Cloudy with occasional rain...mainly in the morning. High 53F. Winds S at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a quarter of an inch..
Showers early becoming a steady light rain late. Low 49F. Winds light and variable. Chance of rain 70%.
Updated: January 29, 2023 @ 1:45 am
The Nashville’s Fairgrounds Speedway Bandolero division race car of Sean LePore, who was fatally shot in Murfreesboro last week.
SubmittedThe fatal shooting of two young brothers who raced at Nashville’s Fairgrounds Speedway has shaken the close-knit racing fraternity, and few were more touched than veteran Wilson County racer Bennie Hamlett, whose two sons compete at the track.
“It’s tragic,” Hamlett said Saturday. “To lose two young lives like that … I can’t imagine it. It’s hard to put it into words. It’s just awful.”
Police said Sean LePore, 11, and his brother Jesse, 9, were reportedly shot and killed by their father, Jamie LePore, on Jan. 19 at the Murfreesboro home of a family friend. The father then turned the weapon on himself, and is a suspect in having killed his wife, Jennifer, in Alabama.
The LePore family resided in Madison County, Ala., and traveled to Nashville so their sons could compete in the track’s start-up division. Sean finished 14th in last season’s Bandolero class.
“I didn’t know the boys personally, but I had seen them race,” Hamlett said. “It’s hard to even imagine something like that happening.”
“It seems like we’re unfortunately seeing more and more incidents like this,” said another Fairgrounds racer/father, Scott Fetcho, of Lebanon. “It’s terrible. It makes us wonder what’s going on.”
Fetcho retired from driving to assist his son Dylan, who last season won his second track championship. Fetcho said he understands the risks and dangers inherit in the sport for young racers, “but to lose them like this -- it’s devastating. It makes you hug your kids a little tighter.”
“It’s a sad deal,” said Mt. Juliet’s Andy Johnson, a retired track champion whose teenage son Chase is a rising star in the sport. “I don’t see how anybody could harm an innocent child.”
Terrell Davis, editor of Middle Tennessee Racing News, was acquainted with the youngsters through his Fairgrounds coverage.
“As soon as I heard the news on TV, I recognized their names and remembered seeing them around the track,” Davis said. “They were good kids and good little racers. It’s a terrible tragedy.”
Gary Neal, the track’s Race Operations Director, remembers the youngsters from pre-race drivers’ meetings.
“I shook hands with them before their last race,” he said.
Neal, who has been a Fairgrounds racing official for 33 years, was in Florida on vacation when he heard the horrific news.
“My wife and I had planned to go out to dinner that night, but I was so devastated we canceled,” he said. “It felt like we had lost a member of the family – and, in a way, we had. This is one of the worst things to happen in the track’s history.”
The track launches its 65th season on April 1 and Neal said a memorial service will be held for the two young drivers.
“I don’t know the details yet,” he said, “but there will definitely be something done in their memory.”
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