5 replies to this topic

[Michael Ferner]

We now know that former TNF member and US racing historian par excellence, John Glenn Printz has passed away on April 8, 2013. This confirms the worst fears I've had for a long time, in fact, ever since his sudden disappearance from this board earlier that year, and my inability to make contact in the following months. John was only 71 years old.

To make matters worse, it seems that his former "partner in crime", Ken McMaken died the same year, although I can't find a full date at the moment.

[ReWind]

According to this obituary Kenneth M. McMaken died on October 24th, 2013, at the age of 73. At least I think he is the right one although nothing is said about his motor racing researches there.
His racing memorabilia were auctioned off in 2014.

Re John G. Printz: He put a brief but fine autobiography into his TNF profile.

[Richard Jenkins]

I'm immensely saddened to read that Mr Printz is no longer with us and even more so that he died nearly three years ago. His enthusiasm and passion for his chosen area of expertise was admirable and I enjoyed reading his posts.

[Lemnpiper]

I agree  some of Mr  Printz's  postings  were  among the most interesting due to the details  they would contain regarding the topic at hand.

 

  Pity  we will never see any more  comments in regards to American open wheel racing  in it's  formulative  years.

 

 

    though it is  almost 3 years late in coming    I must say  Thank You  Mr John G Printz  for your contributions here .

[Vitesse2]

After a discussion elsewhere, I have split Michael's and subsequent posts from the Gone but not Forgotten thread.

[DCapps]

Over the years, I had a number of exchanges with John Glenn "Jack" Printz regarding various topics regarding the early years of American racing. There were never dull. They always seemed to leave me with yet more food for thought and things to mull over. One topic that I hammered away at time and again was that JPG should publish what he had developed over the years or either get with Ken McMaken and do something jointly. That, and ensure that his archival and research material find a home should anything ever happen. Of course, I imaged that such an occurrence was far into the future. Recent efforts to contact JGP once again by phone and then mail went unanswered. My concerns grew and, finally, I found his obituary -- only to realize that he had died not long after one of our last exchanges. I have been unable to discover what may have happened to his automobile racing material. One can hope that it might have gone to Wayne State University, where he worked for many years, or even the Detroit Public Library and its National Automotive History Collection. I just do not know.

 

That Ken McMaken died just months after JGP was another blow. However, the disposition of his auto racing material is known: it was auctioned off and the vast majority of it is unlikely to be available to researchers, ever.

 

I certainly miss the gruff lectures and the too few lively give-and-take discussions that we had over the years.

 

Although JGP always maintained that someone else would eventually have exposed the fraudulent AAA championship history that Arthur Means and Russ Catlin concocted, it was JGP that did it.