“Loving husband, brother, father and grandfather. Fixture of the Yolo County courts for over 50 years. Multi-year champion sports car rally navigator for Porsche Club of America and Sports Car Club of America circuits. Lifelong Oakland A’s fan. Devotee of classical music and theater. Survived by his wife, Sandy; brother, John; children, Jessica, Cameron, and Eli; and granddaughter, Daria. Services will be private.”
Our road rally community, while spread across America, is quite small. We received the news via the grapevine that J Toney had fallen ill after returning home from the June Wisconsin rallies. We corresponded with J’s daughter Jessica Toney, who had run the USRRC with us in 2017. Hopeful, with news at that time, we were saddened when news came from Bruce Gezon that J had passed. Here are some details the above obituary didn’t reveal…
• J won his first SCCA National Championship with his mother, Flori Toney, in 1965; they lived in Pineville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The photo above is from the Toney Family collection after that Championship in 1965. RReNews felt it a superb representation of the 1960’s rallying era! J has 430 Lifetime Points in SCCA, with multiple National Champinships and ten United States Road Rally Championships.
• J won the Porsche Club of America National Championship 18 times, with three different drivers over the years
• Bruce Gezon, writing to Jessica, “There were 71 cars on this Quaker City Sports Car Club rally including Class III which was likely an SOP class. Your grandmother and J seemed to always have Car #1 when they rallied and finished 7th on this rally and 8th overall in the Volvo. I managed to beat them running unequipped with my girlfriend at that time, Carol Sainsbury. I drove and navigated and she kept notes. Having a girlfriend along was usually better than having a real navigator. Note other familiar names such as Dennis & Sally Koelmel and Jack & Renee O’Leary in their Team Chryslers.”
UPDATE 211006: We received word from the family that services will be held Thursday, October 7th, and all are welcome to view it live via this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5700071000?pwd=SGMrdk12cUVoV2YwU3JFOW11djZPQT09
• Going back to Vol. 1 No. 1 issue of Top Gear, the Motorsport News of Delaware Valley, May 1963, from Bruce.
• J won his last rally, the SCCA Milwaukee Region’s Roads Scamper, by Rallymaster Crittenden. Rallying with daughter Jessica Toney, the day before the cardiac event that took him from us. He did what he loved until the very end. This photo is from their win at the United States Road Rally Challenge in 2001, sanctioned SCCA St. Louis Region.
