Dick Thompson, champion race-car driver known as ‘Flying Dentist,’ dies at 94

By Bart Barnes
The Washington Post
October 25 at 6:31 PM

In his day job, Richard K. Thompson Jr. pulled teeth and filled cavities. He did root canals and installed crowns. He was a fourth-generation Washingtonian, the grandson of a physician and the son of a dentist with whom he shared the early years of a practice that spanned a half- century.

To his patients he was “Dr. Thompson.” But to hundreds of thousands of sports-car enthusiasts, Dick Thompson was “The Flying Dentist,” the driver of fast, sleek and powerful automotive machines on tracks across the United States and Europe at speeds of more than 200 mph.

In a racing career that began in 1952 and ended in 1969, he won eight Sports Car Club of America racing championships in several categories. He was best known as the driver of Corvettes, for which he won five championships. But he also raced MGs, Jaguars, Ferraris, Porsches, Mustangs, Cobras and Maseratis.

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