Core team member, early off-road racing veteran and Colorado Motor Sports Hall of Famer Bill Rice died on Thursday, 12/29/2011 in a snowmobiling accident in Wyoming. If you trace the Strobel Motorsports off-road racing history Bill Rice along with Dwight Strobel were the original team pioneers to begin racing off-road races in Mexico in the early 70’s. Our team owes a great deal to Bill and he will be greatly missed.Bill Rice was inducted into the Colorado Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2009 as a result of his many and varied contributions to racing. He not only raced Class 1 buggies in the Baja 500 and Baja 1000 beginning in 1972, but he was also extremely successful in the top AA fuel class of professional drag racing.
In 1965, Bill teamed up with Pete Dudden to field a Mark Williams front engine AA fuel dragster with a Ron Bement body and a super-charged 354 cubic inch Chrysler Hemi and ran the car at Continental Divide Raceway, Rocky Mountain Dragway, and Thunder Road Dragway in Colorado. It was one of the first cars Colorado to go over 200 miles per hour in less than 8 seconds. In 1967 and 1968, the team of Rice-Williams set NHRA’s Division Five on fire. They had two new dragsters, one driven by Roger stark and the other by Hall of Famer Mark Williams. Mark won over 90% of his races in ‘68 and set a Colorado land speed record of 231 miles per hour in 7 seconds. Other drivers for Rice included another Hall of Famer, Alan Bockla. As for the reason for their success in 1958 they all said, “We’ve got Bill Rice.” From 1972 – 1975 he teamed up with Pete Colvin in a single-seat Class 1 desert racing VW. In 1980 Frazier and Rice became only the third drag racing team to travel on a national level. They competed in 33 NHRA races as well as races with other sanctioning organizations. A number of top drag race champions were associated with Frazier and Rice in 1980 and 1981.
In 1986 Rice successfully raced in the Colorado off-road racing series and in 1987 he also raced in the famed old Riverside off-road race course in southern California. In 1988 he joined with his son Danny and began racing single-seat off road buggies again in the Mickey Thompson Entertainment Group (MTEG) stadium racing series. With Danny in the driver’s seat the duo won races in the Los Angeles coliseum, Anaheim, Las Vegas, Denver, Seattle and Montreal stadiums from 1988 to 2002 and were among the points leaders in the MTEG series for 3 seasons.
From the late 70’s and throughout the remainder of his life Bill often joined with the Strobel Motorsports team pitting for races and pre-running sessions. Bill contributed his mechanical skills and deep off-road racing knowledge to help the Strobel team progress throughout the team’s evolution from early Class 10 buggies to now campaigning in the premier unlimited Trophy Truck class.
Linked is a slideshow of pictures of Bill throughout the years. Thanks so much - Vaya Con Dios Bill.
