Hall of Fame promoter Bill Doner returns for 4th of July blowout

The skies above Airway Heights will light up on Wednesday, when Hall of Fame promoter Bill Doner brings his signature brand of funny car mayhem to Spokane County Raceway Park for an epic Fourth of July blowout.

The Northwest United Nitro Funny Car invasion and fireworks spectacular, presented by Good Vibrations motorsports, promises the biggest fireworks show in Raceway Park history. Gates open at 8 a.m., qualifying heats go off at noon and 3 p.m., eliminations begin at 6 p.m. and fireworks are set for 10 p.m. Gates will open Tuesday from 1-9 p.m. for overnight campers.

“I have some really fond memories of coming to Spokane,” said Doner. “I’ve had great friends, great friendships up there.”

A 2012 inductee into the International Drag Racing Hall of Fame, Doner operated eight different tracks up and down the West Coast in the 1970s. Three dozen Hall of Famer drivers, including Don Prudhomme, Don Garlits, Ed McCulloch and Jerry Ruth, competed in Doner shows.

A tireless innovator and a master showman, Doner contributed a vast array of promotions and innovations to the sport, including his stadium-rocking 64 Funny Cars show.

“This guy was a great promoter of the likes of P.T. Barnum,” said KXLY Radio’s “How’s Business” host Ed Clark. “And he’s still as sharp as ever.”

His most enduring promotion, the fox hunt, continues to flourish despite being decidedly non-PC; an event staged at Raceway Park held a fox hunt just last week.

In the early 1970s Doner had pirated a song, “Fox on the Run” by British band, “The Sweet,” and embedded it in ads to promote races at his track in Irwindale, California. The idea was to tie rock-n-roll in with racing, but it quickly morphed into a social phenomenon.

“I don’t know if you could do that these days,” he said. “But back then, it worked really well.”

Now 79, Doner actively wonders what possessed him, two years ago, to give up a quiet retirement in La Quinta, California, to get back into the drag racing game.

“I don’t know why, and that’s an honest answer,” he said, laughing. “Apparently … (it’s) because I let some (people) talk me into this (stuff).”

He’s been talked into a lot of (stuff) over the years. Doner has lived more lives than a cat.

When the World Football League was organized in 1974, league founder Gary Davidson offered Doner a franchise. As Vice President of Marketing for Caesar’s Palace, Doner hosted the Marvin Hagler vs. Sugar Ray Leonard fight in 1987. A professional sport fisherman in Cabo San Lucas for seven years, Doner caught a record-setting 1,234-pound black marlin in 1983. He has consulted for dozens of professional sports teams and voiced countless radio and television ads. He promoted tennis and bred racehorses.

Doner took over the struggling National Hydroplane Racing Association in the 1990s. By the time he left, the sport had more than doubled its annual race schedule and scored a television contract with ESPN.

While he was flogging the moribund NHRA back to life, Doner maintained the sport’s strong Northwest connections. “We ran in Seattle and Tri-Cities every year,” he said. “The fans were amazing.”

Doner spent a year with Seattle University as their play-by-play announcer, just to return a favor. One of the games he called was in the Kennel. “I always remember that one because Gonzaga is really good now,” he said. “I flew in and stayed at the Davenport, and I remember it was snowing like crazy.”

He started his professional career as a sportswriter, covering the Southern California sports beat in the 1960s. “I didn’t have any barriers for what I did,” he said. “I traveled around the world.”

Doner first came to Seattle in 1969 to take over Seattle International Raceway, now known as Pacific Raceways, and fell in love with the Northwest. “It’s always been kind to me,” he said.

He often brought his Seattle show over the mountains. “We took over a racetrack up in Deer Park,” he said. “We had some really big races up there.”

Said Doner: “The biggest race we ever had there … I jumped Evel Knievel over 14 cars. We had a crowd that backed up for miles; I don’t know how we got them all in.”

His larger-than-life personality hides Doner’s impish sense of humor. First, he brought Deep Throat star Linda Lovelace to the 1973 Northwest National Open in Seattle. “The movie was just out,” he said. “Nobody had even seen it yet.”

The following year, after his sponsors squawked, Doner brought child actor Rodney Allen Rippy in to sing “God Bless America.”