Goodwin racing family poses for a photo in July 27, 2025 at Sands Speedway (Adam Hinch/Daily Press)

SANDS — Ever since the Sands Speedways first season in 1970, there has been a member of the Goodwin family on the track and the family is now three generations strong with his daughter Victoria named after the 1955 Crown Victoria and his grandson Evan Ford Hawley so as you can see Bob was a Ford enthusiast.

Bob Goodwin made his debut in 1970 racing a 1955 Ford. Bob built a new car each year including a 1967 Fairlane, another 1967 Fairlane, 1968 Fairlane and a 1970 Mustang.

The track as Sands Speedway closed down halfway through the 1974 season so Bob raced a dirt mod for the remainder of the year and through 1976.

“It was the big thing in the area at the time,” Bob Goodwin said. “We had a 100 hobby stocks every week back then and you could barely find a place to sit back then everyone came out.”

In 1977 Escanaba paved their track and Sands reopened under the name of Thunder Valley in 1976 and Bob raced both tracks until 1992.

“It was fun watching my dad race as a little girl,” Victoria Hawly said. “I would roll up and down the hill and watch the races then when I got to racing my son would come out and play in the pits.”

Bob loved getting cars out of the junkyard and turning them into race cars. For the first 20 years of racing, the pay would pay for the sport.

“It was a lot easier back in the day to get a car going,” Goodwin said. “It’s a different time now cars aren’t as easy to work on and it’s easy to just jump on a side by side and go for a ride somewhere.”

In 1983 Bob took a few years off from racing but continued running the tow truck for Thunder Valley.

In 1994, the track went back to the name Sands Speedway where Bod ran a late model in 1994-1995. Bob and his son Rob Goodwin built a 1968 Galaxy for the 1995 season. Victoria ran the tow truck and took some turns in Rob’s car.

In 1996, Rob took over driving the late model and drove it through the 1997 season. As he went to college and through the early part of his career, Rob stepped away from racing cars.

At this time, Victoria, her husband Charlie and Rob (Victoria’s brother) raced snocross collecting trophies all over the midwest and Canada and some years Charlie and Victoria ran on the National Circuit as Ski-doo sponsored drivers.

In 2011 Rob made his return to the Sands Speedway in the street stock division. Rob made the move to the late model division in 2012 and aced until 2019. Bob returned in 2019 and shared the seat with Rob until 2023.

Victoria joined the new fuel injected class racing a 2008 Ford Mustang and won a track championship in that division.

Also in 2023, Victoria’s 15 year old son Evan raced a Mustang for half the season and jumped into the late models in 2024 finishing the season fifth in points.

Evan and his grandpa are both running in the late models together this season and Evan leads the points with two races remaining.

“This is a very special thing to me,” Evan Hawley said. “How many kids you know get to go out and race as duo it’s just amazing and such an honor to do.”

Evan plans to continue racing into the future and if he ends up with kids the Goodwin racing family could most likely be heading to a fourth generation