Lee Ricker Passing

Old 12-12-2010, 12:32 PM
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Many of you around Tennessee knew Lee Ricker. Lee had been battling throat cancer for years now. Lee was an oval racer through and through and loved the R/C hobby more than anyone I have ever known. Lee began racing R/C cars in the Halls area in parking lots back in the 80's. He raced at Lail Speedway in the 90's. Lee was the driving force behind reopening Lail Speedway and spent every free moment giving oval racers a place to call home after MSA and DR's tracks closed. His list of race wins and track records are too long to begin to list.

Lee moved on to race in a better place yesterday. His family will be receiving friends at Mynatts funeral home in Fountain City, TN. tomorrow night, December 13th, from 6 till 8.

I would like everyone who had the honor of knowing Lee and racing with one of the best to ever put his car on the track to share any stories they may have of Lee on here.

Race on old friend and God's Speed.........
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Old 12-12-2010, 02:51 PM
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I thought a lot of Lee and had been thinking of him just the end of last week. I wish I didn't have to go to Alabama this week for corporate training because I want to go to his funeral. I hope Lee was right with God before he left. He will be truly missed.

One or two stories sticks out about Lee, one is that he bugged me every week to get a 12th scale so I could race him and when I finally did, we raced each other very hard giving each other a hard time. Didn't care about the race, just see who could win between us. We would laugh so hard on the driver's stand we'd have to stop to calm down...good times.

Another, when he got out of this first treatments, he hollered at me to see him when I go to the track, he was wearing a hat and he just had to show me that he had no hair on his head and I told him I wanted to rub it for good luck and we all had a good laugh.

I'm glad I went up to the hospital to see him back then. I kinda lost contact with him the last few years and seen him a couple of times at Lail's and had some good conversations. He's had it pretty hard the past few with is son and such. Hope he is at peace now. I know I will miss him.

Heath Trillingham
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Old 12-29-2010, 01:26 PM
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I'm sorry to here it. Lee was good man, who will be missed by all that knew him, and a magican at setting up a pan car. What I remember about Lee was his ability to take junk and make it fast. The story that stands out for me was when we had the carpet onroad track behind West we hosted the ROAR Reg 3 race many years ago. I was thinking about not even running 1/12 mod because I didn't have a good motor, and my car was not quite right(you can run stock with a less than perfect car...1/12 mod is a little different.) Lee asked me, "what do you got for a motor?" I pulled out whatever piece of junk I had and he took it and said, "give me your car." I had nothing to loose so I said "OK"...I have no idea what he did to it but the short story is my car handled great and was a missle. During the main I a brain fart, crashed, ripped the antenna out of the car and I thought it was game over. Lee grabs the car, quickly fixes the antenna and gets me back on the track. I'm about 3/4 of lap down to Skeen and was having to slowly work my way back. I was geared very high for the main so I was only pulling about 3/4 throttle down the straight the first 6 min. to conserve battery.(the good ol' days) I knew I couldn't just rip on it early or I would have nothing at the end. I was slowly gaining time but it didn't look like it was going to be enough to catch Skeen. I could here Lee talking to someone under the driver's stand saying, "He aint done yet, He's not even pulling on it yet!" "Wait and see, Wait and see". At the 6 minute mark I start easing into more and more. At the 7 minute mark I was ripping on it. The guy talking to Lee was like "holy ^%&*$!" I could feel Lee's satisfaction as he watched his creation starting to take chunks of time. The race ended with a last lap pass to take the win. I looked down and Lee and he was just grinning ear to ear as he picked up my car off the track. I think he was more pumped about the win than I was...............Thank you Lee.
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