Meet Kenny T.

Alumnus/Faculty Member

You could say Assistant Professor Kenny Tremont is the closest thing Hudson Valley Community College has to a “celebrity” among its faculty ranks, but you’d be hard pressed to find a more down-to-earth and likeable gentleman, even though he’s built a reputation winning modified dirt track races across the eastern United States for the better part of 30 years.

Now in his second decade of teaching in the Automotive Technical Services program, Tremont put the finishing touches on his racing career last fall, wrapping up the Big Block Modified seasons at the three tracks he’s raced for the past several years – Lebanon Valley, Albany Saratoga and Devil’s Bowl in Vermont.

“Next year, I’ll be there, but not as a driver. I’d rather go out on a positive. It’s hard on the body. There are guys out there still racing older than me, but it’s really a young man’s sport for the punishment that you take,” he said.

Based in West Sand Lake, the Tremont racing tradition spans three generations and some 60 years now. Ken said when he was born there was already a race car or two at the house.

“My dad was always a race enthusiast and we’ve owned a repair shop in West Sand Lake for over 60 years. It’s been cars and cars and more cars my whole life. When my dad started, he would hire drivers and when I hit my teenage years, I’d start to warm the cars up and then from there just started driving. For a while, we were spending more time on the race car than the business. It’s hard to main that level of intensity,” he said.

At its most active, Tremont’s racing career had him travelling as far north as Quebec, south to Florida and out to Texas for Super Dirt Car Series races. He said for a few years, the Tremont team was competing in an incredible 100 races a year, often five races a week. More recently, they’ve focused on the regional tracks where they built their reputation.

He said he was a little late to the teaching profession but he’s enjoyed the past 20 years at Hudson Valley and the generations of students he’s had the chance to mentor. Tremont uses the word “fortunate” a lot to describe his time in the classroom and on race track.

“We’ve been lucky with the students in this program. The majority of students in the automotive program are here because they want to be. They love cars. They love working on cars. They’re eager to learn. The people who work here are good people,” he said.

Tremont is not only a faculty member but he’s also an automotive program alumnus – Class of 1981. In fact, he said, he teaches the same course in the same classroom where he took it some 40 years ago.

“The teacher I had was Walt Cross. He must have been teaching here for a good thirty years. Very well-respected guy. I took his engines class right in the same lab I’m teaching that same class in today. Williams Hall, room 146.”

With two years of vocational education in high school as well as time working in the family automotive repair business, you could say Tremont might not have needed the two years of education at Hudson Valley. He would disagree.

“I learned the proper way to do a lot of things,” he said. “How to use tools that I had already been using and different features of the tools. When we came here it was more intense. You had a deeper understanding of things. I came out of this program knowing a lot more than I knew going in.”

With his family history and love of all things automotive, Tremont was probably destined for a racing career but his time teaching in the classrooms and labs of Williams and Cogan has been a meaningful part of his adult life as well, he said.

“We’ve been lucky with the students in this program,” he said. “The majority of students in the automotive program are here because they want to be. They love cars. They love working on cars. They’re eager to learn. I’ve got people, former students, who will come up to me at the race and say ‘remember me?’ and I might not remember him but it feels good just to be a positive influence, so that says something. When you look back on life, I guess if you can say you taught some kids, that’s something.”