Longtime Sun Journal sports writer Phil Whipple will be honored this fall by one of the Northeast’s top auto racing entities.
The New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame announced Thursday that Whipple, who has been with the Sun Journal for more than 15 years as a sports clerk and a staff writer, has been named the co-recipient of its annual Mitchell-Ratta Media Award.
Whipple shares the honor with fellow Vermont native Richard “Big” Bigelow.
Both men will be honored at the NEAR Hall of Fame induction ceremony on Sunday, Nov. 13, in South Windsor, Conn.
The co-winners originally hail from the same town in Vermont — St. Johnsbury —but the paths that led them to document the local stock car racing scene were vastly different.
Whipple was introduced to the sport at 18 years old, sitting in the grandstands with his father for the 1979 Oxford 250 at Oxford Plains Speedway.
From that day, he said, he was “totally hooked.” He followed the sport locally for the next dozen years as a fan before he started penning “Vermont Vibrations,” a column for the Speedway Scene trade paper in 1992.
Whipple spent several years as a public relations consultant for teams competing in the NASCAR Busch North Series in the early 1990s before getting back into journalism. After relocating to Maine in 1995, his work began to appear in Trackside Magazine, New England Racing, and Busch North Scene. He joined the staff of the Sun Journal in 2000, where he continues to cover motorsports extensively in and around the Pine Tree State, most notably at Oxford Plains Speedway.
Bigelow was born into a racing family and cheered on his father, driver Jerry Bigelow, before beginning to drive himself.
After several years and a handful of wins behind the wheel, Bigelow’s foray into media began with guest appearances on local racing radio programs in 1996. He started writing his popular “Strap In!” column for his hometown Caledonian Record in April 1998, running 52 weeks a year. Since his writing debut 18 years ago, Bigelow estimates that more than some 900-plus weeks since his hire date he has only missed “maybe five or six” columns.
The Mitchell-Ratta Media Award is given each year by NEAR in memory of highly respected motorsports writers Charlie Mitchell of the Norwalk (Connecticut) Hour and Jack Ratta of the Manchester (New Hampshire) Union Leader.
NEAR will induct 12 members into its Hall of Fame on Nov. 13: drivers Ricky Craven, Randy LaJoie, Jerry Marquis, Ken Bouchard, Nokie Fornoro, George “Moose” Hewitt, Dwight Jarvis and Fred Meeker; broadcaster Jack Arute Jr.; the multi-faceted John Burgess; and brothers Francis and Freelan Stanley, inventors of the “Stanley Steamer” automobile and former land speed record holders.
The NEAR Hall of Fame awards dinner will be held at Maneeley’s Banquet Hall in South Windsor, Connecticut.
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