The Godfather of New England Stock Car Racing

Book excerpt: This book is dedicated to the man whose life inspired me to tell his story. His name is D. Anthony Venditti, widely known as the Godfather of Stock Car Racing in New England. It is also dedicated to my mother, with her eternal love and devoted support of her beloved Anthony, her family, and racing. She and the Godfather enabled and empowered our family to persevere in the sport. This is to all those with unending convictions in the Godfather and to the Seekonk Fraternity of racing. This book is a pictorial and a closer look at the life of the Godfather. He was the youngest promoter in motor sports in the United States in the 1940s. And as a twenty-five-year-old, he planned, engineered, and built his speedway. He was young and full of ambition. It was his dream, an American dream, to build, open, and operate his speedway at the end of World War II, in 1946. Yet when in his advanced years, he then became known as the oldest living promoter in stock car racing. He consecutively ran his race plant each year, faithfully opening his facility, without fail. He never missed a season under his reign—an unheard-of feat of forty-five years as a stock car racing promoter. Seekonk Speedway continues to run without any ambiguity by the same family. The speedway is proudly still in business all these seventy-three consecutive years of racing in the books. Anthony is celebrated and acclaimed for his pioneering in the American sport of auto racing, awarded RPM’s “1978 Promoter of the Year.” It was with great adoration of the sports community that he is acknowledged for his forethought and far-reaching ideas of innovation pertaining to mechanical engineering, safety features in facility construction, and administrative procedures. Mr. Venditti is attributed to numerous awards for his devotion for the betterment of the sport of auto racing.