“13: The Life & Career Of Ted Christopher” Debuts Documenting One Of Short Track Racing’s Greatest Ever

Stafford Speedway employee and filmmaker Bonssa Tufa debuted his documentary “13: The Life & Career of Ted Christopher Saturday morning.

The two hour and 21 minute film fully encapsulates the entire life of short track racing Legend Ted Christopher from his birth to his tragic passing in September 2017.

This much is certain, if you’re the crying type, bring tissues.

Comments

  1. wmass01013 says

    Just watched all 2 hrs 21 minutes, while never was a BIG TC fan, i respect all his accomplishments in his career, AWESOME work by all involved in telling a complete story of not only the driver but the Man and his family, a SAD ending to what should be a life still going, WELL DONE AND THANK YOU

  2. Just finished watching it, wonderful job to all involved in the project. Thank you for bring back so many wonderful racing memories. Got a chance to meet TC a few times, wish I could have known him like so many in the documentary did. What a great life and legacy he left to so many. Thank you.

  3. Incredible.Thank You.

  4. I just watched it. Excellent production

  5. I’ll admit it. Watching this was a chore. We’re going on 4 years since the guys death. It’s tedious seeing his memory get trotted out every so often and a little superficially opportunistic when it’s used to promote a race event. Racing isn’t about the past it’s about the next event and who’s in it. Race drivers, people, businesses and sports don’t win looking in the rear view mirror and embellishing events the longer they do it. Starts out a tragic loss of a unique and successful local race driver and morphs into a person so important and generous and widely respected that his death is a loss to humanity.
    I can speak to one bit of embellishment I know the most about that being Christopher’s SK career from the start to 1996. He may have been a project of Jack Arute but the racing in that period certainly did not revolve around Ted Christopher nor was everyone intimidated by him. He was more a grenade you didn’t want to be around.
    1987 TC’s first championship few saw. It was the first year the SK’s were the premier division with only the Streets as an undercard, the stands were empty and the Arute’s in legitimate trouble. From 1982 to Ted’s second championship in 1996 Bob Potter had 5 championships, Jerry Pearl 2 and Mike 3. Mike being clearly the better driver of the twins. Ted Christopher would become what he became but for that period he was not the show and the top drivers not intimidated at all by his antics. Pissed off at them would be a better description. Many fans as well having to put up with endless cautions.
    It’s natural for any documentarian let alone one at the beginning of his career to get caught up in each interviewees emotion and strong recollections of the person whose story is being told. I think that happened a lot here. Considering the audience and the fact that this is a sport that’s a good thing. We as fans can’t possibly appreciate what Christopher meant to those around him nor should we be expected to. We simply have to know of and appreciate their perspective and now we do.
    Now we finally have the definitive documentary of Ted Christopher. In depth, lengthy, nuanced and broad. I’m hoping now we can move on with no more occasions to see the Christophers once again being put through that meat grinder and ending up in tears. We all go through that if we live long enough and have lost a loved one and there is a time to move on. That time is now in my view.
    What I took out of this combined with a little research and the Unmuffled episode is how lucky we all are to have Bonssa Tufa. He’s not one of us and not because he’s an African American although that in itself is what we should want. We fans, former racers, current racers, media professionals usually have life long investments in local racing. Tufa a 2017 grad of Towson University with roots in Maryland at Stafford partly by happenstance attending Quinnipiac University’s Master’s program while having an interest in racing. Starting from nothing 2019, knowing almost nothing about local racing and now a critical element to the sea change in racing we see now on our TV’s and media devices.
    Rarely in our racing community do we get to have someone come in that is highly educated, motivated and using local racing as a stepping stone and resume builder. He was involved with sim racing as we were locked down advancing that and there could have been no better person to get just as televised racing was needed and took more permanent root. He’s the director of the FloRacing product at Stafford and of all the productions I’ve seen including NBC Sports Gold it’s the best and getting better. Bonssa Tufa clearly a critical element and credit Stafford as well. They recognized talent and gave him the space to grow and local racing is better for it.
    Mr. Tufa is a traveler building a career and I hope we have him for as long as possible but he will move on to better opportunities at some point. That will happen like Mike Joy or Jackie Arute mainly because of the talent level. In his wake we have his success in developing the gold standard of regional televised racing and a documentary on one of the most important racing personalities that will ever come out of our region.
    In my view Ted Christopher and Bonssa Tufa may have a great deal more in common than might first be apparent. From Ted’s inauspicious start in SK racing that evolved to greatness as well as his business accomplishments he proved to have a very high ceiling career wise. Bonssa Tufa will take a different path but in the end will prove to have a very high ceiling as well.

  6. Great documentary of probably the most accomplished driver of our time. Enjoyed watching it, and would recommend it to everyone whether or not your a TC fan. Best quote ever ” Dale Earnhardt ain’t got nothing on him” the closest cup driver to TC would be Kyle Larson, who like Teddy seems to be able to win in anything he drives

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