At age 72, Tom Corcoran is still winning features at River Cities Speedway

Sep. 2—GRAND FORKS — Tom Corcoran stood in Victory Lane at River Cities Speedway on Friday night for the first time in six years. He looked at the grandstand. It was the largest crowd of the year with the World of Outlaw sprints in town. They knew what they had just witnessed and showed their approval. Some raised their hands in the air. Others cheered. Another yelled, "One for the old guys!" Lon Kvasager, the race director at River Cities Speedway, crossed the quarter-mile dirt track, handed Corcoran the checkered flag and told him to keep it. This was not your typical feature winner. Corcoran is 72 years old. He's in his 57th year of racing. He no longer has a pit crew. They've been gone for 15 years, but Corcoran is still going in his late model. He's outlasted everyone who was racing when he started in 1970. "Some retired," Corcoran said. "A lot of them are no longer with us." He scaled back his schedule in 2020 and has mulled retiring from racing the last few years. "I don't want to stay in it so long to where I'm not competitive anymore," Corcoran said. "That's probably the biggest thing. I've watched guys in the past overstay. I don't want to be that guy." Corcoran proved on Friday night that he's still got it. He started on the pole and beat out a loaded late model field. Tyler Peterson of Hickson, N.D., who had won every time he's raced in Grand Forks this summer, was present but did not finish the race. Dustin Strand, the dominant driver at the track last season, also was there. Strand was on Corcoran's back bumper for the last 10 laps. "I knew someone had to be close," Corcoran said. "I wasn't positive that it was Dustin. I didn't look at the leaderboard on the backstretch at all." Strand poked his front bumper below Corcoran on Turn 4 a couple times, but couldn't get past him. The high side wasn't an option on the rain-logged track. "I missed my marks a couple of times coming off the corner," Corcoran said. "You've just got to make sure you can hit it going back in." Corcoran got to the checkered flag about a car length ahead of Strand. The crowd roared and Corcoran's competitors marveled at his victory. "Tom's a good friend and knowing how deep Tom's passion for racing goes, Friday's win was much bigger than just winning that race," late model driver Joey Pederson said. "The win represents a man that keeps doing what he has loved to do his whole life, even when the odds of winning (because of his age) are stacked against him. "Winning in a stout field of dirt late models at his age puts Tom among a very small group of people in this county who have accomplished the same. This win was a big deal and I couldn't think of anyone more deserving than Tom." A stream of fans and friends congratulated Corcoran in the pits after the race. "I don't think I got out of there until about 1:30 in the morning," Corcoran said. Text messages flowed in from other drivers and sponsors. Ryan Flaten gave Corcoran perhaps the most interesting stat: Corcoran won features at River Cities Speedway 19,768 days apart. That's more than a half century. "After the race, you're pumped up," Corcoran said. "It takes a day to sit back and reflect on it a bit. It's a big win, not money-wise, but because of the size of the crowd that was there to watch the Outlaw sprint cars, and it was live on Dirt Vision. It's one of those you don't ever forget." Corcoran won his first late model race in July 1974 in Jamestown, N.D. He won his first feature in Grand Forks later that year. Corcoran soon started racking them up. He's won more than 200 features during his career. He last won a feature in June 2020. That one earned him a distinction of winning a feature in six different decades. "To be honest with you," he said, "I didn't know that I'd get another one. I'm sure now that I've got another one, it might be time to bring it to an end here soon. . . I can't think of a better way to go out." Officially, Corcoran will decide on his future later in the fall and during the early winter. "I'm not 100% that I'm absolutely going to pull the plug right now," he said. "It's a lot more difficult at my age than it used to be." Corcoran has a collection of racing memorabilia he's kept over the years. It's a lot. At one point, he gave away about half of his trophies. "I don't keep a lot of stuff anymore," Corcoran said. "But between this trophy and this flag, they will stay in the collection."