, towing a Sprint Car that he intended to run on the Pa. region tracks. But his path changed when he began driving the No. 2 Modified fielded by New Jersey’s Lucky Jordan. Barbara recalled that Will “picked up the ride with Lucky after seeing the Modified parked at his house. He stopped in to talk with him, and was offered the ride!”
Cagle immediately gained success with Lucky, initially winning Sportsman (small-block Modified) features at N.J.’s Old Bridge Speedway half-mile paved oval with the No. 2 through 1960. Although he would head back to his Florida home for the winter, the next year and in those to follow Will Cagle traveled north each spring to compete and win through the summer and autumn on the New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York speedways.
While so many of Will’s wins came in his own No. 24s that spanned the coupe and coach era of the 1960s into the modern design cars of the 1980s, he triumphed for top car owners such as Jordan. That included Ken Brenn Sr., whose coupe he drove to victory in an All Star League race at Williams Grove, Pa. When Cagle took his third Eastern States 200 win at Orange County Fair Speedway in 1970 it was in the Modified of Ronnie Theil after Will’s car had been in a wreck earlier in the day. With his own No. 24, Will earned Modified crowns at Orange County from 1966 through 1970. After his retirement as an active race driver, he became OCFS’s General Manager from 1986 through 1997.
Will was champion at Pa.’s Nazareth Speedway (1967, with 40 victories between 1963 and 70) and N.J.’s East Windsor (1967, with 20 wins between 1967 and 70). He won seven times at N.J.’s Flemington Speedway between 1963 and ‘65 before becoming an Orange County regular after a dispute with Flemington’s NASCAR officiating. At N.J.’s Harmony Speedway, Cagle had 22 Modified wins… second all-time at that track, which ran betWill Cagle.tifween 1963 and 1972, behind victory leader Frankie Schneider. He also won in the Modifieds in 1965 at Pa.’s Allentown Fairgrounds.
Becoming primarily a New York State competitor, under the DIRT banner, as the 1970s unfolded, Will Cagle became a champion in the Modifieds six times at Canandaigua (Land of Legends Raceway), took three titles at Weedsport (Cayuga County) and five more at Rolling Wheels to go along with many wins on Glen Donnelly’s tough circuit of that era.
As noted, Will had early success in New Jersey at Old Bridge Speedway… having always been ultra-smooth on asphalt, first in the south as a young driver and then when he came north. In 1966, he won the Modified Race of Champions at Langhorne in the second year that legendary track became a paved mile. And he raced with success in the Modifieds during the early to mid-1960s on the New Jersey hardtop tracks of Atco, Fort Dix (the original New Egypt quarter-mile), Hightstown (quarter-mile that preceded East Windsor on that site) and Vineland’s half-mile. And, along with Langhorne, he competed in Modifieds on the major paved tracks of Daytona, Dover and Trenton.
In the midst of Will Cagle’s great career it almost ended in a freak mishap in August 1985. That’s when his left leg and knee were severely injured in a race at Weedsport when the driveshaft in his Modified broke and came up into the car. He not only recovered, but came back to compete successfully before ultimately leaving the driver seat for a long-term role in track management that along with Orange County included N.Y. ‘s Can-Am and Thunder Alley; and Fla.’s East Bay Speedway.
But Will Cagle never totally “retired” from race driving! He came back to compete in Legend Cars… running in the sedan of Rick Haring during a weekend in 2008 at Pa.’s Big Diamond, Grandview and Lincoln. In July 2010 he raced in the “Legend Car Million” on the inner quarter-mile oval at N.C.’s Charlotte Motor Speedway. There, he drove in the “Masters” division and finished third in the feature in a field of 30 starters.
And, at age 77 in 2016, he drove a TQ Midget fielded by Blu Metz during the Indoor Race at the PPL Center in Allentown, Pa. But more than being back at the wheel of a race car that weekend, Will Cagle was in his element with the fans, many representing multiple generations who had watched him compete over the decades. Indeed, he met and chatted with hundreds of them at that Indoor event, sharing their memories and signing autographs on a special photo card that depicted Will standing alongside his fabled white, fuel-injected No. 24 coupe in the pit area at Nazareth Speedway in the 1960s.
In that “frozen in time” photo stood a man who defined the term “racing professional.”
“Driving a race car was how I supported my family, and it gave me a great life with Barbara and our children,” reflected Will when we spoke over the phone last summer, as to his determination that made him a winner not only on the track but in life. “But to do that, I had to be fully committed to that lifestyle… and Barbara was right there with me at the track and in the shop, with our family.
“I always tried to take care of myself physically, and never smoked or drank… to race like I did I needed to be in perfect health.
“When I raced in the north, I would run three and four nights a week, sometimes in the afternoon and then many miles away at a track at night, along with doing the work on the car at the track or in the shop.
“To be successful, I knew that I had to ‘eat and sleep’ racing. In my way of thinking, there was no other way. It was the racing life.”
