Gary Van Voorhis, who began photographing motorcycle races after he left the Air Force in the 1960s and went on to become an Associate Editor at Cycle News and later the Director of Events at Daytona International Speedway, died Wednesday night (July 12) in a hospice care facility near his home in Ormond Beach, Florida.
He was 80.
Gary was best known in the motorcycling community as an Associate Editor for Cycle News from 1975 to 1985. After he left Cycle News, Gary went on to become a producer of the weekly TV show MotoWorld and then was hired in the communications department for Daytona International Speedway. He eventually worked his way up at DIS to become Director of Events.
After he retired Gary and Lydia escaped the Florida heat and worked as guides at National Parks during summer months.
Over the years Gary interviewed, photographed, and wrote about some of the biggest names in motorcycle racing. He was well respected and liked by his peers in the motorcycle press and by the racers he covered. Gary also liked to help mentor young writers and photographers who wanted to cover the sport. He helped dozens of young reporters by giving them assignments and advice on how to better cover the sport.
“Gary could do it all,” said Davey Coombs, Editor-In-Chief and Founder of Racer X magazine. “He was a role model to me because he shot great photos and wrote excellent race reports, and he was always friendly and accessible to aspiring journalists like me. And later, when he went to work at Daytona International Speedway, he helped me get a credential for the Daytona Supercross on more than one occasion — and that was no easy feat back when I was just getting my newspaper started. He also sent me a lot of his photo contact sheets from the seventies, and not a week goes by when we aren’t digging through his archive, just amazed at what he could capture in four or five rolls of 35mm film.”
Of all the races he covered, Van Voorhis looks back on the 1975 Indy Mile as perhaps the most memorable – the famous race where Kenny Roberts won with a last-second draft pass on Harley-Davidson’s Corky Keener while riding the infamous Yamaha TZ750-based flat tracker.
“That one will always stick in my mind,” Van Voorhis says. “More so for the fact of Keener saying, ‘I heard that screaming s.o.b. and I knew it was all over.’
“That was one race where I wanted to put down my camera and notepad and just watch it. And then Roberts shaking his head afterwards and saying, ‘They don’t pay me enough to ride the thing.’ It was great.”
One of Gary’s stories about the AMA Grand National Rookies of 1979, years later inspired that group of rookies to have a reunion and later start a charity to provide financial assistance for injured motorcycle racers and their families when a racing injury or accident occurs.
He is survived by his brother Ray Cassinari of Poughkeepsie, New York, and his longtime girlfriend and partner Lydia Hinshaw of Ormond Beach. There will be no services.
