Dave Sloyer passes away - Road Atlanta founder

[bobpink]

Dave Sloyer, one of the founders of Road Atlanta passed away on Monday after a long illness.

http://roadatlanta.com/nws_09-Dave-Sloyer.lasso

Back in 2000 I had a desire to meet the founders of Road Atlanta since I raced there and was involved with the ARRC. I expressed this off-hand to a co-worker and he replied that he was a friend of Dave's and that he could get me in touch with him. An instant bit of synchronicity right there.

As a result, through the efforts of myself and Beth Wyse, who was handling PR at Road Atlanta at the time, we were able to get Dave to agree to be the Grand Marshal for the 2000 ARRC. We also got Earl Walker to visit as well. It was the first time either of them had been back to Road Atlanta since they lost ownership of the track. It was great to see many long time Atlanta Region SCCA members welcome Dave back to Road Atlanta and see various racers that ARRC weekend thank Dave for building the track.

Also at this time, nowhere in the archives of Road Atlanta did it mention anything about Dave Sloyer and Earl Walker as the founders of the track. Through Beth's efforts this was rectified and is now part of the written history of the track.

I wrote up a short history of the track for the ARRC program that year and if I can find it, I will see about posting it here for everyone to check out. Gainesville was not the first location of the track.

Dave Sloyer also founded Sarchi Foods in Gainesville and sold some really good Salsa.

One simple comment was able to do a lot of neat things.

Godspeed Dave and glad I had the chance to make the acquaintance.