Racing pioneer Jay Robideaux remembered fondly

Jay Robideaux, a pioneer of auto racing in the Pacific Northwest and a chief rival of another local racing patriarch, the late Edsol Sneva, died last week at the age of 95.

An Army Air Force veteran of World War II, Robideaux returned to the Inland Northwest and became a machinist, retiring in 1987 from General Machinery Co.

While working with his hands as a machinist was his trade, Robideaux’s passion went round and round.

Robideaux caught the racing bug at an early age, competing as a driver at a variety of tracks across the Northwest. When he wasn’t racing Robideaux served as a crew member and patriarch of the family race team for nearly seven decades.

“(Robideaux) was a lot like my dad,” said Edsol Sneva’s son Blaine. “He worked hard, built and worked on a lot of race cars and taught all of that to his family who’s still out there racing today. He was a good man.”

The Robideaux Racing Team has run in a variety of classes over the years with Jay’s grandson, Justin, leading the current charge behind the wheel of a Northwest Early Stock machine. Often times, Jay Robideaux could be found in the pit area offering the family race team strategies during a Saturday night.

“His sons, family and grandkids really love the sport and my dad talked about the racing back then (where it was a big family affair) including running against guys like Jay,” Sneva noted. “Those fellows (the area’s racing pioneers) are slowly fading away which is a shame.”

A celebration of Robideaux’s life will be held Friday at 2 p.m. at Hennessey Funeral Home.

SCR busy

Spokane County Raceway will be in full force this weekend as all three facilities host events beginning with Friday’s Good Guys Vintage Drags followed by Saturday’s NHRA Summit Series event.

Also on the schedule will be the half-mile oval’s slate of racing Saturday night including the Northwest Super Late Model Series final Inland Northwest appearance of the season. Closing out the weekend will be road course action on Sunday with an open test opportunity for drivers and motorcycle riders.

The drag strip’s feature on Friday is one of its most popular as Nitro Funny Cars and Alcohol Dragsters join the pre-1972 Good Guys classics on the quarter-mile. The event marks one of the few times in a season that nitro-powered Funny Cars and alcohol-blown dragsters make passes at speed on the SCR strip. Running at night, the flames out of the exhaust are a fan’s and photographer’s delight.

Garrett Evans continues to lead the chase for the 2016 Northwest Super Late Model Series championship. If the 60-year old East Wenatchee driver closes out the season strong, the title would mark his third consecutive crown in as many seasons on the series while raising his total number of touring division championships to seven.

Medical Lake’s Braeden Havens, who scored a win in the series’ most recent event, the Idaho 200 held Aug. 6, is in third, 10 points behind Montana’s Ryan Wells.

Road-course test-and-tune sessions are designed to give experienced and inexperienced drivers the chance to bring a street car, motorcycle or high-end racing machine to test the course. With personnel on hand for emergency needs, track cleanup crews ready to sweep just in case, the sessions are built around having fun.

Entry fees for an all-day session are affordable and the merits of taming the SCR facility versus the open-road are well worth the costs.