7/5/2024
Fonda Speedway
JEFF TROMBLEY, STEVE BUREGA, TIM HEALEY, DENNY & DEBBIE TILISON, AND JIM ELLIS TO BE INDUCTED INTO THE FONDA SPEEDWAY HALL OF FAME
By: Ron Szczerba
Fonda, NY – This Saturday, July 6 Jeff Trombley, Steve Burega, Tim Healey, Denny & Debbie Tilison, and Jim Ellis will all be inducted into the prestigious Fonda Speedway Hall of Fame. The ceremony will be held rain or shine at 2:00 p.m. at the Fonda Speedway Hall of Fame & Museum. Royce Gage and Michael Jackson will also be awarded the Bruce Dostal Dedication to the Fonda Speedway Museum awards at the induction ceremony.
JEFF TROMBLEY
Jeff Trombley was a mechanic on the car #63 driven by Tommy Corellis and Kenny Shoemaker when he was young. Jeff started racing in the late 70’s, first in a Go-Kart then in Mini-Stocks where he was associated with Bob Hackel and has a total of eight Mini-Stock feature wins in three years at Albany Saratoga along with a championship in that division there as well back in 1983.
Trombley started racing Modifieds in 1984 with none other than CD Coville as his tutor, his first win at Fonda coming on 4/30/1998 and his last win on 9/19/2014 for a career total of 35, currently placing him 11th on the Fonda Speedway All-Time Modified Win List. He won back to back Track Championships at Fonda back in 2001 and 2002 and also has one career 358-Modified win at Fonda.
After finishing up racing a Modified as a regular campaigner, Trombley got the chance to race Warren Alexson’s Sprint car and he had success in the car, chasing the CRSA 305 Sprint Car circuit where he currently has a career total of 13 victories (two of them coming at the Fonda Speedway) tying him for second on the CRSA Sprint Car All-Time Win List.
Trombley also has the most ever and most consecutive championships in the CRSA with four total and three consecutive titles coming in 2017, 2018, 2019, & 2021 in statistics compiled by Tom Skibinski according to CRSA director Mike Emhof. “Jeff Trombley has been a huge asset to the CRSA Sprint organization,” Emhof said. “He is a true ambassador of the sport and has the credits to go with it in both Sprint Cars & Modifieds.”
TIM HEALEY
Tim Healey is a lifelong Fonda, NY resident and an avid Fonda Speedway race fan. He is a member of the Fonda fire department and was the Fonda Speedway Fire Safety Supervisor from 1991-2003. Tim was responsible for organizing the racetracks first Fire Safety Team who were fully attired in their safety gear during racing events.
Healey gathered many other Fonda Fire Department dedicated fire safety specialists to his Fonda Speedway Fire Safety Team over the years. He worked to improve fire safety equipment over the years with promoters Ralph Compani and Ric Lucia.
DENNY & DEBBIE TILISON
Denny Tilison went to the races with his Grandfather Charlie Townsend when he was just four years old, a track that Mr. Townsend called “The Big Track.” Denny went from being a fan to being a crew member as a young boy for his neighbor Bill Roese. On their first date, Denny took Debbie to the Fonda Speedway, she saw the excitement in his eyes, and it was then that she told him to buy a race car.
Denny told Debbie she didn’t know what that entailed and she admits now that he was right. Denny raced the #63 Street Stock for 15 years going from Street Stocks to Pro Stocks, to Sportsman, and finally a Slingshot. Denny was Track Champion at Utica Rome in the Slingshot division but once his driving career was over he switched over to the officials side of things.
Marty Beberwyk asked Denny to drive the pace car at Fonda when they were in a pinch and needed someone to do it. Following that, Marty asked Denny to become the backstretch flagger at Fonda followed by a stint as the head starter. When Beberwyk left Fonda, Matt DeLorenzo asked Denny to become the race director which was a role that he held for DeLorenzo, Pete Demitraszek, and Brett Deyo at Fonda along with Utica Rome and he currently holds the race director role at Glen Ridge.
Debbie Tillison was selling helium balloons when they had Denny’s race car on display at an event when Marty Beberwyk asked her to be a scorer when Beberwyk and Ric Lucia took over at Fonda. She had never worked at a racetrack before, but she said that she would try it. And the rest is history.
Debbie worked alongside her husband Denny at Fonda in the scoring tower the entire time that Lucia and Beberwyk ran Fonda and when DeLorenzo took over the track as well. She also worked alongside the late Bonnie Dostal at first and then Bryan Davis and admits that those were fun times. Debbie was a hand scorer; she never ran the computer. That was Bryan’s job she said!
Debbie scored at many different racetracks while someone was on vacation or sick, including Lebanon Valley, Afton, Utica Rome, Glen Ridge, and Caroga Creek, among others. She confesses that she scored the World of Outlaw Sprints at Lebanon Valley and what a challenge that was.
Debbie is proud of her husband being inducted into the Fonda Speedway Hall of Fame and that he is very deserving of the honor saying: “he has always been respectful of everyone and always treated everyone with the same fairness and consistency, there was never any favoritism or fighting.”
STEVE BUREGA
When Steve Burega began his racing career at Albany-Saratoga in 1996 in the hobby stock division, he was very successful finishing second in points with six feature wins. In his second year of racing, he ran as a regular at the New Fonda Speedway, was a perfect eight for eight in hobby stock feature wins, was crowned as the first ever hobby stock champion at the New Fonda Speedway and got used to being in victory lane.
Burega started going to the races in the late 60’s with his father and then got involved with Dan Marrone whom he also attended races with. Marrone not only owned race cars for Burega but also for Lou Lazzaro back in the day. Although the records at Fonda regarding the hobby stock, street stock, and pro stock divisions and what years they were run as each division are confusing, the records show that Burega had a total of eight (eight in a row) wins in the Street Stock division in 1997 at Fonda and one Pro Stock victory at Fonda coming on 8/8/1998 according to statistics in the book Fonda.
Steve was the pit steward at Fonda under Ric Lucia and Marty Beberwyk along with Matt DeLorenzo and Pete Demitraszek. He still works at Orange County as the pit steward there to this day.
JIM ELLIS
Jim’s aunt and uncle brought him to the Fonda Speedway as a birthday present at age 10. That was the start of his love for racing. He started at the Leader Herald Newspaper in Gloversville, NY on August 4, 1975 in the composing room. In 1993 he moved to the city desk and then to sports with his first ever racing column coming out in 1994.
When the Daily Gazette in Schenectady bought out the Leader Herald, Jim was the Assistant Sports Editor at that time saying jokingly “I always came out of the ball pen but was never a starting pitcher.” Paul Wager was the Sports Editor and after working with Jim for a total of 17 years had nothing but good things to say about him.
“Jim was great to work with, his dedication and coverage of local racing was second to none,” Wager said recently. “We had the only local live weekly coverage of the Fonda Speedway at the paper and that was all Jim Ellis. He even planned his wedding and honeymoon around it. When the Gazette bought us out Jim & I were the last ones out of the Gloversville, NY office. He was great to work with and awesome at what he did.”
“I always called him the “Mayor” as when he walked down the walkway in front of the grandstands at Fonda he would be recognized by everyone including the announcer who often called out his name,” Wager continued to say. There is nobody more deserving of this Hall of Fame honor than Jim Ellis.”
Submitted By: Brett Deyo