SHAV GLICK PASSES
Sun, 2007-10-21 00:42
Long time Los Angeles
Times motorsports writer Shav Glick has passed
away at his home in Southern California.
Friends have confirmed
that Glick’s health had seriously deteriorated in the last few weeks, resulting
in a steady and apparently inexorable decline.
He was
85.
Glick was among NHRA Drag Racing’s best
friends and strongest supporters. Under his leadership Southern California’s largest circulation
daily newspaper regularly covered West Coast national events and other
news. It was
for those reasons, as well as many others, that the Media Center at Auto Club
Raceway in Pomona had been named in his honor years
ago.
Long time Los Angeles
Times motorsports writer Shav Glick has passed
away at his home in Southern California.
Friends have confirmed
that Glick’s health had seriously deteriorated in the last few weeks, resulting
in a steady and apparently inexorable decline.
He was
85.
Glick was among NHRA Drag Racing’s best
friends and strongest supporters. Under his leadership Southern California’s largest circulation
daily newspaper regularly covered West Coast national events and other
news. It was
for those reasons, as well as many others, that the Media Center at Auto Club
Raceway in Pomona had been named in his honor years
ago.
Glick had a long-term personal relationship
with many of NHRA’s leaders, from founder Wally Parks to Tom
Compton. He also
had his buddy John Force on speed dial, a fact that some in the Hill &
Knowlton PR agency, then under contract to NHRA, were
blissfully unaware of. Stories have long circulated about a new media relations employee
calling Glick to tout him on a story involving the then-NHRA president, Dallas
Garder. When
Glick didn’t appear to be taking the bait the employee tried to increase the
pressure, a definite error with the sometimes irascible writer.
He reportedly ended the
conversation by saying, “Anything I need to find out about Dallas and NHRA I’ll
ask him about when we’re playing golf this Friday.”
On yet another occasion
a member of the Media Department got Glick on the phone to urge him to do a
story on what he reportedly termed “a really successful local guy who lives down
in Yorba Linda.” Before the public relations man
could even mention a name Glick reportedly interjected, “If I need anything from
John Force I just dial up his private cell phone
number.”
Glick had retired from the
Times at the beginning of the year, yet when
other sports writers were away on assignment or vacation, staffers regularly
combed the files for one of Glick’s gems to use in their absence.
He covered every type of
stick and ball sport during his career, yet it was his unparalleled love of
motorsports for which he’ll most likely be
remembered.
When NHRA published The Fast Lane: The
History of NHRA Drag Racing and
virtually eliminated the contributions of “Big Daddy” Don Garlits, Glick refused
to let it go unnoticed. He opened his next column with the immortal lines, “Imagine a
history of baseball without Babe Ruth, a history of soccer without Pele, or a
history of basketball without Wilt Chamberlain.
Now imagine a history of
drag racing without Don Garlits.”
The rest of us could only hope to be as
pointedly brilliant.
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