Gus Traeder’s secret to staying young – surround yourself with women!
Most of the karting universe knows Faye’s racing history and prowess at running a karting business. Faye’s driving career spanned the late 1950,s and the 60’s when karting was growing and new innovations came hard and fast. She and husband Tom would create Bug, and then Team Bug, and proceed to drive headlong into the history books of kart racing.
I began racing karts in 1985. While I had seen Faye in the pits from time to time, I didn’t really formally meet Faye until my first IKF Sprint Grandnationals in 1987 held at Garnett, Kansas, where I won my first Duffy. I began running a Bug the following year and my husband Rick would convert to Bug shortly thereafter. Rick and Faye would spend vast amounts of time discussing chassis and tires. Faye’s Husband “Big” Tom Pierson and I would become close friends too, and the four of us would remain close buds, and frequently meet up to catch up.
Rick and I stopped racing in the late 1990’s to early 2000’s, but never lost touch with Tom and Faye. After Tom’s passing, I would drive down for a night or weekend just to spend time with Faye. She was heartbroken and felt a little lost without Tom. But Faye threw herself into the business, with a whole lot of support from sons Tommy and Jon, she moved ever forward, as was her nature.
Quincy 2005 – Faye’s ready to ride!
A couple years later Faye called me one afternoon to tell me that she had been asked to attend a vintage karting event in Quincy, Illinois. She had promised Gus Traeder that she would attend, and Faye then explained that IKF Director Deb Harper had set up their travel plans. Deb was going to attend with Faye and write articles for interested karting publications. But, Deb had something come up and could no longer make the trip. It was just a couple of weeks away, so Faye asked if I would go with her, and to please bring my driving gear because she really didn’t know if she could do more than one heat race (Quincy in the heat you know…). She wanted me to be her backup driver; which would turn out to be the VERY LAST THING Faye needed.
And what an adventure it turned out to be – Faye would soon name us the “Thelma & Louise” of vintage karting. We had the absolute time of our lives together. We couldn’t attend an event in Quincy without stopping to put our feet in the mighty Mississippi River, which is how we discovered Hannibal, MO. Over the years it became ritual, after which we would eat at the amazing catfish house in Old Town.
On some of those trips to Quincy together, and the many other tracks around the country, Faye and I would get so tickled and begin laughing so very hard we had to pull over. Our friendship grew immeasurably during these times.
So after that one phone call, that one trip, I watched Faye’s glow come back as she was once again in her element. She was hooked, and I can tell you that she loved vintage karting most dearly. She cherished all of the incredible new memories through her time in the Vintage Karting Association and being at the tracks with all of you.
Faye always carried a notepad to each event so she could keep up with those she met along the way. After deciphering her notes and reminiscing about each event, we talked about all of y’all. Way, way too much to tell, and some things…I will never divulge – but it makes me giggle to this day.
Before vintage, we were friends who enjoyed and respected each other. But after our years of running amok together, the bond went well beyond friendship. I sincerely thank all of you for making our time with you so special. As her son Jon told me recently “What a run you two had together” and it’s so very true.
Obviously death is inevitable, but Faye was a super hero to me. Faye “Lady Bug” Pierson was truly a lady, she was poised and practical, a bit daring, forever playful, smart, sometimes downright sassy, she was so dear to all, she was my friend.
Prairie City 2002 – Faye with Tom Medley and his Faller kart
The first time I met Faye was at the 1992 IKF Sprint Nationals held at the Adams track in Riverside, California. After the event I needed a ride to one of the local airports. Faye offered to take me. That was the beginning of a wonderful friendship. We would talk on the phone often as she was the Bridgestone distributor for the West Coast.
Fast forward to 2002 and the Prairie City track. There was a vintage event there and who shows up but Faye Pierson with Tom Medley. Faye was wheeling Tom’s Faller kart around the track at the time we were having flagged heat events. Faye and I had a great time dicing back and forth – that was the beginning of my vintage days with Faye. We would fly into St. Louis and meet up at the airport (Faye, Mona Sturgeon, Ernie Fisher and myself), rent a car and drive to Quincy, Illinois. We would always stop at Hannibal, Missouri for fried catfish. Those were some great times and memories.
Faye was a living legend. One of the years at the banquet she was given the key to the city. We had a lot of fun at the track, we also had just as much fun at dinner. California always had a contingent of vintage karters at those events.
Faye, Tom Medley and Vince Hughes got together to start up the Riverside vintage event soon after. The first year we shared the track with pocket bikes. Then the event grew to where the vintage kart program had become a full three day event. Mona stepped up to the plate to help Faye and Vince out, Ernie Fisher was the official flagman at this event for many years.
Quincy – Earl Larson, Pete Berlt, Faye, Tom Medley & Terry Ives
Faye would always make it to the Northern California events too. At a Davis, California event I remember Faye, Mona, Tom Corso and myself went downtown. We had to have ice cream and we did. No matter what event we went to, Faye was always there and a big part of the event. She had no qualms about mixing it up with the guys. She could still outdrive many of us. The last time we visited was at the Riverside vintage event in February of 2020. Jon Pierson had moved Faye to live with him in Oregon and brought Faye down for a visit.
Vintage karting brought a lot of happiness to Faye, She looked forward to the people and they all loved her and the seat time she got in her Bug. I could go on and on with my memories with Faye, but it would take me forever to write it.
We are all going to miss this wonderful woman that brought so much happiness to everyone she touched.
Patch presented to participants at 2019 VKA Riverside
Article: Frank Weir Photos: Gary Medley, Tom Medley, Jack Spitler and Frank Weir
The Queen of Karting Faye ‘Ladybug’ Pierson. Photo: Gary Medley
President Gary Crawford of the Vintage Kart Club of America has made the sad announcement that Faye ‘Ladybug’ Pierson, the Queen of Karting has passed away.
Faye Pierson drove a kart for the very first time on Christmas Day 1957. Faye and her late husband Tom Pierson were initially introduced to karting by a neighbour who had purchased a kart kit as a Christmas gift for his teenage son. Tom Pierson kindly volunteered to help with the assemble of the kart and the two families went to a school parking lot in West Covina located within the greater Los Angeles area to experience karting for the first time that Christmas morning.
Once at the school car park everyone got to drive the kart. Faye just would not get off the tiny machine; driving it she later said was infectious. Faye was most definitely hooked that day on this new form of motorsport and soon her husband Tom was busy making karts for Faye and himself.
That was the very early days of karting in its birth place of Southern California and around the beginning of 1958 the Pierson’s along with family friend Dick Geer started making karts in a semi professional manner in the Pierson’s garage located in a Los Angeles suburb. The demand for the Pierson manufactured karts became so high that it was just not feasible to continue to make them in a domestic garage; a proper factory had to be sourced. Bug Engineering was formed and the Pierson kart manufacturing operations relocated to premises on Irwindale Avenue in the city of Azusa.
Previous to becoming a kart manufacturer Tom Pierson’s business involved the distribution of the then Los Angeles Mirror-Times newspapers which incidentally was were Faye perfected the art of driving fast as she made daily wholesale paper deliveries not that she openly advocated speeding on the streets.
The first ever National kart races were scheduled to be held at the Go Kart Raceway during the summer of 1959. That year Bug team driver Dick Geer won the Grand National title and Faye set the fastest time in the A class qualifying beating the track record by one full second. Faye went on to win her first heat, broke her chassis in race two and placed second in heat three, taking second place overall. Actually Faye taking part in the racing at that time was a milestone. In America sixty years ago racing was a sport that considered women to be signs of bad luck especially if they were found in places where they could possibly interfere with operations. Faye recalled on an occasion being asked to leave the pits at Indianapolis for that very reason!
During the early days of karting at the start of the sixties decade Faye ‘Ladybug’ Pierson, as she was known and her Bug karts traveled extensively throughout the United States and as far away as Europe racing in England and Italy. Back at the time of the English race, September 1961, she was one of only a few women to have her photo appear on the front page of the London Times. The photo, which also featured the World Champion at that time, teenager Bobby Allen, was snapped when the two disembarked together from the aircraft after landing in England on their way to the Banbury race at Shenington airfield.
Faye was very much accustomed to travelling by aircraft; both Tom and Faye held pilot licences and at weekends they would load her kart into the back of their Cessna and off she and husband Tom would go to wherever there was a kart race in the western part of the United States that warranted an appearance by Bug Karts. Faye can most certainly be described as a pioneer of the sport because she was there at the beginning and thus instrumental in the involvement of women in karting. She was intelligent as well as being extremely easy on the eyes and soon she was appearing in television quiz shows filmed in studios associated with the Hollywood movie industry. Despite her celebrity status Faye remained a most approachable and helpful individual who always looked like a million Dollars.
Because of Faye’s iconic status she was chosen in 1962 to participate in an experiment sponsored by an American motoring magazine to determine the capabilities of kart drivers in sports and Formula Junior cars. The driving took place at the now defunct Riverside International Raceway. Faye put in some scorching and faultless laps in a Lotus 20 and then repeated her performance in a Lotus Junior. A three litre Austin Healey sports car was unfortunately her undoing, she lost it in a big way in the fast ‘S’ section and wrote the Healey off. A broken jaw and facial lacerations requiring 300 stitches were treated at the local hospital and thanks to skilful surgery Faye was soon her smiling self again. The accident put an end to her racing career by orders from husband Tom.
Twenty four years later in 1986 she was back in a competition kart at a track in Redlands, California, to prove that neither gender nor age were limiting factors particularly in the world of karting; Faye finished fifth that day. Since then a lot of water has flowed under the bridge at Bug Engineering. The manufacturing plant on Irwindale Avenue was relocated to a purpose built facility at 950 West Foothill Boulevard, Azusa, California. Sadly Faye’s husband Tom died on 26 October 2000 leaving her solely in control helped by her sons Tommy and Jon. Not quite two decades later Faye had to deal with further bereavement when Tommy passed in September 2017.
From 1959 to 2014 the doors remained open at K & P Manufacturing the new name for Bug Engineering. During that time karts were manufactured across all the disciplines although a Bug was never homologated at the CIK. In the middle 1990’s Bug produced a model known as the FF-1 which was influenced by European design of that time. Around then the company also represented Birel and for decades beginning in 1978 K & P also acted as distributors for Bridgestone kart tyres. Later the main business for K & P was tire sales plus manufacturing replica copies of the rear engine Bug Sprint chassis that was first introduced in the middle 1960’s and the Stinger sidewinder kart from the early 1970’s. As well the fabrication of associated parts sought after by vintage karting enthusiasts to keep their historic Bug karts running also featured as a prominent part of the business.
In the beginning the Bug title was actually arrived at after a brain storming exercise to come up with a name for the Pierson kart; no suitable names were forth coming and Faye was reported to have said that the exercise was bugging her hence the name Bug!
As the years rolled by Faye thought that she was pretty much done with racing karts competitively but her long time friend, the late Tom Medley, the well known hot rod and karting writer at Petersen Publications, encouraged her to get involved with vintage kart racing. Faye returned to competition at the late Gus Traeder’s first Vintage Karting Olympics held at West Quincy, Missouri, in 2002. Since then she has been a regular on the Californian vintage kart scene and was guest of honour at the 2008 Numurkah Vintage Karting Grand Nationals held in Victoria, Australia. Faye has also on occasions attended Jeff Brown’s vintage extravaganza held each year in June at Mark Dismore’s pristine karting facility located at New Castle near Indianapolis.
For many years Faye hosted the karts of the Australian contingent who have competed at the Vintage Karting Association Reunion held each year during early February at the Adams Motorsport Park in Riverside, California. The event is actually called the Faye Pierson Vintage Kart Reunion in her honour. Faye generously allowed the Australians to use the Bug premises for their race preparation and helped with the transportation of their karts to and from the track.
Faye, who became a nonagenarian in 2018, was an inspiration to all who had been fortunate to have met her decided to finish up K & P as a manufacturing plant in the middle of 2014. Faye however had no intentions of disappearing from the American vintage karting scene; she retained part of the upstairs level of the old Bug plant and turned that area into a private museum dedicated to Bug karts.
Faye’s meritorious induction to the World Karting Association’s Karting Hall of Fame in 1989 as well as her induction into the Karting Hall of Fame in Talladega, Georgia, is proudly recorded in a section of her museum. ‘Ladybug’ continued to participate at vintage karting events close to her Californian home right to the end.
The sport of karting gave Faye Pierson hundreds of fantastic stories and experiences collected across a sixty year period. The Adams event named after her will always be a lasting memorial to Faye ‘Ladybug’ Pierson the Queen of Karting.
Faye with her Australian friends, Graeme Barwick left, and Peter Ward at Adams 2013
Faye at her desk at K & P with her cat called Bug
The heart shape shows how much the karting community adore Faye.
Faye and her Bug kart at Azusa Raceway circa 1959.
Faye at Adams not so long ago
Faye and her 1960 Bug Wasp; note the extra seat padding to keep her secure in the seat
Faye with her American karting team-mates and their manager in Italy 1961.
Photo: Jack Spitler Collection
American karting team arriving in Italy in 1961, Faye is back row second from right.
Photo: Jack Spitler Collection
This year, 34 sponsoring tracks across the country will be hosting VKA Karting Events including 18 Sprint and 16 Enduro.
Although most are driving events, the Kart Show at these events is where 100% of our members, guests & the public, can participate by viewing the workmanship in our members’ karts, vote for their favorite go kart, meet our members and enjoy the social side of our great organization.
VKA Kart Shows run the gamut from simply lining up our karts for viewing, to organizing full blown social celebrations. In 2020, VKA members and our sponsoring tracks came up with the following enhancements that added a lot of pizazz to everyone’s benefit:
Pre-kart show, early-arrival, dinner/social
Wine & beer tastings
Cheese & snack platters
Live music
Singer for the National Anthem
Introduction of special guests
Enhanced 50-50 raffle prizes
Door prizes
Acknowledgements for farthest traveler, oldestdriver, youngest driver
To support our Kart Shows, VKA Guidelines call for a committee of volunteers to help our members and sponsoring tracks organize the most fun Kart Shows possible with advice & organizing suggestions, but also to learn new ideas that we can share with all the other Kart Show volunteers.
Members & promoters interested in upgrading your 2021 VKA Kart Show(s), please email us with your name & phone number along with the name & date of your event to VKAKartShow2021@gmail.com .
Sal Palatucci Volunteer National Kart Show Director
This is just one half of the smooth, long Jacksonville straightaway
Although the temperature was in the mid 30’s Thursday morning, the late morning and afternoon saw temps. in the60’s and made for a beautiful day of practice. After safety tech inspection, we opened the track for practice around 10 am. With all single engine karts then duel engine kart practice. After lunch (the Mother Truckin Pizza food truck served some delicious subs and pizza) we provided open practice till 5:00 pm. with the grid steward controlling the amount of karts on the trackat a time.
The forecast for Friday showed rain so we got an early start with practice open from 8:30-9:30 am. We posted the starting line-ups and held a quick drivers meeting at 9:45. The first group to enter the track for heat #1 at 10:15 was the Sportsman Rear accompanied by a Karman Jobe (junior) and Nick Wiel in the straight axle S/W. Two more groups were able to run heat # 1 prior to the rain setting in till noon. About a two hour process of drying the track followed lunch and by 2:30 the sportsman S/W and 4 cycle stock group completed their first heat. Two more groups completed heat #1 before more rain came to end the on track activities for the day.
Saturday morning a steady rain was drenching the facility at 103rd St. Jacksonville. After talking with the people at the track, and a few already packing up to leave, we decided to officially call the Saturday activity as a rain-out. The few people that were interested in participating in the kart show did not even want to get their karts out in the rain. We presented awards based on first heat finishing order (12 classes) and by order of registration (5 classes). Karman Jobe assisted us by drawing Todd Horton’s name as winner of the 50/50 raffle. Todd and the VKA were presented $155.00 each from the proceeds of the raffle. Thank you to Jim Hindery, NFKC President, and the entire NFKC & GSKA team for a well-run event! Thank you to all the Vintage Karters (58 competition plus 2 practice only entries)for participating at this event. Come join us at Barnesville March 25ththru 27th where we hope for better weather conditions.
The Jacksonville circuit is well suited to C/Opens like this B-Bomb-powered rig with a nice set of overhead pipes.
The Bennett crew had plenty of room to spread out under the pines.
Scott Nagel with the family C/Open. His dad Jerry runs the beast every chance he gets.
Several dual Yamahas showed up for Jacksonville. Seems to be a growing class everywhere in the VKA.
Old Skool – gear-drive dual carb Mac rear engine entry. Still amazing little powerplants.
Ron Jones was selling some good stuff including a pair of Corsair rotaries and a Sirio. Elsewhere in the pits was a restored Hartman sprinter for sale.
Rob Rizzuto and Tony Severino make some last minute adjustments on Rob’s Dart.
Part of Team Haddock – Charlie Groeteke starts Pete Vetter in an HPV-powered Margay SR-16.
Engine builder/tuner Steve Jamison gets Scott Nagle prepared to go on track. BM130s supply the power.
Mike Giessen drives the dual Yamaha “FreddyVader” for the Haddock team. Kart runs strong and Mike’s driving and tuning skills are as good as it gets!
Craig Bennett dual sidewinder carries the “Intimidator” livery of Dale Earnhardt. Super clean with overhead pipes.
Donald Southerland (foreground) and Sean Collins #9 getting ready to go out for some fast laps.
Father and son team of Kurt and Karman Jobe came out to run the Jeff Brown-tuned Yamaha.
More nice karts – Jesse James’ #84 and Don Renton’s #88 sportsman sidewinders plus Scott Klinger’s #421 8.2 Rear.
This photo of Penelope Giessen sums up the weather for Jacksonville this year – COLD!
The business end of Haddock’s dual Yamaha – Lynn says “spec” pipes make these karts very low maintenance in the clutch department, and they are easier to drive with lower clutch engagement speeds.
Trevor Lotz’s 6.1 Rear SAE is truly a time capsule with its GEM V-12 “Y” intake setup.
A big group of Sportsman Sidewinders fire up for a heat.
Morgan Healy drives this pristine ’67 Bug Sprint 8.2 for Lynn Haddock.
Unidentified 8.2 Sidewinder looks perfect in every way.
The Haddock fleet numbered 8 karts at Jacksonville – or nearly 15% of the total entries. Now that’s a lot of work.
It takes a lot to keep 8 karts running. Here’s some of the crew…(L-R) Nick Weil, Lynn Haddock, Shane Davis, Jeff Clounch and Mike Giessen.
Lynn and his young protégé, Morgan Healey.
Race promoter/engine builder Jeff Brown came south for some warm weather and to tune the Jobes’ Yamaha. Well at least it was warmer than where he lives!
