Gleason Bros. Racing

The local racing world lost a great man on April 16th. Our 2010 Mini Stock Champion, "Uncle Buck" Chuck Rogers passed away after a brief illness.

Whoever knew him lost a friend, because anyone who met him always liked him. And it's not hard to see why. If you raced against him, he always raced you clean. If you crewed a car who raced against him, you'd always BS with him and drink a beer afterwards. I seriously believe the world is a much worse place without him here. 

I first met Chuck when my brother started racing at the Waterford Speedbowl in 1999. I met a lot of good people at that time, and Chuck was one of the few I still had ties with to this day. He and my brother raced against each other for a couple years until we left Waterford and went to Thompson after 2001. I still worked on a few cars here and there at Waterford, so I would see him regularly. When I started racing in 2008, I was the one racing Chuck in the Minis at Thompson. 

2009 was my first full year at the T and having people around me who I knew was a good feeling. Any time I raced Chuck, we raced clean. I remember one race, Chuck was driving Eric Bourgeois' car, the #87. Chuck got turned around in front of me, and I tried to miss him but he slid down the track, and I whacked him in the rear wheel. Then I got hit from the left, and kept going. Then my dash caught fire and I had to bail out. But after the race I went and talked to him and he said something along the lines of "wow, that sucked". 

I think a lot of the on-track moments between us involved accidents. I remember a couple cars got crossed up in front of us once. Chuck missed it, and I followed him through, but I was carrying a lot more speed. I saw him in front of me and I was on the binders trying not to hit him, and I got so close that the plastic on our bumpers touched and deformed, but we never really hit each other. I think the red from my bumper was still on his back end until the end of last year.

The most I can remember was off the track when we'd either be drinking beers by the campfire or at the bar. So much bench racing went on and so many stories. I remember being at Eli's Steakhouse in Plainfield, CT last year after the races, and Chuck walked in. We were doing some bench racing, and I told him that I thought he had a real shot at winning that "damn championship, finally". He was apprehensive about the whole idea of it, I'm sure it's a stressful ordeal. But I said I'm sure if he kept it up he'd be in good shape. No need to give him advice, because we all knew he was fully capable of doing what he had to do. And when he clinched that championship, I shook his hand and congratulated him. "Thank you, thank you", was his response, although he didn't look all that excited, I could tell he was a very relieved person.