Driver was the ‘life of the party’

Rory Price lived to climb behind the wheel of a fast car and step on the gas.

Family photo Rory Price and his wife, Kerry, were married nearly three years.

Although life had taken him away from racing, he never stopped being a race car driver.

“Rory was just this total outgoing, handsome, life-of-the-party guy,” his father, Dard Price, said Monday.

Price, who grew up in Lynnwood and lived in Edmonds until moving to Seattle three years ago, was killed Friday while testing a friend’s car at the Evergreen Speedway in Monroe.

“He was just a fun seeker and a good-looking guy,” said Jim Crews of Tacoma, owner of a car Price drove for three years in the late ’90s.

Price, 41, died after he’d begun slowing down his life. He married three years ago and had given up racing for nearly two years, his father said.

His death came the day before his daughter’s first birthday. “The family was all here,” Dard Price said.

Price had been test driving an open-wheeled, non-winged sprint car for a friend at the start of an open practice session just after 8 p.m. Friday, said T.J. Gibson, a former crew chief and friend of Price’s.

There were six or eight cars at various locations on the track at the time, said track manager Terry Buell, who was not at the track at the time of the accident. The green flag had been displayed as a sign that drivers could get up to speed, and the car Price had been driving slammed into the curved wall in the first turn, he said.

Buell said the speed could have been anywhere from 60 mph to 125 mph, but he doubts it was near the top end.

“It would just be speculation as to what the speed was,” he said.

The car has been impounded by the Snohomish County sheriff’s office, and deputies are expected to examine it for possible mechanical failure. Buell would not speculate on the cause of the crash.

Emergency medical personnel were at Price’s side “well within a minute,” Buell said. The crew started cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but Price was dead by the time he arrived at nearby Valley General Hospital, Buell said.

“Our thoughts go out to the family,” Buell said. “It was a tough night for our staff as well. He was a longtime member of the racing community. He was really respected and well loved. It was really a tragedy.”

This is the first death during an event at the track since 1988 when popular local race driver John Gay was killed in a four-car crash during a superstock race. In the more than 50 years of speedway operation, two others have died.

Although Snohomish County owns the property, the track is managed by an outside company, International Productions Inc.

Price was a safe driver, according to friends in racing. His most serious injury previously was a broken neck in 1986, his father said.

“It’s part of the game,” Dard Price said.

Rory Price grew up racing. His dad was a driver and the boy began racing go-carts at 9.

As a teen he moved to motorcycles and four-wheelers, and started racing on the Washington Midget Racing Association at 16 or 17, friends said. He graduated from Meadowdale High School in 1983.

Price participated in races up and down the West Coast and won a good share of them, friends said. He won the last race held at Portland Racetrack in 1999, Crews said. He also won his last race ever, in Las Vegas in late 2004, his father said.

Though he was highly competitive, Price was considerate of his fellow drivers, said Rich Lindsey of Marysville, president of the midget racing association and a former racer.

“He’d be the first one to jump out of his car and run over and help you out,” Lindsey said.

Dard Price ran a sign-making business and his son followed in those footsteps as well, working as a salesman for several sign companies. For a year-and-a-half, he worked for Jim Risher’s sign business in Kirkland.

“He was dynamic and talkative and loving, and he would approach anybody at any time and start up a conversation,” Risher said. “There were no fences.”

Price met his wife, Kerry, at a Sonics game, his father said. When he asked her for her phone number, she declined, but her friend slipped Price her e-mail address.

Though Price had quit racing, the urge was always there, his friends and father said.

“You never get it out of your system,” Dard Price said. “There’s nothing like stepping on the gas.”

Reporter Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.