Bobby East, a United States Auto Club (USAC) great who won three national championships in the Silver Crown and Midget divisions and also had experience in NASCAR, died on Tuesday in a stabbing attack in Westminster, California. He was 37.
According to a press release by the Westminster Police Department, West was at a 76 gas station to refill his behicle on Tuesday at 5:51 PM when he was stabbed in the chest. Paramedics and police attempted to save his life before moving him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
WPD named 27-year-old Trent William Millsap as the suspect, having escaped the scene prior to police arrival. Millsap, described as a transient who travels between motels in Southern California, was charged with murder, had an outstanding parole warrant, and was considered armed and dangerous. After receiving a tip on Millsap’s location on Friday, a SWAT team tracked him down and killed him following a shootout, with the only police injury being a non-fatal gunshot wound to a K-9 unit dog.
The son of USAC Hall of Fame inductee Bob East, East won fifty-six USAC features during his career, with all but eight coming at the national level. The first, a National Midget event in 2001 at Illiana Motor Speedway, made him the youngest driver to win in the series at sixteen years of age. He claimed the USAC National Midget championship in 2004 followed by the Silver Crown in 2012 and 2013. He ended his USAC stint after 2014.
Between 2005 and 2008, East began dabbling in NASCAR as a Ford development driver by making starts in what are now the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series. He ran eleven races in the former for now-JTG Daugherty Racing, Brewco Motorsports, and Baker Curb Racing, notching three top-twenty finishes with a best run of twelfth at the 2007 Homestead race.
In 2006, he ran nearly the entire Truck Series schedule for Wood Brothers/JTG Racing, serving as a team-mate to Supercars Championship star Marcos Ambrose. East finished twenty-third in points with a best run of eleventh at IRP. Two years later, he did seven races for Roush Fenway Racing (now RFK Racing), scoring his lone pole at IRP and a pair of top tens at Texas and Memphis.
East also attempted the 2005 ARCA Menards Series finale for K-Automotive Motorsports.
UPDATE (16 July): Article has been updated with Millsap’s cornering and termination.
