Riverway Plumbing and Mechanical sponsors the Huntley’s Hoosier Wing Sprint Car Series for the 2025 Season.
If you call Bloomington, Indiana home and you are a successful sprint car racer you can expect to enjoy a reasonable level of notoriety in the community. Few people handled these powerful beasts better than the late Kevin Huntley, and the record shows he went toe-to-toe with the best of his generation and won more than his fair share.
Neil Patzner knew little of this when he first met Huntley. Neil was a new guy in an unfamiliar environment just trying to make it in business. Born in Arcadia, Wisconsin Patzner had matriculated to Minnesota where he was working as a union contractor and plumber. Then, it was time to move again. His wife Lori accepted a position at Boston Scientific, and immediately Neil began to carve out his own niche. In 2010 he founded Riverway Plumbing, and at first the bulk of his attention was focused on installing water heaters. He would later extend his reach into excavating, septic and sewers, and outside utility work. It was here that he first met Kevin Huntley. “I got introduced to Kevin by several people in town,” Neil says, “then I started hiring him to do some of my sewer digs. The more we talked the more I realized we had the same personality and mentality. Our approach was let’s get it done, let’s do it ourselves, and let’s do it right.”
It was a great professional relationship, but in time it grew deeper. There was a simple reason for this. “When I first came to Bloomington I was a deer in the headlights,” Neil says, “you could get burned by contractors and you could get taken advantage of, but when I met Kevin I knew I could trust him. Everything he did I kind of mimicked.”
Even after Patzner acquired his own excavating equipment when there was a big job to be done he called on Huntley. “If I used him and put his name on it I knew the customer was going to be happy. They would have no problems with the price or the workmanship. I wanted to be seen as offering a superior product and providing good service, and that is how I survived in this town. The same was true of Kevin. He never took advantage of people. I’m really an old country boy at heart and Kevin had a lot of country in him. He was the kind of guy where deals were done with handshakes and word of mouth and if there was any man I trusted he was the guy. If he said he was going to do something he was there, have it done or beat you to it.”
Then there were those times after the work was over. Card games at the Eagles, the stories of his racing life, and their mutual interest in flying. If one memory remains forever it was a trip to New Orleans and back. “I started talking about getting an airplane,” Neil says, “so I found one in New Orleans and Kevin said let’s go hang out and fly it home. I bought two airline tickets; two hotel rooms and we hung out and ate crawfish and saw New Orleans in the heat of August. We test flew the airplane and decided to fly home the next day. We really didn’t know anything about it. We were flying home and the linkages in the gas tanks were a little off so when we tried to switch the tanks the engine cut out. We switched to one tank and got to Evansville and topped off with fuel. Everyone there said we should check things out. Kevin said we were going home. That’s how he was. He was brave. He feared nothing. Given what he did in racecars you have to be brave. That was his persona.”
While starting a business is rarely a life or death proposition it also has inherent risk. Neil Patzner has ideas, energy, and drive. That’s what made Riverway Plumbing & Mechanical a success. He has twenty-three employees now and Bloomington is now home for Neil and Lori, and their three sons Logan (22) and 19-year old twins Nolan and Gavin.
Life is good, but there are moments when Patzner misses Kevin Huntley badly. “I took it hard,” he says, “When you lose someone you trusted so much it leaves a void. No one has really filled it.” It is for this reason Neil has stepped up and supported the Kevin Huntley Memorial race each year. In 2025 there is a bit of a twist. Because of his ample support this season the series that honors his late friend will be known as The Huntley’s Hoosier Wing Sprint Car Series presented by Riverway Plumbing & Mechanical. Rest assured, this isn’t motivated by ego or because it is a good business decision. No, this act of generosity goes well beyond that. “Kevin was such a great guy,” Neil says, “and I just think he deserves to be remembered.”
- administrator on Apr 22, 2025
- Article Date: 4/22/2025 by Patrick Sullivan