San Francisco Region - SCCA 
In Memory Of Evan C. Lee

Evan's Candle

Evan C. Lee was a member of the SCCA for as long as I can remember and was until the day he passed away on Feb. 3 1995. I was only 18 at the time and still in high school. Many of his friends from the SCCA attended his memorial service and shared their memories of my father with me. 

As of today 9/25/02 my father would have been 59 and as a celebration of his memory and his life I would like to have a candle lit for him. 

My father was a member of the SCCA San Fran Region for as long as I can remember. He always talked about his Rubber Chicken Racing days as some of the best times in his life. I'm sure there are many stories out there that he would hate for me to hear.

I recall holding my hands over my ears at the age of 4 because the cars were so loud my little ears would hurt but Dad would hold me in his arms and point to the cars as they zoomed past and tell me about them in words I could not hear. I remember the joy he got from sharing his love of racing with me. 

As time went on and I grew, things like his job and putting clothes on my back became more pressing than going to the track. For years Dad stayed away, until he ran into an old friend, Don Ryder. Don was working on putting together a race during the Livermore Air show. Dad offered to help and threw himself into the job. By year two he was one of the "go to" guys, although his favorite part of the job was chauffeuring the Budweiser girls around in the golf cart. I hadn't seen him that happy in years.

I was quite a bit older and Dad felt more comfortable taking me to Sears Point or leaving me home on days when I just wouldn't get out of bed. He would get up at 4:00am to get to the track as early as possible. He started to do Worker Trans. And made some of the greatest friends he ever knew. There was nothing he looked forward to more than going to the races. He made these god awful pickled eggs that all the boys just loved. I remember watching him and the boys standing in the pits with a bottle of beer on the ground, a pickled egg in one hand and a bottle of Tabasco in the other laughing so hard his sides would hurt. If it hadn't been for these days I would have no idea that my father was human. Until I had the joy of seeing him in his element he was always just "Dad".

Even in the end when the cancer had taken over and the morphine was causing hallucinations, Dad took comfort in racing. More than once he thought he was at the track teaching someone how to drive. I still remember the first time he took me to Sears Point as a teenager. As we pulled up in the front Dad stopped the car for a moment, looked at me and said "You know baby, I'm a legend in my own mind here." we both laughed and as I grew older I found that his mind wasn't the only place he was a legend. He was a legend in the hearts of all who knew him.

*******************Love and Miss you Daddy******************* 

Email The Web Team to pass along your memories of Evan. We'll be sure to pass them on to his family.