Hall of Famer Marvin Rifchin Passes At Age 94
Marvin Rifchin, owner of the former M&H Tire in Watertown, passed away Tuesday at the age of 94. A grave side service will be held in Sharon, MA at 12:45 p.m. Friday June 5th at the Sharon Memorial Park, (park is located at 50 Beach St.). Marvin, a 1999 inductee into the New England Auto Racers Hall of Fame, started in racing after WWII as the owner of midgets. Later on he got involved in stock cars. His cars raced at many area tracks, including Thompson and Waterford. He won championships at Seekonk and Stafford. The last race car he owned was the #7 pinto bodied modified, driven by Ron Bouchard in the years before Bouchard moved south to become the 1981 Winston Cup Rookie of the Year.
But it was not as a car owner that Marvin is remembered but as a builder of racing tires. It was very difficult to get racing tires for local cars on the 40’s so Marvin formed M&H Tires, and provided all types of racing tires, until closing his doors in 1986.
Marvin recalls that, unlike today, there were no track tires, and M&H or Firestone were the two main choices for early racing tires. With the limited technology of the time, everything was trial and error. He estimates that, between midgets, stock cars, dragsters, and formula cars, he sold over 100,000 tires through the years.
Like so many others, Marvin sees money as the biggest change in racing over the years, “In the early days, everybody was so broke, I’d have to give ’em a tire every now and then to keep ’em going. You know, I worked with a lot of fellows in racing, and I never found a bad one.
The Marvin Rifchin owned Pinto with Ron Bouchard behind the wheel. (Photo From The Danny Pardi Collection)
Sources: Tom Ormsby/NEAR PR