In the skid-marked racing world, Corvette took the checkered flag at the 12 hours of Sebring this weekend. Veteran journalist Jon Lowell would have been watching a tough, rain-delayed endurance race.
Lowell a long standing Detroit journalist and an SCCA racer himself – Ford Pinto and Neon Challenge – loved competition and would be chuckling, or cussing, over the puff release from BMW, whose team finished second. The press release claimed a “podium victory.”
Accurate, but not the full story, and lacking the nuance Lowell brought to his work.
Jon didn’t show up in a newsroom, a broadcast or radio studio, let alone a race track with the intention of finishing second. And he most certainly would not have bragged about a “close but no champagne” finish. Jon won on his beat and in life.
Jon – as an automotive diversion, and he had many of them – a Crossfire being the last – once bought a high-performance go-cart. Cleaned, tuned and warmed up in his driveway, Jon cracked the throttle wide open, which promptly resulted in the cart – cartwheeling – on top of him. Judy Rose, wife, (and no small change as journalist at the Detroit Free Press herself ) – runs out of the house, looks at Jon and says, “you damn fool.”
Jon loved to tell that anecdote. He lived through the bruises to his body – and his ego.
That was the key to Lowell and Rose as a couple.
They laughed at life’s ironies, they debated, they argued, they battled the indignities of aging and serious disease together. They were the epitome of “love is better the second time around.” And after each intimate evening, here Jon was discrete, but I could see the glow in his eyes, they went off to work at competing news organizations, and stared down deadlines.
I knew Jon long before I met Judy. It was, initially, the typical guy banter between us – industry gossip, company prognostications, racing chat, a lot of bluster and camshafts – until Jon mentioned Judy in an aside.
“Who be Judy,” was my query?
“I hit the jackpot when I met her,” said Jon.
Well, as I got to know the wife Judy Rose – triple 7 jackpot-ringing Judy – I appreciated the eight word lede from Jon.
For the record – Jon would have admonished me for leaving a hole in this story: The #4 Chevrolet Corvette Racing C7.R, driven by Tommy Milner, Oliver Gavin and Marcel Fässlerwon won the GTLM class on Saturday at the 12-Hours of Sebring in Florida. They also won the opening round of the Rolex 24 back in January at Daytona. When last-stint BMW driver Werner crossed the line after 235 laps of the Sebring International Raceway, the gap to the winning Corvette was 2.8 seconds. Two Americans, John Potter and Andy Lally, finished third in an Audi R8 LMS with the German Marco Seefried in a race contested after heavy rain and a lengthy red flag period.
Jon died in the presence of his family last St. Patrick’s day, as pit crews were preparing for qualifying at Sebring. He was 77 years old, and had such a diverse background in journalism, I thought of him and loved him as the media equivalent of Mario Andretti.
Andretti, almost as personable as Jon and to be fair a better driver than either of us, was a three-time 12-hours of Sebring winner (1967, 1970, 1972), four-time Indy Car National Champion (1965, 1966, 1969, 1984), Formula One World Champion (1978), Daytona 500 winner (1967) and the Indianapolis 500 winner (1969), among other accomplishments.
Jon might have preferred Phil Hill or some other driver, but he wasn’t around to edit this.
Like Andretti, Jon Lowell was a fierce competitor. I know that first hand because when I moved to Detroit after leaving Hearst to open Road&Track’s Detroit Bureau, I had to compete against Jon. It was like stepping into the ring with Mohamed Ali and Rocky Marciano. A couple of rounds against Lowell and you looked like a case for the coroner.
I wasn’t all that young in those Cragar “S/S” Super Sport days, but Jon taught me a thing or three about serious journalism in Detroit, at least as written then by the old, straight-whiskey Front-Page pros.
What do you say to a Detroit News veteran who relates the tale of covering the 1967 Detroit Riots with bullets flying and ricocheting everywhere – so much so that Jon dove under a car for cover, reporter’s notebook in hand?
“I then realized, I was hiding under the gas tank,” said Lowell in his wry style.
I’ll pay him the highest compliment a journalist issues – I wish I had written that.
The other riot story involves the Anchor Bar in Detroit that Jon was known to occasionally patronize. During the awful riot mayhem Motor City was under martial law and saloons were closed. One night – after deadline – Jon walks into the Anchor. Right behind him came three National Guard soldiers in full riot gear.
Lowell, and Leo – the infamous owner and bartender of the Anchor – both look up at the same time, thinking they were going to jail. The senior officer said, “I knew if I followed a journalist, I’d find a drink.”
Lowell’s kicker: “I don’t believe Leo ran a tab as he served them.”
Jon Lowell’s memorial service will be held 3 PM, Saturday, April 16 at the Anchor Bar in Detroit. The estimable wife Judy Rose, his sister, Honora Bird, as well as two children, Dominique Lowell and Bradford Lowell, and two grandchildren, Eli and Sofia will be there.
Join us cranky, formerly ink-stained wretches, but now electron-harassed journalists, telling tales as related by Jon Lowell.
I worked with Jon at Wards in the early 90s. I fondly remember working with him for a number of reasons, perhaps the most important being his ability to bring a bit of levity to the work environment. Back then Wards was a bit stuffy, and I came from a casual, enthusiast magazine background – so having Jon around to make light of things and to talk cars on an enthusiast level was much appreciated.
One story to illustrate this: I recall going on a Honda Accord driving event with Jon where we were allowed (perhaps foolishly by our hosts) to take the Accords out onto Honda’s proving ground high speed oval in Ohio. Now the Accord was (and remains) a pedestrian family car but Jon happily agreed to try something that Honda surely didn’t anticipate or probably wish to happen.
We decided to do some high speed drafting – a staple of NASCAR racing – but not something you normally try in a car like an Accord or safely do on public roads. So we took turns to accelerate to top speed around the oval in one car, with the other car trailing right on the rear bumper. Then the person at the rear would pull out and under full throttle, surge past the car in front, thereby demonstrating the wonders of aerodynamic forces.
It was simple, good fun and far from the point of Honda’s event, but I remember it well as an example of how entertaining it was to have Jon around.
I wish I had known him better…. I observed the man from a distance for many years reading and seeing his literary ‘stuph’ and should have been closer.
Life… you just ain’t getting out of here alive.
I was lucky, and at the same time, unlucky to have met Jon Lowell some 15-20 years ago, at Jim Dunne and Ken Zino luncheon extravaganzas. Unlucky, in that it was clear from his stories of covering Detroit and the auto industry that I had missed out by not working side-by-side with Jon in the journalists’ scrum. Lucky, in that he was never a competitor.
Jon had a wonderful, out-of-the-side-of-his-mouth sense of humor. He was a fixture at the “poet’s corner” of the old Detroit Press Club, along with his pals Al Blanchard, Doc Greene, Jack Crellin, Charles Lord and others. I remember his wedding to Judy very well, including the infamous juxtaposition of lamb and pig on the BBQ spit and his explanation of why a buddy was passed out on the grass: “he’s checking for ants.” Go gently, Jon.