Memorial lap at Monroe track to honor longtime photographer

SNOHOMISH — Tom Vick touched lives in different ways.

Maybe it was the wedding ring on your finger or the photo of your race car or help at a fire.

Vick was a goldsmith, Evergreen Speedway photographer and Snohomish County District 7 volunteer firefighter.

He died July 21. He was 71.

The Monroe racetrack will have a memorial lap in Vick’s honor at 6 p.m. Saturday before the Championship Night races. A celebration of life at The Rock Church in Monroe is set for earlier that day, at 3:30 p.m.

Vick was the track photographer until becoming ill with cancer in 2019. He took thousands of photos.

“It is preserving the track’s history,” said Traci Hobbs, track sales and marketing director. “He took everything very seriously.”

Before digital, Vick would give people prints, she said.

“We so appreciate the decades of love and passion shown by Tom for our racing community, and Evergreen Speedway,” Hobbs said. “He had been a fixture at the track for multiple generations of racers, and one of our key historians.”

Tom Vick grew up in Long Beach, California.

“In my opinion, he’s the California kid. Hanging out at the beach and having hotrod VWs,” said his son, John Vick, of Arlington. “In the 1960s, he met my mom on the Pepsi-Cola dance floor at Disneyland. Fast forward to getting married. He wanted out of L.A. and moved to Mill Creek in the late 1970s.”

Tom Vick repaired jewelry as a contractor for department stores.

“If you took something to JCPenney in Everett, odds are my dad repaired it,” his son said.

It was a family business. His mom did the deliveries, often with him and his brothers in tow.

The Vicks operated Edmonds Jewelry for many years before opening Vick Jewelry Design in Bothell.

“He has made thousands of custom wedding rings for people in Snohomish County,” John Vick said.

Tom Vick’s work was well known, said Barbara Vick-Young, his divorced wife and the mother of their four sons.

“When I was at the baggage claim flying in from Texas yesterday a woman came up to me and said, ‘You made our wedding rings,’” said Vick-Young, who came for this weekend’s memorial from her home in Texas.

He was also known by the bright blue 1994 Ford Bronco he bought new and drove everywhere.

The family lived in Snohomish for many years. Every Saturday night, they’d go to the Monroe track.

Tom Vick’s love for watching racing led to his capturing it on film.

“As Tom would tell you, ‘The racetrack was his mistress,’” his ex-wife said. “He was there a lot. He would take hundreds of pictures and get them developed and would spend hours sorting all the boxes of race cars and drivers.”

But he didn’t race, his son said.

“He enjoyed it through the lens of photography and art,” John Vick said. “He had an eye for art because of the jewelry business. That’s why he enjoyed photography.”

John Vick is in some of those photos. He raced in the 1990s and early 2000s. His two sons now race there.

“My dad’s favorite thing was being the proud grandpa,” he said.

Family members will take a lap in his ’94 Ford Bronco at the track Saturday.

Andrea Brown: 425-339-3443; abrown@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @reporterbrown.