Lealand McSpadden

Lealand McSpadden (born July 16, 1946) is a former dirt track racing driver who competed mostly in sprint and midget cars. He was nicknamed "The Tempe Tornado" for his explosive driving style.

Born in Gallup, New Mexico, McSpadden's family moved to Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, in 1954. He began racing in 1968 with a supermodified bought from local racer Billy Shuman. He recorded his first sprint car feature race win at Manzanita Speedway in 1972.

McSpadden's 26-year career included nearly 200 feature wins, including 25 in five different divisions at Manzanita during the 1977 season. His awards are numerous; he is a three-time winner of the Western World Championship for sprint cars (1978, 1993, 1995) and he won the 1991 Chili Bowl midget car event. As well as racing in the United States, McSpadden was also a frequent visitor to (and competitor in) Australia, where he would make guest appearances at "Australia vs the USA" nights at Parramatta City Raceway.

One particular race at Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, California, saw McSpadden crash out in his heat. He was badly shaken and his car took severe damage but promoter J.W. Hunt offered to add $1,000 to the winner's purse if McSpadden could come back through the qualifying B-main race and win the main event. He won both the B-main and the main event to win the increased purse.

He retired from competitive racing in 1995 after winning the SCRA non-winged sprint car championship, having announced that he would be diverting his attention to the NASCAR SuperTruck Series (which would later become the Craftsman Truck Series).

In 1998, McSpadden was inducted into the Arizona Motorsports Hall of Fame. In 2000, the "Arizona Republic" named him the fifth-greatest driver from that state in the past 100 years.

In February 2003, McSpadden was diagnosed with cancer. After surgery and treatment he has now been in remission for five years.