Kenyon Has More Than a Prayer Going for Him

Twenty years ago few in motor sports would have believed it possible that Mel Kenyon would be seeking his third win in the 45th annual Turkey Night midget-car race Thursday night at Ascot Park in Gardena.

Nor, would they have thought it possible for Kenyon, 52, to become the biggest midget-car winner in the history of the United States Auto Club with 105 victories.

And for sure they would not believed it possible for this driver and builder of midgets to produce six more national championships to go with the one he had at the time.

But here it is, 1985, and Kenyon is the USAC National midget champion for the seventh time as the season heads into its final race of the year. In addition to his seven championships, he has been the runner-up on seven other occasions in his 23-year career.

The reason for the dim forecasts was a fiery multi-car accident involving Kenyon during and Indy-car race at Langhorne, Pa., in June 1965.

Kenyon was luck to escape that collision with his life, and, as it was, 40% of his left hand was scorched with third-degree burns.

Following the accident, Kenyon was taken to the San Antonio Burn Center, where it was said that his recuperation time would be at least nine months.

Kenyon’s racing career appeared over as doctors kept amputating infected fingers.

In those bleak moments, Kenyon said he and his wife, Marieanne, started to pray, and that changed his whole life around.

“When I turned my life over to the Lord, I turned from a miserable mess to walking out of that place in two weeks,” he said. “The Lord has to take you feet out from under you from time to time, because we spend most of our time looking down rather, than up, thinking about ourselves rather than Him.”

After that, Kenyon said Christianity became the most important part in his life and with it his racing performance improved as he finished fifth in the 1966 Indy 500 and third in 1968 winner Bobby Unser and Dan Gurney.

For the past several years, Kenyon, who lives in Lebanon, Ind., has driven midget-car races only, appearing at about 50 tracks and traveling around 35,000 miles a year nationwide. Kenyon also says he has no thoughts about retiring to concentrate on his car-building business until driving is no longer fun.

He’ll drive one of his own cars in Thursday night’s race that he and his brother, Don, own in a bid to end Ron Shuman’s amazing streak in Turkey night races.

Shuman, 33, has won five of the last six and again will be at the wheel of a Cosworth-powered machine owned by Larry Howard and Ron Weeks. Last year, Shuman started in the front row and led all 100-laps.

Shuman’s dominance began in 1979 and his only loss came in 1983 when he was sidelined on the 86th lap while leading with mechanical trouble. Until Shuman’s streak, no driver had been able to win more than twice since the event began in 1934 at old Gilmore Stadium. Among the two-time winners are Kenyon (1963 and 1975), A.J. Foyt (1960-61), Parnelli Jones (1964 and 1966) and Gary Bettenhausen (1967 and 1970).

Also entered in the race is Rich Vogler, runner-up to Kenyon this season in the national standings, and Sleepy Tripp, a former two-time national champion who just completed winning his second Western Regional midget championship in three years.