|
Paul Trowbridge, better known
in racing circles as Paul Tremaine, started doing race reports on
station WILI in Willimantic, CT. Soon, however, the 40-minute spots
were cut back a few minutes, then cut again, until the reports were
squeezed into a forty second slot. Feeling that the sport was not
getting enough coverage, Paul began something he called The
Checkered Flag Announcer. Paul, with his good friend Andy Maine,
would travel from track to track in an old Volkswagon van. He took
his name, Trowbridge, and combined it with Andy Maine, to come up
with the “on air” name Paul Tremaine. The old Volkswagon was later
replaced by the infamous CFA Gremlin. In later years, Joe Golas
stepped up to help with “Checkered Flag Announcer” duties.
After
getting home from a race, Paul would stay up until 2 or 3 o’clock in
the morning, recording messages of race results. He would then
transfer them to between thirteen and fifteen answering machines,
hooked up at various locations throughout New England, thereby
reducing people’s need to pay for a long distance call to obtain
race results. Wally Saleeba, Dan Pardi, Allan Whipple, and Ted
Doubleday were just a few of the volunteers who had CFA phone lines
in their homes or offices.
Paul has many fond memories from his CFA days. “Ken Squier
was the man I most emulated. I would sometimes answer the phone
lines myself, and got to know people like NEAR Hall of Fame members,
Bugs Stevens and Fred DeSarro. Wives like Sue Cook and Peg Summers
would call to see how their husbands had made out. Richie Evans
even used to call me to ask how Jerry Cook had done at a particular
track. There was nobody else foolish enough to spend the time or
money doing what I did. I loved it, though, so I guess that was my
payment”. We welcome Paul into the NEAR Hall of Fame.
|
