Steve Cannon
A post on Facebook by our friend Stan Kalwasinski of Steve Cannon the feature winner on May 18 1979 at the Chicago area Santa Fe Speedway along with his car owner Dick Heerboth in a Volkswagen powered car brought to mind Cannon's story shared when he was inducted into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame.
Stephen "Steve" Cannon from the racing capital of
Danville Illinois scored 21 United States Auto Club (USAC) National midget
series wins during his sixteen-year midget racing career.
Most remarkable is
that Steve matched the win totals of fellow Hall of Fame members Rex Easton and
Jimmy Caruthers in just 219 career starts. Steve was sometimes often too busy
to race - in addition to midget racing, he was also a barber, like his brothers,
ran an insurance agency and was a 29-year member of the Danville Fire
Department.
Steve began racing modified stock cars during the early
nineteen sixties and by 1969 was a strong competitor in ‘Class A’ supermodifieds
at the Williamson County Speedway in Marion Illinois. 1970 found Steve in
competition in a midget with the St. Louis Auto Racing Association (SLARA), and
then in 1971, Steve notched his first and second career USAC midget wins at
Santa Fe Speedway and Quad Cities Speedway in a span of just two days.
After a solid 1973 season in which he notched five USAC
wins, in 1974 Steve started the season with a victory at the Fort Wayne Indiana
Memorial Coliseum and the Indoor championship, then led all USAC Midget racers with
a season-high six wins and a fifth place finish in the USAC National midget points standings.
In 1976 Steve had another sterling season, with three USAC
victories. In two of the most prestigious midget races of 1976, Steve finished as
the runner-up to Gary Bettenhausen in the “Night before the 500” and he followed
Bob Wente across the finish line in the “Hut Hundred” at the Terre Haute Action
Track. Cannon was an adept racer indoors as he won a total of three features at
Fort Wayne and in 1978 he beat a star-studded field to win a 100-lap race
inside the Indiana State Fair Coliseum.
Steve Cannon was one of the most efficient midget racers
ever, as he won nearly 10 percent of his starts and finished on the podium 25%
of the time, an enviable record that earned him National Midget Auto Racing
Hall of Fame membership. Steve sadly passed away on September 17 2015 in his hometown after a long illness.
