Dave Kanners, who partnered with Richard Maskin to campaign the American Motors Hornet X Pro Stock car from 1973 to 1976, died Friday, March 27, after a 4.5-year battle with pancreatic cancer. He is survived by his wife, Sue.

Kanners was one of the drag racing stars to emerge from Detroit’s famed Woodward Avenue generation of competitors who appeared on the scene in the mid-1960s during the peak of the muscle-car craze, and his colleagues included Maskin, multi-national-event Pro Stock winner Wally Booth, 1968 Super Stock Nationals winner and Booth’s engine-building partner Dick Arons, two-time world champion Mike Fons, 1968 Nationals Street Eliminator champion Sam Gianino, and many others.

A memorial gathering for Kanners is tentatively planned for late April. Details will be announced when they are finalized.