Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I believe Bill Balog was originally from North pole Alaska so we have "The North Pole Nightmare"

Ray Underwood gave the nickname as he has done for so many IRA Drivers.

"Big wheel" Scotty Thiel

"Let r eat" Russ Boreland

and so on.

I tell it like I see it.

Bill moved down from Alaska and spend a couple years in the northwest, I believe Washington, racing a pavement Late Model before moving to Wisconsin where his family was originally from.  He hauled an old Sprint chassis with him and ran it in a 360 race at Cedar Lake which if memory serves me was likely one of his first races in Wisconsin.  I also have photos of Bill in the #4 Coleman car and Ron Wuiff's 1H as he sampled a couple different rides before starting his own team.  I believe he was living somewhere near Eau Claire at the time.  His wife is a veternarian and they relocated across the state to the Milwaukee area after a few years in western Wisconsin.  I'm just going by memory but that is basically the story of how he got here.  We spent a couple hours on the phone years back when I was gathering information for a story about him.  Others followed up with additional articles about him but I think my piece that appeared in Flat Out was one of the first.  I don't recall when the North Pole Nightmare thing first came up but I was spending nights in the infield with ear plugs and have never paid attention to announcer hype.

Great guy, I will be cheering him on this season from the man cave as he tackles the All Star circuit.

Stan Meissner