Shav was born in Pasadena in 1920 and started his newspaper career at the age of 14, writing for the old Pasadena Post. Among his friends and classmates at Pasadena City College was Jackie Robinson and Hall of Fame running back Glenn "Mr. Outside" Davis. He covered sports for over 34 years when he came to cover auto racing in 1969, foregoing his favorite sport, golf.
When he retired last year, after 37 years as the dean of motor sports columnists, Shav had covered practically every type of race there was to cover, from dirt-track sprint cars out at the Ventura Speedway to Formula 1 events in Monte Carlo. He was inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1994, but more importantly, he was the most amiable writer you ever met.
I met Shav in 1998, when I covered the now-imfamous Ford LA Street Race, which was being held out around the Coliseum. I was barely finishing up my second quarter as part of the University Times when our Sports Editor at the time, Edgar Zuniga, took me up on my idea to cover the race. Shav saw my confusion over the race coverage and helped me undersand what was going on that weekend.
The following year, I just followed Shav around and got to know him and the other "racing regulars" in the Southern California region who covered motor sports on a regular basis, like Keith Lair of the San Gabrial Valley Tribune, Louis Brewster, then of the inland Valle Daily Bulletin, Jim Short, formerly of the Riversidde Press-Telegram and Mike Hollander of Racing Information Systems, Who would one day be my editor, but that's a story for another time.
Before long, I found myself working with another writer, Mark Peinado, who was covering Irwindale Speedway for the Times. I eventually went to work for Mark as part of the Times' community paper, but I always made sure that I said hi to Shav whenever our paths crossed, him always asking me how I was doing.
Early in 2001, I was back in Los Angeles after a brief tree-month sojourn to Northern California where an opportunity to work for a small paper ended badly. My former boss had, like me, found another job after our paper was closed down by the Tribune company. It occured to me that someone would need to take over for Mark at Irwindale, so I called Shav and asked his advice.
He said, "Kid, if you want the job, ask Mike (Kupper, the recently-retired Auto Racing Editor) to consider you. You've got the ability, and I like your enthusiasm." Since I was no longer on the payroll of the Times, I was given the ppost as a free-lance writer, and for the next four years, I spent my Saturday nights at Irwindale, writing out the weekly race recap for the Sunday Edition.
(Shav and Racing legend Les Richter, a few years back at California Speedway)
As the years went on, I got access to more and more venues,, thanks to my work at Irwindale. Eventually, I was covering races in Las Vegas, Phoenix and the Bay Area, in addition to all the races in Southern California. But no matter where I went, Shav was there, always willing to listen to me, always quick with a joke and in a small way, the only person who reminded me of my own gandfather, who had passed in when I was still young.
I'm the writer I am today because of his encouragement, and my love for the sport of auto racing has grown as a direct result of Shav's willingness to help out a complete novice in covering the sport. For the rest of My life, I will forever be indebted to his grace and friedship and grandfatherly spirit.
And I know that somewhere up in heaven, Shav is sitting in the most beautiful press box overlooking the Perfect 2-mile oval, watching Barney Oldfield running side-by-side with Paul Dana and Ayrton Senna, while Fireball Roberts is locked in a wall-scraping battle with Dale Earnhardt Sr. a quarter-lap ahead. J.C. Agajanian is sitting next to him, telling him all about his latest promotional idea, while Wally Parks prepares to make his first run of the day down the half-mile dragstrip in the center of the facility.
