Bobby Gerhart Racing

Story by: Arabella Maeve Johnson
If you ever talk to someone who grew up around Pennsylvania’s short tracks, there’s a good chance Bobby Gerhart’s name comes up with a knowing smile. It all started at Linda’s Speedway—one of those little bullrings where the dirt clings to your clothes and the Friday-night air smells like exhaust, popcorn, and possibility. That’s where Gerhart won his very first feature race. Nothing big. Nothing glamorous. Just the kind of win that lights a fuse inside a kid who can’t imagine doing anything else.
From there, he chased the clay across Pennsylvania, bouncing between Penn National and Susquehanna Speedway, driving dirt-modifieds that were loud, raw, and just unruly enough to teach a man how to survive. But dirt only tells part of the story. Eventually, curiosity—and maybe a stubborn streak—pushed him toward asphalt. He wound up at Pocono Raceway, the big, triangular beast that humbles plenty of drivers. For Gerhart, it was just another chapter waiting to be written.
ARCA Menards Series
By 1988, he jumped full-time into the ARCA Series, and right out of the gate he snagged Rookie of the Year. That wasn’t luck; that was grit. While he kept at ARCA year after year, he briefly stepped into NASCAR’s Craftsman Truck Series in ’96, hauling the No. 85 Chevrolet Silverado into three races and even clawing out a fifteenth-place finish. Not headline stuff—just the steady work of a racer who refuses to quit.
A couple years later, he tried again to break back into the Cup Series, working with the No. 54 and then the No. 89 Chevy after landing sponsorship from Kewadin Casinos. Three attempts, three DNQs. Some drivers walk away after that; Gerhart took it personally and went right back to ARCA. And wouldn’t you know it—he won the season-opening Daytona race in 1999 and finished third in the standings that season. Funny how racing rewards the ones who keep coming back.
He would keep returning to Daytona, too—almost obsessively—winning the ARCA opener from 2005 to 2007 and again from 2010 to 2012. Only once did he run a full ARCA schedule after that stretch, in 2006, finishing second in points. Mostly, he picked his battles, showed up where it mattered, and kept the Gerhart name steady in the series.
NASCAR
Gerhart’s NASCAR story actually begins much earlier, all the way back in 1983. Picture it: Pocono Raceway, a Henley Gray-owned Buick, and a young driver just trying to make the distance. He finished thirty-eighth—not pretty, but enough to keep his foot in the door. Over the next five years, he wandered through Cup races at Dover, North Wilkesboro, Michigan, Daytona…sometimes in the No. 71, sometimes the No. 85, the 25, the 59. His best finish was nineteenth, but that hardly captures the grind behind those starts.
He didn’t return to NASCAR until 2001, dipping into the Busch Series with his No. 65 car. A 22nd-place run was the highlight, but the real spark came in 2009 when he drove for Bob Schacht in the Nationwide Series. At Talladega, he somehow muscled the car into fifth place in qualifying and held steady in the top twenty until the inevitable Talladega chaos swallowed him whole.
His plan for 2016? Something only a racer with a stubborn heart would even attempt: the Daytona Triple. ARCA, Trucks, and Xfinity all in one Speedweeks. An adrenaline overload. A dream for most. Just another challenge for Gerhart.
Personal Life
Racing wasn’t something Bobby Gerhart did alone. His brother Billy served as crew chief, while their father—Bobby Gerhart Sr.—was practically born into the sport. The elder Gerhart started racing in 1954, became an Eastern Modified champion, and eventually earned his place in the Eastern Motorsport Press Association Hall of Fame. You could say racing was the family business, or maybe the family religion. Names like Deacon Gerhart and Dave Gerhart floated around the pits too, each with their own stories and battle scars.
Off the track, Bobby ran Bobby Gerhart’s Truck World, a used truck dealership back home—because even racers need something to anchor them to the ground.
The Unexpected Final Lap
Just before the 2020 season, life stepped in with no warning. Gerhart suffered a heart attack, the kind that forces even the toughest people to pause. It ended his racing career, not with fanfare or a farewell tour, but in a quiet, sobering moment that reminded everyone he was human after all.
But if you look back at the dusty tracks, the failed qualifiers, the Daytona triumphs, the family legacy…you’ll see a man who lived racing the same way he drove—head-down, unpolished, relentless.