UMP title-winning team owner dies
Longtime Dirt Late Model team owner Bill Claycomb, who along with wife Barb barnstormed Midwestern dirt tracks with sons Kevin (driver) and JR (crew member) for 25 years, died Saturday morning after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke. The Vincennes, Ind., resident was 87.
Claycomb (pictured above left) crew-chiefed a successful team that sent Kevin Claycomb into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame in 2019 after a career that included a 1991 UMP (now DIRTcar) weekly championship and major victories at ovals including Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway, Richmond (Ky.) Raceway, Paducah (Ky.) International Raceway and Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Ind., the family’s longtime home track where a 1986 Thrush 100 victory over Billy Moyer set a high standard.
"We have lost the patriarch of the Claycomb family,” the family said in a statement provided to DirtonDirt. The tight-knit, family-focused team, always sponsored by the still thriving Prestige Auto operation that Bill founded in 1978, “schlepped a race car across the nation to too many tracks to mention” from 1979-2004. The family called him “the kindest, yet most simple man.”
The Claycomb family racing tradition originated in 1955 with Bill (crew chief) and brother Dan (driver) winning hundreds of races at dirt tracks and fairgrounds ovals over more than two decades, dominating so much in Olney, Ill., that jealous drivers’ wives at the White Squirrel Speedway concession stand refused to serve the Claycomb youngsters. Another era began when an 18-year-old Kevin got behind the wheel in 1979, winning 16 sportsman races his rookie season before developing into a Dirt Late Model touring standout. He won 1991's UMP title and career events including Brownstown's Kenny Simpson Memorial and Paducah's World 50.
Bill, who developed an intense work ethic as a teenager when his father’s death thrust responsibility upon him, was proud of a hard-working family that saved Monday as “family night” but toiled for long hours in the race shop and automotive shop the rest of the week.
Raising such a family “kinda fulfills one's dreams, I think,” Bill Claycomb said in a 2000 interview. “That don't happen much anymore.”
Besides Barb, his wife of 65 years, and two sons, William Denzil Claycomb is survived by five grandchildren, two stepgrandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Visitation is 10 a.m. Saturday, April 26, at Goodwin-Sievers Funeral Home in Vincennes; the funeral is at 2 p.m. followed by a public graveside service.
Correction: Fixes spelling of Claycomb's middle name; adds arrangements.
