Legendary Thunder Road Car Owner, Racing Historian Lloyd Hutchins Passes Away
Barre, VT — Longtime Thunder Road supporter, historian, car owner, and builder Lloyd Hutchins passed away yesterday, January 3, 2024. Hutchins got his start with Thunder Road International Speedbowl while the track was being built in the spring of 1960. He worked alongside Ken Squier and the Cooley Brothers to carve the iconic high banks out of a vast farm at the end of Fisher Road. As the story goes, it was Hutchins who helped place the railroad ties along the frontstretch as the first wall, placing them on the infamous angle that later gave it the Widowmaker moniker.
Lloyd didn’t stop there, partnering with friend Henry Montandon in the fabled purple 76 Ford flathead V-8 coupe. Squier titled Henry ‘The Frozen Logger’ and with Lloyd turning the wrenches, the two found their biggest trip to victory lane in the 1963 Labor Day Classic. After the coupes were fazed out, Lloyd continued his successful Hutchins Roofing Company, a name that has graced every machine of Jason Corliss’ from day one in the Street Stock ranks, as well as the annual Vermont Milk Bowl lap board.
All the while, he worked endlessly to save Vermont racing history. Over the past decades, Lloyd pulled the old rusted, dilapidated coupes out of backwoods and barnyards, restoring them for show and for New England Antique Racers (NEAR) events across the Northeast. A committee member for the NEAR organization, Lloyd worked to preserve our Northeast racing history from all angles and with his restoration efforts became a renowned authority on motors, chassis, and bodies from these by-gone eras.
Lloyd leaves behind wife Nancy, an extended family, and a vast legacy for stock car racing in the State of Vermont. All of us at Thunder Road are deeply saddened by his loss and our thoughts are with Nancy and family.
For more information, contact the Thunder Road offices at (802) 244-6963, media@thunderroadvt.com, or visit www.thunderroadvt.com. You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at @ThunderRoadVT.
Sources: Cale King/Thunder Road Speedbowl PR
(IMG_5011.jpg): Lloyd Hutchins (L) passed away on January 3, 2024, after a lifelong connection to Barre’s Thunder Road from helping build the beloved Speedbowl in 1960 to owning and sponsoring cars and later his capacity as a Vermont racing historian and stewardship of the New England Antique Racers (NEAR). (Alan Ward photo)