New England racing has definitely lost one of it's best promoters with Mr Arutes passing. No matter what you may have thought about the way he ran his racetrack, there is no arguing that Jack Sr and family have always had SMS at the forefront in all aspects of new england short track racing. I have worked with several different teams over the years at SMS, some where if Jack Sr rolled up on his golf cart you would hope he wasn't going to stop, and some where he almost always stopped, But either way he would always give you that nod and ask you how you were doin before he either gave your driver a piece of his mind, or just shared his thoughts on the topic at hand. The thing that I personally always felt was, that he truly appreciated owners bringing their cars to the racetrack whether you were an also ran or one of the top teams by the way he toured the pits weekly slowly passing by each pit stall. Jack Sr was also a member of the Making Laps forum, and would stop by the Fri night SMS chats once in awhile when he didn't make it out to the track. My condolences go out to the entire Arute family.... RIP Jack Arute Sr