“Gentleman” Bryant Tucker was a stock car champion at Chicago’s Soldier Field, Raceway Park and Mance Park Speedway during his career.
The quiet, unassuming speedster drove strictly Buicks on area short tracks for about 17 seasons, winning a total of five Chicago region stock car track championships. Beginning his racing career in the late 1940’s, Tucker enjoyed much of his success at Raceway Park (Blue Island), where he won the track title in 1953, snaring 17 feature wins in his 1941 Buick. Tucker would end up with 38 career feature victories at the Blue Island motordrome, where he would compete through the 1957 season. 1956 saw Tucker win 10 main events at Raceway Park.
Tucker’s career also saw him compete at numerous Midwestern ovals with the Chuck Scharf’s old Championship Stock Car Racing Club, driving or towing his race cars to out-of-town speed venues in places like Indianapolis, Anderson, Ind., Kokomo, Ind., Peoria, Ill., Springfield, Ill. and Danville, Ill., among other locations.
Tucker wheeled a 1957 Buick to three straight track championship crowns at Chicago’s Soldier Field, capturing the titles in 1960, 1961 and again in 1962. Tucker was the last champion to be crowned at the old Mance Park Speedway (Hodgkins) in 1960, the final year of operation for the Chicago area’s west suburban paved oval.
Missing from the competition after Soldier Field cut back its racing action in 1963, Tucker resurfaced at O’Hare Stadium (Schiller Park) in 1965, driving a 1963 Buick convertible.
Tucker finished sixth in the final points tally at the end of the season at O’Hare, where he would close out his stock car career the following year.
After his stock car racing days were long over, Tucker turned to bicycle racing in which he competed in through his late 60's, building several innovative speed creations himself.
Tucker was 73 years old when he passed away in 1998.
End