One way to gauge the popularity of Jesse Hockett among sprint car fans was to listen for the cheers in the stands after winning. It’s natural for some fans to turn on a driver who wins week after week - even if their only fault is being fast. If familiarity breeds contempt, then a sprint car driver who is consistently victorious often breeds fans who want to see anyone but him win.
However, that was never the case with Hockett, who was killed Wednesday in an accident at his shop in Warsaw, Missouri. His public relations person Bill Wright points to the fact that even though Hockett picked up his 17th career feature in 19 starts at Double-X Speedway in California, Missouri on Sunday, there was “never a boo” from the crowd.
“You just never see anything like that,” Wright said. “I can’t think of anyone who has won that many in a row and didn’t get at least a smattering of boos.”
Despite having a notoriously hard-charging and aggressive driving style, Hockett was universally respected and liked within the sprint car community. Kevin Gundaker is co-owner of Lake Ozark Speedway, where Hockett won the penultimate race of his career on Saturday night. He said that Hockett was known throughout the racing community as a “class act” who “never made an enemy in the pits as far as I knew.”
“When he was in the pits before a race, he was just the nicest kind you could ever hope to meet,” Gundaker said. “But when he put that helmet on…man, he was something else. You knew that he was going to put on a show every time he was on the track.”
Wright said that part of Hockett’s popularity came from his willingness to drive any sort of car, which harkens back to the day of the original World of Outlaws back in the 1970s.
“He was really like one of the original Outlaws,” Wright said. “I know that people have put that up, that back in the days when the Outlaws ran winged or non-winged depending on the night. He would go anywhere. He’d go one night and race the next afternoon.”
Hockett has preparing for one of his busiest stretches of the season, having announced that he would be competing in five nights of racing including the USAC National Sprint Tony Hulman Classic at the Terre Haute Action Track in Indiana and the ASCS National Steve King Memorial. Wright said that Hockett had also planned to race Friday night at Junction Motor Speedway in McCool, Nebraska but hadn’t announced it so that “fans wouldn’t be upset if he didn’t make it.”
According to Wright, Hockett was electrocuted when he attempted to fix a broken generator in his trailer by himself while using a pair of pliers.
“He was trying to make his bucks last as long as he could,” Wright said. “He was always good at trying to get the most out of his equipment. Everybody thought that he was rich and had all this money, but that wasn’t the case.”
Despite winning 125 feature events through 2009 in his career, Wright said that Hockett was refreshingly free of hubris. He swept all three races he competed in this past weekend, but waited until earlier this week to discuss a press release on his achievements with Wright.
“Most drivers I do press releases for would be calling me up the night after the race saying ‘we need to get this out as quickly as possible’,” Wright said. “Well, he waited three days. He would lap all but a few cars at Double-X Speedway but wouldn’t want to put that in the press release because he didn’t want to show anybody up. He’d been in the other position before and he knew how hard it was.”
Wright said that Hockett had also earned respect in the pits from other drivers for his willingness to help out other drivers in need. Young California sprint car driver Kyle Hirst was living with Hockett’s family this year while competing in the ASCS series and working out of Hockett’s shop. He also had a history of offering his car to drivers who needed a ride, giving a seat recently to drivers like Wayne Johnson and Kyle Larsen.
“That’s just the kind of guy he was,” Wright said. “If somebody needed a part, he’d give it them. On the other hand, he made the most out of what he had.”
In an ironic twist, Hockett was heavily involved in the promotion of the ASCS National Daniel “The Wrench” McMillan Memorial race at Lake Ozark Speedway on June 26, honoring his late crew chief and cousin. McMillan was killed in an automobile accident in July 2006. Gundaker said that the race will be renamed the Daniel McMillan/Jesse Hockett Memorial and that a section of the grandstands will also be renamed in the driver’s memory.
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