Bob McCreadie, who was one of the winningest drivers in dirt racing history and was regularly introduced by announcers as “the master of going faster,” died on May 15 at his home in Watertown, N.Y. He was 73.

His son Tim, who is also a dirt racing driver, confirmed the death. He said his father had been ill for several months and was in hospice care.

McCreadie won more than 500 races at weekly events and on the touring Super Dirtcar Series circuit, driving dirt-modified stock cars at 150 miles per hour around short, tight-cornered tracks at fairgrounds and speedways along the East Coast. In the course of his 35-year-career, he occasionally broke his back in spectacular wrecks.

Dirt racing is not nearly as popular (or as lucrative) as the NASCAR circuit. But to the more than 2,500 fans who typically attend races, the sport is an enduring source of small-town pride and entertainment.

McCreadie was dirt racing’s perfect Everyman: Scrawny, bespectacled, with a bushy beard, he chain-smoked, cursed vigorously and hauled his racecars with his own pickup truck instead of the fancy trailers that many of his contemporaries used.