VERMONT SPORTS HALL OF FAME

(Photo Courtesy Justin St. Louis)

Stock Car Racing

Milton

Inducted 2019

Harmon ‘Beaver’ Dragon was a powerful force and a household name on the northeastern stock car racing scene for four decades.  Dragon built a reputation as a classy gentleman on the track, but he was also a rugged competitor.

His career began on the dirt track at Otter Creek Speedway in Waltham in 1961.  When Catamount opened in his hometown of Milton in 1965, he and his brother Bobby Dragon made it their own, dominating racing there. He joins his brother and rival (VSHOF Class of 2015) as the first brothers to be inducted into the Vermont Sports Hall of Fame.

Beaver Dragon won more than 50 races at 14 different tracks in the U.S. and Canada and his résumé was padded by nearly two dozen championships.  He won the first two titles on the new NASCAR North Tour in 1979-80 and was the 1975 champion of its predecessor – the Northern NASCAR Circuit – which raced up to five nights a week.  Dragon won three championships at Catamount, two at Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh, N.Y., and two NASCAR Vermont State titles.  He was also the American-Canadian Tour’s runner-up in 1986 behind Robbie Crouch (VSHOF Class of 2018).

Highlight wins include the Vermont Milk Bowl, Spring Green, and Labor Day Classic, and both the Vermont and New Hampshire Governor’s Cup events.  He won six races on the NASCAR Late Model Sportsman national championship trail and made starts at Daytona, Charlotte, and Martinsville.

In 1967 he became only Vermonter to win a NASCAR Modified race at Catamount and was also the only driver to win with an underpowered Sportsman car.  In 1983 he won the first race ever held on the tricky new Sanair Super Speedway tri-oval in Québec.

One frightening moment also stands out: At Catamount’s final event in 1987, he walked away from a horrifying, end-over-end flip in qualifying that made national highlight reels.  He promptly climbed into a backup car and qualified for the main event, finishing 11th.  (Video of the crash is on YouTube by clicking HERE)

Dragon has won numerous regional and national awards including the Don McTavish Award in 1979.  He was inducted into the New England Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 2004 and, with brother Bobby, was honored by the Living Legends of Auto Racing group in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 2018.  He was also a long-time member of the Vermont Motor Vehicle Racing Commission.