{"id":99753,"date":"2025-03-28T14:18:26","date_gmt":"2025-03-28T14:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/mountain-motor-pro-stock-community-mourns-loss-of-bob-gillig\/"},"modified":"2025-03-28T14:18:26","modified_gmt":"2025-03-28T14:18:26","slug":"mountain-motor-pro-stock-community-mourns-loss-of-bob-gillig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/drag-racing\/uncategorized\/mountain-motor-pro-stock-community-mourns-loss-of-bob-gillig\/","title":{"rendered":"Mountain Motor Pro Stock Community Mourns Loss of Bob Gillig"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most beloved characters in the world of Mountain Motor Pro Stock racing, Bob Gillig, passed away March 24, 2025, at age 77. The father of longtime Mountain Motor Pro Stock standout Tony Gillig, Bob also raced around his native Chicagoland area before handing over driving duties to Tony. Known by friends as \u201cJolly Bob,\u201d he regularly helped a number of other teams, even if they were competitors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gillig and his wife, Roseann, were happily married for 55 years. They had two children, Tony, and Chrissy, and he was the proud grandfather of Jessica, Scotty, and Alyssa. He owned and operated the family pizza joint, Wayne\u2019s Pizza, in Arlington Heights, Illinois, for 43 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs most of you know by now, my father Bob suddenly passed away Monday evening from a heart attack,\u201d Tony said in a Facebook post. \u201cMy family and I can\u2019t thank you enough for the kind words of love and support that have been pouring in. He touched so many lives over the years, especially at the racetrack; his absolute happy place. There isn\u2019t anyone that knew him that doesn\u2019t have a \u2018Bob\u2019 story to tell.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Indeed, Gillig\u2019s friends and fellow racers took to social media to share their favorite memories in the days following his passing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Multi-time, multi-series MMPS world champion John Montecalvo raced against the Gillig father-son duo for many years, but he also raced with the elder Gillig as his crew chief at one point in his illustrious career.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cRacing to me has always been about the good people we meet along the way,\u201d Montecalvo said. \u201cSure, the competition drives us, but the camaraderie during the events, and more so after hours, the traveling adventures, the crazy stories, etc., are the memories that endure. The past few years it\u2019s been so different without Sonny (Leonard), Bert (Jackson), Carl Kirk, Harold (Denton), and now we lose Bob\u2026my former crew chief and more importantly, great friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next-generation MMPS star Johnny Pluchino, a two-time PDRA Extreme Pro Stock world champion and reigning NHRA MMPS world champion, also shared his thoughts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBob was Bob; he said exactly what was on his mind and that was my favorite part about him,\u201d Pluchino said. \u201cWe wore his heart on his sleeve, especially after racing was done for the day and the vodka was flowing. I\u2019ll miss his friendship, I\u2019ll miss his wise texts, I\u2019ll miss his suspenders and him telling me how fast he\u2019s about to go. I\u2019ll miss his stories, even though I had heard most of them 2-3 times already, I always wanted to hear them once more. We were competitors, we were friends, we stood behind each other through many wins and celebrated together. I am thankful that Bob and his family was and is a part of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ram Clutches, led by Pat Norcia, shared just how impactful Gillig was not only on the racing community, but also on Ram\u2019s business over the years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDuring breaks from competition with his own car, Bob worked with several race teams and assisted them with improving their on-track performance, consistency, and race car preparation,\u201d Ram\u2019s Facebook post said. \u201cBob\u2019s input typically resulted in numerous round wins and event victories. He was also the first person to switch to a front-mounted fuel cell in the late 1990s, which quickly became the norm a few years later across all door car classes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBob worked closely with us on many projects here at Ram as well,\u201d the post continued. \u201cBob was the driving force behind our C4 Corvette conversion clutch packages that swap out the awkward pull style diaphragm pressure plate for a conventional push type pressure plate with a hydraulic release system.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Gillig\u2019s racing career spanned decades. In recent years, the family returned to racing first in the PDRA Pro 632 category, where Tony earned multiple wins in the Gillig-Wagner Motorsports \u201996 Olds Cutlass. The group then returned to MMPS in PDRA Extreme Pro Stock with Tony driving the Buck brothers\u2019 \u201cBig Daddy Warlock\u201d \u201905 Cavalier. A few years later, the Gillig-Wagner team debuted their own Pontiac GXP in PDRA Extreme Pro Stock, promptly winning its first race, PDRA DragWars at GALOT Motorsports Park. The family sold the car in January, but they were back at the track a couple months later as Tony filled in for Alan Drinkwater in the Mountain Motor Pro Stock Invitational held during the Drag Illustrated World Series of Pro Mod.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gillig is survived by his wife, Roseann, his children, Tony (Malinda) Gillig, and Chrissy (Billy) Wagner; his sister Lynn (John) Ritchie, his brother, Mike (Kathy) Gillig; and his three loving grandchildren, Jessica Gillig, Scotty Gillig, and Alyssa Wagner; and several nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n

Visitation will be held on Sunday, March 30, 2025, from 12pm-4pm at DeFiore Funeral Home \u2013 10763 Dundee Road, Huntley, Illinois 60142. Memorial donations are suggested to the St. Jude Children\u2019s Research Hospital and the American Heart Association.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published on March 28, 2025. \"Drag<\/p>\n

The post Mountain Motor Pro Stock Community Mourns Loss of Bob Gillig<\/a> first appeared on Drag Illustrated<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most beloved characters in the world of Mountain Motor Pro Stock racing, Bob Gillig, passed away March 24, 2025, at age 77. The father of longtime Mountain Motor Pro Stock standout Tony Gillig, Bob also raced around his native Chicagoland area before handing over driving duties to Tony. Known by friends as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racepages.com\/Videos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}