March 29, 1978
..sprint car racer (continued from front page )
The team: left to right are Brett Gusler, Dennis Gross, Mike McConnell, and Lynn
Berkheimer.
[continued from front page]
With all those people
helping him, Dennis is
most grateful to a person
who has never tightened a
single sprint car bolt—his
wife, Sharon.
“Most of the credit has
to go to Sharon.”’ he says.
‘‘She puts up with my
being away every weekend
and many weekday nights,
either racing or working on
the car.”
Dennis sometimes wor-
ries that he isn’t spending
enough time with his
family. His ‘‘obsession’’
takes too much of his life.
Sharon herself keeps busy
composing music, as the
reader may recall from an
article about her which
Whispering swans
pay a visit to John E. Hess
Thousands of whispering swans settled in a field
near Maytown belonging to John E. Hess. John told the
Susquehanna Times that the swans are either coming
from or going to Alaska [we forget which he said]. The
appeared in the Times last
year. The Grosses have two
children: Lori, age 6, and
Holly, age 3 weeks.
Dennis told us that,
while south-central Penn-
sylvania is a center of
sprint car racing activity,
Lancaster County seems to
him to be an island of dis-
interest in the lake of
»
a
i a R
well adios,
SUSQUEHANNA TIMES — Page 7
The Gross family with the family car. Dennis, Sharon, and daughter Lori.
enthusiasm. There are one
or two other sprint car
racers in the township.
Paul Ober of Bainbridge,
he told us, has been racing
for 14 years.
One sign of local dis,
interest is in the press,
Dennis says. Papers in this
area never carry stories
about racing unless there is
swans come every year to glean corn. According to
another man who stopped along the road to talk with
the Times photographer, the swans are protected by
federal law. No one may shoot or disturb them.
a crash and someone is
hurt. And few advertisers
are aware that up to 9000
people watch races at a
single track each weekend
about nine months a year—
Dennis still hasn't sold the
space on his car's air foils.
Dennis hasn't had great
success in racing, and
hasn't made enough money
to break even. He does it
because he loves it. Still,
he has kept his dream of
one day being a profession-
al racer.
One essential for winning
is a good car. Right now
Dennis is working on a new
one with a man in York
County. It won't be ready
- autoho.us
(ae J MANHEIM PIKE, EAST PETERSBURG
OPPOSITE ERB'S MARKET 569-5353
Where Our Customers Send Their Friends
to race at the start of the
season this weekend, but
Dennis expects it to be a
fine car. If it lives up to his
expectations, Dennis may
begin making it in the top
“‘tcature races, and have
a chance at being a pro.
“*If 1 don’t get some-
where this season, I'll hang
it up.’ he told us. But then
again, he might keep
trying: at another point in
the interview, he said,
**Racing is the most
exciting thing I know of,
but it's also the most frus-
trating. I've quit a thou-
sand times—but I've start-
ed a thousand and one
times."’
*
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