The Scoop
Allan Yelle
Posted on: Monday September 14, 2020
YELLE STILL GOING STRONG AT 85
When you want to look at a race car driver today who is the true definition of “old school” you don’t have to look much further than Allan Yelle.
The Gwinn, Michigan racer competed in his vintage winged modified weekly at Upper Peninsula International Raceway (UPIR) in Escanaba, Michigan in 2020. The 84–year-old finished fourth in the U.P. Vintage modified point standings at Escanaba. The veteran also captured the feature race during the traditional “Hall of Fame” night on the pavement at Norway Speedway in Norway, Michigan.
“I started racing in 1956 but couldn’t use my real name,” Yelle said. “Some other guy was supposed to drive the car, but he was drunk. The track was at Beaver Grove down highway 480. It was a real small dirt track. Things were pretty crude way back then looking back on it.”
Yelle’s first car was a ’32 Ford Coupe. And all these decades later, Yelle remains loyal to the “Blue Oval”, still building and maintaining his own engines. “I have always been a Ford guy and I still am to this day,” Yelle said. “I remember racing at a track in Ishpeming. It was down in a hole and there were big hills all the way around. If it rained you had a real hard time getting out of there. Over the years I’ve had the most fun running these older vintage modifieds. I love the horsepower and you can run them wide open. They burned alcohol.”
Like any other driver who’s been making left hand turns for multiple decades Yelle has seen his share of “wreckers and checkers over the years. Yelle’s also battled at some carved out ovals that have been gone for decades. “I remember one year I was running a ’39 Ford Coupe when I took the wall out one night at the track in Perronville (Michigan),” Yelle recalled. “It was so dusty you couldn’t see hardly anything. I just followed the posts all the way around. Looking back on it you could say it was probably a little bit dangerous.”
When dirt track modifieds became popular in the 1960’s he built a Ford powered Model-A bodied car and improved his skills as a driver. He won the track championship at Escanaba, Michigan during that era and continued racing modifieds until 1976. For a few years he drove both the modified and a late model. Fords were always his choice and he raced as much as he could. In the Seventies he competed at Norway, Escanaba, Sands and the Soo, Canada.
“We’d race four nights in three days for a few of those years,” Yelle said. “If the feature got done early enough at Sands we’d run up to the Soo in Canada. I remember taking a wild ride down the track at Sands. I flew off the track one night and crashed and wound up with a tree stump right between my legs. I got lucky there it could have been a lot worse.”
With Yelle pretty much being an “all-in” guy when it came to his racing efforts, it was almost an unwritten rule that during racing season chances were slim, at best, that Allan would partake in any family functions that conflicted with his racing. “With my family and friends, they knew how important racing was to me,” Yelle admitted. “So, nobody really ever scheduled a wedding or a birthday party on a race day. That’s just the way it was all those years.” During his 64 year racing career Yelle has seldom missed any races due to illness or an emergency. It’s tough to see that type of dedication these days.
Yelle’s sons Jim and Todd race along with my daughter Karen and grandson Jeremy Yelle at Sands Speedway in Sands, Michigan to keep the family tradition going. “I’ve never missed a race at Sands,” Yelle said. “We’re still doing it yet in 2020. I don’t plan on stopping racing until I can’t do it any longer. I think I can still get it done behind the wheel.”
“Truth be told our sport needs more people in it like Allan Yelle,” said John Ostermann, fellow racer and president of the Dickinson County Racing Association. The DCRA promotes the weekly Friday night races at Norway Speedway located at the Dickinson County Fairgrounds. “All the years he raced in the late model division at Norway in the ‘80’s and 90’s and even into the 2000’s he was there every week and never bitched about tires, lineups or anything else. He was there to compete and have fun. Sometimes we lose sight of that in this sport. This sport is supposed to be fun. Allan Yelle is still having fun.”
Rest assured when the tracks of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula swing their gates open for their 2021 seasons, you can bet that Allan Yelle will be there with his Ford-powered racer, ready to give his all.