Fred Lorenzen, NASCAR legend from Elmhurst, dies at 89

When he was 12 Fred Lorenzen built a go-kart with a lawnmower engine and whipped around the streets of Elmhurst at speeds up to 30 mph until the cops caught him.

"You can't be driving around here, you're going to get hit," the cops would tell him.

In response, the boy put a bright flag on the end of a rod and affixed it to his go-kart.

"The cops kept chasing him and he kept having fun with it," said Mr. Lorenzen's daughter, Amanda Lorenzen Gardstrom.

The cops ultimately confiscated the little speedster.

"When he was 15 he bought a car for $200 and poured cement in the doors and trunk and started winning demolition derbies at Soldier Field," said his son, Chris Lorenzen.

At 22, he became one of the rare Midwestern drivers on the NASCAR circuit when he ran his first race in 1956. He finished 26th with a broken fuel pump.

After a few years of cutting his teeth, he began winning. He was a handsome guy so he attracted more attention and as word spread. His nicknames included Golden Boy, Fast Freddie, Fearless Freddy and The Elmhurst Express.

In 1963 he became the first NASCAR driver to earn $100,000 in one season after winning six races.

Between 1961 and 1967 he piled up a career total of 26 wins — including a checkered flag at the Daytona 500 in 1965.

“The fans are what make you run, and they were my heroes. They make you go fast,” Lorenzen said in an interview with TNT in 2009. “It was a dream come true. All the work you did all your life, it’s something you can’t describe.”

He retired in 1967, but couldn't stay away. He returned in 1970 for three more years of racing.

Mr. Lorenzen died Dec. 18 at an Oak Brook nursing home after suffering from dementia for more than a decade. He was 89.

“Fred Lorenzen was one of NASCAR’s first true superstars. A fan favorite, he helped NASCAR expand from its original roots,” NASCAR Chairman and CEO Jim France said in an obituary published on the race organization's website.

"Though he was considered by some to be an outsider because of his northern roots, Lorenzen quickly earned the respect of established stock-car racing peers," the obituary stated.

When NASCAR officials called to invite him back as a guest of honor to the 50th anniversary of the Daytona 500 in 2008, Mr. Lorenzen, thinking they'd never go along with it, said that for him to attend he'd need a private jet for transportation to and from the event.

"They sent the jet," his daughter said.

''Outside of Richard Petty, he was the sport's first superstar,'' the late Jim Hunter, who served as NASCAR's vice president of communication and a former sportswriter who covered Lorenzen, told the Sun-Times in 2007. ''He was the Jeff Gordon of his day.

''He was good-looking, single, blond, the women loved him and he could drive like hell. He was a clean-cut, all-American guy.''

''He was from Chicago, and he's racing against southern legends like Curtis Turner, Fireball Roberts, Richard Petty and Cale Yarborough,'' Hunter said. ''And he's beating them.''

Mr. Lorenzen, a humble perfectionist who eschewed partying in favor of an "early to bed, early to the track" ethos, was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2015.

"A number of athletes enjoy the accolades, and then there are others like Fred, who are very polite but didn't need or seek accolades and that's just how Fred was," said Winston Kelley, executive director of the hall of fame.

After racing, Mr. Lorenzen settled in Oak Brook and built a career as a real estate agent.

He was also, his daughter said with a laugh, "a painfully slow driver" even though he always drove luxury cars adorned with license plates reading FL28 (his initials and race car number).

His trophy room didn't mean much to his kids, who thought it a bit strange that the occasional fan would say hello to their dad as he worked in the front yard and be invited inside to check out his memorabilia.

"The Midwest is not big NASCAR land," said his daughter, who added that she once broke her dad's Daytona 500 trophy while playing in his trophy room and he didn't get mad.

"He was a great dad, a very active dad, always going fishing, ice skating, go-karting. Our house was the place to be where everyone would be welcomed like they were his kids," she said.

He always encouraged everyone by saying "The sky's the limit," his son said.

Mr. Lorenzen was born on Dec. 30, 1934, in Elmhurst, to Frederick Sr., an engineer, and Dorothy Kasmark, a professional ballerina.

Mr. Lorenzen, who survived several bad car wrecks, donated his brain to the Concussion Legacy Foundation and Boston University, leaders in the field of researching chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a progressive brain disease that doctors believe is caused by repeated blows to the head.

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Lorenzen is survived by two grandchildren.

Services have been held.