1996-97 USAC SPRINT CHAMPION CAR OWNER CONTOS PASSES
By: Richie Murray – USAC Media
Anderson, Indiana………Two-time USAC National Sprint Car champion car owner Larry Contos passed away Sunday night, September 23, 2018. He was 77 years old.
Contos fielded the car that Brian Tyler drove to back-to-back national championships during the 1996 and 1997 seasons. In 1996, the association between the two became the most recent team to win the USAC National Sprint Car title without scoring a single win.
The following year, in 1997, Contos and Tyler paired up for four victories, including once at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway, Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway twice and once more at an ESPN-nationally televised race at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.
In fact, Contos and Tyler each earned their first career victories with USAC together on a live ESPN broadcast of a USAC Sprint Car race at Louisville Motor Speedway in Kentucky in 1995.
In 1998, Jason McCord scored his first career USAC National Sprint Car feature victory in their hometown track of Anderson (Ind.) Speedway. McCord and Contos teamed up for additional victories with the series in 1999 at Hawkeye Downs Speedway in Cedar Rapids, Ia., at Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Ind. In 2001, twice at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 2002 and at Virginia’s Richmond International Raceway in 2004. Shane Cottle scored for Contos in his 12th and final series win in 2008 at Gas City (Ind.) I-69 Speedway.
In what seemed to be a trend for Contos, he continued putting drivers into USAC victory lane for the first time. Along with Tyler and McCord in the Sprint Car division, McCord made a last-lap, last-corner pass to capture his first USAC Silver Crown win at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 2003 while Cottle got the job done in a 2007 Silver Crown 100-miler at the Du Quoin (Ill.) State Fairgrounds.
Contos was the longtime President of Pay Less Super Markets, a chain of grocery stores in northern Indiana, whose distinctive logo adorned his No. 4 and 4c racecars with an apple on the tail tank. Instrumental in the community, Pay Less is also a longtime sponsor of the Little 500 Sprint Car race at Anderson Speedway, where, as a car owner, he won twice with Cottle in 2008 and Tyler in 2012.
USAC extends its condolences to Larry’s family and friends.
