Racing icon Scott Bloomquist dies in plane crash: Everything we know

The racing community is mourning the loss of dirt track icon Scott Bloomquist, who died in a small plane crash in Tennessee on Friday.

A friend of Bloomquist said on Facebook that the racing legend crashed while flying his vintage plane on his family farm at around 7:15 a.m. Bloomquist was 60 years old.

“God bless Scott. May you forever fly high on the wings of an eagle,” his friend Reid Millard wrote on Facebook.

Who was Scott Bloomquist?

Bloomquist won 94 Lucas Oil Late Model and 33 World of Outlaws Late Model races, most recently taking first place in 2020 at Thunder Mountain Speedway in Knox Dale, Pennsylvania.

The popular racer finished in the top five at the Schaeffer Oil Spring Nationals Series race in Tazewell, Tennessee.

He was inducted into the National Dirt Racing Late Model Hall of Fame in 2002. He was part of the second class of inductees.

Bloomquist moved from California to Tennessee in the 1980s to pursue a career in dirt racing.

“Sad to hear of the tragic passing of one of the greatest to ever race a Dirt Late Model. Scott and I were rivals for many years, but we always had a lot of respect for each other as competitors,” Rocket1 Racing founder Mark Richards posted on X.

Richards said it was “hard to believe.”

“I still remember the first time I saw him race at Kingsport Speedway in 1983,” Richards wrote. “I knew that day he was different. I'm glad Scott and I have had many conversations over the last few years to confirm the respect we had for each other. The racing world lost one of the best it ever saw today.”

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Bloomquist is not the first loss the racing community has suffered this year.

Lizzy Musi, 33, died of breast cancer on June 28. Musi was one of the top female street racers and appeared on the reality show “Street Outlaws: No Prep King” on Discovery.

She won three consecutive races at the show and became the first woman to break the 200 mph barrier in the eighth-mile Doorslammer race with a time of 3.802 seconds.

Musi was diagnosed with stage 4 triple negative breast cancer last year.

She was in a relationship with Jeffrey Earnhardt, the grandson of NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt.

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