William “Shorty” Bowers, a Hagerstown resident, has raced for over 30 years in midgets, roadsters, modifieds and late models throughout the country with a multitude of victories and championships, and was an asset to the sport of auto racing from this area.

Bowers started his 39-year racing career at the age of 20, prior to World War II. His first race car was a Model A Ford: “It was the best race car you could get, it would really go and I beat a lot of the professional drivers with that old Ford,” he said.

Bowers won over 495 races up and down the coast, but didn’t win much money back in those days, as Shorty was quoted.

He turned to midgets and sprints after early racing in jalopies. He did a lot of trick racing, he’d fool the other drivers by broadsliding in the dirt like he had spun out, and then he’d shoot in front of them. Shorty raced without helmets, seat belts and windshields. Chips from the dirt tracks would fly back and cut their hands and faces so the best place to run was up front.

The crafty veteran had some good years in the 1960s, so he switched to the old modifieds, and then in the late 60s he switched to semi-lates and won the division, driving for the Corbett brothers, at Hagerstown Speedway.

Shorty felt that racing itself hadn’t changed over the years, except the better safety features and the race cars were being built better and safer.

Shorty was inducted into the Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1977 by the Auto Racing Fan Club of Hagerstown.