Sprint car in funeral home, with final lap at Lernerville, honor Bell Township man
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As Brandon D. “B-Dog” Hawkins lived life full throttle, expect nothing less for his funeral home viewing and services.
Hawkins’ family is celebrating the memory of the underwater welder and laborer who died July 20 on the job in Johnstown. Hawkins, of Bell Township, was 26. He was a 2012 graduate of Kiski Area High School.
His spirit as a longtime sprint car racer will live on beginning with his funeral home visitation and his funeral service’s finale: a final lap at Lernerville Speedway on Wednesday.
Hawkins’ sprint car will be right beside him in the Ross G. Walker Funeral Home Ltd. in New Kensington for visitations until the Wednesday morning funeral service, after which one of his brothers will drive the sprint car for a final lap at Lernerville in Buffalo Township, followed by Hawkins’ hearse.
“When you’re a racer and that is in your blood and you grew up going to any dirt track — when it comes down to it, that family is a family you will always have,” said David Hawkins, Brandon’s father.
It’s not just the passion for racing that drove the family to use his car in the funeral ceremonies but the importance of racing in their lives.
“We fight to keep these cars on the track,” Hawkins said. “We work to race.”
Hawkins comes from a family of racers, with his dad racing for 22 years and then his brothers, Scottie Joe and Tyler. Hawkins had raced since he was 14 and traveled to competitions all over the Northeast. Recently, he was racing in the Allegheny Mountain 305 sprint racing division, his father said.
“If you walked into the pits in Lernerville or Mercer, I would guarantee you he would talk to everybody before he did his own thing,” said Kyle Colwell of Knox. Colwell, the Hawkins family and other racers are raising money for Brandon’s son, Maverick, and are continuing B-Dog’s racing program in his son’s name, Mav Motor Sports.
“We invested everything we had into running sprints,” David Hawkins said, “going to 40 to 70 races a year in New York, Ohio, Delaware, North Carolina and other places.”
So it’s not that surprising that the Hawkins family would incorporate racing into the services, scoring a victory with securing Lernerville and making arrangements for a final victory lap.
But it was Ross “Cubby” Walker IV, a funeral director at Ross G. Walker Funeral Home Ltd. in New Kensington, who came up with the idea of bringing Hawkins’ car into the funeral home.
“You should have seen the smile on David’s face,” he said.
“We were excited for the opportunity to do something like this for this amazing family.”
Walker doesn’t think his family’s funeral home has had a sprint car displayed before, but there has been a boat on a trailer and other cherished possessions.
A ramp on the side of the building provided an entry way for the car, which is 12.5 feet long, 6.5 feet wide and 7.5 feet high.
The wheels and some other parts had to be removed to get it inside, where it was reassembled in less than a half-hour, Walker said.
“It was like a pit crew was there,” Walker said. “They put it together fast.”