Will Cagle, a four-time Super DIRTcar Series champion, passed away on Wednesday, Feb. 5. He was 86 years old.

The Tampa, FL driver first came to the Northeast in 1959, before his iconic No. 24 car became a regular fixture in Victory Lane in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.

Known as the “Tampa Terror,” he earned 498 Feature victories in his 33-year career, 22 of those with the Super DIRTcar Series. Along with four Series titles, he added six track championships at Weedsport Speedway and Land of Legends Raceway, along with five titles at Rolling Wheels Raceway and Orange County Fair Speedway.

The track titles weren’t his only triumph at Orange County. He won the track’s premier race, the Eastern States 200, four times. That includes the 1968 event, where 10-time Series champion Brett Hearn watched Cagle race for the first time.

Hearn also watched his dad race against him growing up.

“My dad raced a little a bit, and Cagle was the hot shoe,” Hearn said. “My dad had a chance to win a Heat Race one night and Cagle passed him on the last lap. That was probably the closest my dad came to winning a heat race.”

Once a serious crash ended Cagle’s career in 1985, he transitioned to the business side of the sport, managing Orange County for 11 years, along with stints at Can-Am Speedway, Thunder Alley Speedway, and East Bay Raceway Park in Florida.

Hearn, who is now part of the management team at Orange County, competed against Cagle and raced on “The Hard Clay” while Cagle was the manager.

The “Jersey Jet” said he had a flattering moment racing against Cagle in the early stages of his career.

“When I first hit the circuit, Will had gone upstate and was really dominant,” Hearn said. “He actually came over to me and asked me what I was doing for a setup and what kind of tire I was running. He would sneak over and stick his thumbnail in my tire and see if I was telling him the truth or not.”

Buzzie Reutimann, a two-time Super DIRT Week champion, said he started racing against Cagle as a teenager in the Soap-Box Derby, one of the key reasons he decided to race in the Northeast.

“My dad owned a Chevrolet business, and I was the service manager, and he stopped by one day because the taillights didn’t work,” Reutimann said. “Will and I were talking, and he said I’m going to go race Flemington and at [Orange County] because I can race three nights a week. We thought about it and made more money racing three nights a week than the NASCAR drivers did once a month back then.

“That’s one of the reasons I went North. He said, ‘Buzz, you get your car together and follow me up when I go up next year.’ So, I started building a car, and Will would come down in the winter and build his cars too. When he came by the Chevy place a year later, we just followed him up, and we were all ready to go.”

Reutimann described the Series champion as a hard, but clean racer.

“He was a good racer,” Reutimann said. “He didn’t give an inch, but he wasn’t what you’d call a dirty driver or someone who’d wreck you. He was just a hard racer and had an extreme talent to set his car up himself, and that’s just what we did back then.”

Cagle was inducted into the Northeast Dirt Modified Hall of Fame in its inaugural class in 1992.