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| HEAD
CHECK? |
| This story has little to do with racing, but
I’ve been thinking about my dad lately and it makes me smile
and I’m sure he would give a wry smile over it too.
I had just gotten my driver’s license and in my
family that meant I immediately became the family chauffeur.
Any time we went somewhere I was tabbed to drive
and at 16 I wasn’t complaining, I loved to drive us around.
Of course with my new found privilege I also had a new
responsibility and I took it seriously.
As we loaded up in the car one night to head off to
dinner my dad rode shotgun while my mom sat behind me in the
back seat. Dad
in his familiar attire, shorts, a pocketed t-shirt, and his
old school, high browed ball cap sat down and, as usual,
didn’t buckle his seat belt.
I, of course, told him that he needed to buckle up to
which he proudly stated he didn’t need to.
I said, “of course you do, what if we have to stop
suddenly or get into a wreck?”
He confidently showed his muscles and said, “oh I can
brace myself,” as he placed his hands solidly on the dash
board. I
again warned, “you never know, we could just round this
corner and have to slam on our brakes.”
To which he coolly responded with, “no problem, I got
it covered.”
Two turns later we were on the next street heading out
of the neighborhood.
As I rounded the corner I suddenly hit the brakes.
However I hadn’t thought it completely through as the
brakes in this old Dodge Aspen were quick and abrupt.
The car could stop on a dime at any speed.
The ensuing jolt instantly tested my dad’s ability to
“brace himself” and the result was utter failure to brace.
He hit the top of the window with his head.
I feared for my life, I didn’t plan for that!
Oops. All
my dad could do is groan and rub the top of his head.
He said, “damn! That
little knob on my hat about went through the top of my (bleepin’)
head.” I
was still waiting to get hit upside the head as he turned and
said, “what the hell was that?!”
To which I replied, “brake check.”
My mom instantly burst into laughter, and luckily for
me, that made my dad laugh too.
While it never got him totally into the habit of
buckling up, it did allow us to joke about possible brake
checks here and there.
In hindsight I’m lucky to still have a head, but
what’s life without living on the edge a little?!
Especially as a teen.
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| TRYING
TO BE NICE! |
| On Saturday I loaded up a little too early
and wound up needing to run a couple of errands.
No worries, I'll ask if I can borrow Blake's car as my green
monster isn't running right now. So I took his car
and ran around town a little bit. His car gets 50+
miles to the gallon (VW Jetta / Diesel) so when I went to put
gas in it, it was full. So I decided, instead,
that I could pay for it to be washed as the gas station had a
drive thru wash. Paid the $6 for the wash and
pulled up to the digital display. Punched in the
code, put it in neutral, and went to roll up the window as the
rollers began to push the car forward. The button
to roll up the window was loose. The window
wouldn't go up. Frantically I tried and tried and
tried to get the window up but to no avail. Then
it happened, the window started up a couple of inches but I
must have moved the button wrong as it went right back
down. The machine had started and the washers were
spinning as soap began to squirt across the bay.
The front bumper was a couple of feet from the soap as I
still, in a state of panic, tried to roll up the
window. I could now feel the mist from the
wash on my face. My whole body was tensed
up. Certainly it will go up before the car gets to
the wash. Nope. The first squirts of
soap hit the nose of the car. I had no idea what
to do but I knew I didn't want to get the car full of soap and
water. So I jammed it in reverse and backed over
the rollers bouncing up and down several times to get
away. It took me another 2 miles on the road to
get the window back up. So I stopped at another
store, purchased another wash and this time opened the door to
enter the code. Holy cow! The
stress and tension certainly can be felt in my body today as I
have a pain in my shoulders and neck that won't go
away. WHEW! |
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| BLOWN
INTERVIEW? |
Back in 2006 the
Richard Petty driving experience was looking for drivers and
encouraged local racers to put in resumes and applications
with the company. Since I knew a couple of people
who worked out there they were able to give them an idea of
what I've raced, etc, so they were interested in meeting with
me. I was excited thinking it would be a great
second job, lots of fun. So after a few
emails and such I was out there for a Saturday & Sunday
training session.
On Saturday I spent most of the day riding alongside (all
their cars have two seats) an instructor while the students
followed us in their own car. I listened to the
radio communication, checked in the mirrors, and watched the
signals that the instructor was giving from inside our
car. While interesting, it did get tiring after a
while just riding along for about 2.5 hours. My
races don't last 3 hours!
ood
On Sunday I again rode alongside an instructor listening and
watching, taking it all in. As the day wound down,
things slowed down on the track and they pulled me out of the
car. To my surprise they wanted to put me into a
car to drive myself. So I got in and began
simulating rides from behind their head driving
instructor. It was great. I couldn't
believe I was driving around the Super Speedway at LVMS.
He communicated things to me on the radio, ran through the on
track signals, etc. It was
great. After a few dry runs, they decided to
start putting employees in to go for a ride with
me. While nervous, I made it through pretty g, no
worries. Each ride was with a person of
different size so I could feel the changes to the car when
their weight changed. It was interesting to feel
the change.
On my final ride, all was going well. I was
actually in the Jimmy Johnson #48 and had Amy in the car with
me. We made the first lap just fine and were in
the middle of turns 1 & 2 when a familiar feel ran through
my feet. The motor was letting go. I
glanced in the mirror and saw smoke beginning to pour from the
car as the engine parts clanked around under the
hood. I radioed in "engine trouble in the
48," and instinct took over. I was able to
keep the car out of the fence and got it onto the
apron.
As I coasted into the pits, my heart sunk.
"How in the heck are they going to hire me after
this?," I thought. Not cool, not cool, not
cool. I actually wanted the car to coast slower
and slower so I didn't have to get out of the
car. I didn't know anyone out there very
well so I couldn't read the expressions on their
faces. I found myself wondering, "am I going
to have to pay for that motor?" Was I going
to make it without puking? My stomach was in
knots. While they certainly didn't like to
see a motor go, they said it happens and that the motor in
that car had been in there for quite some time. In
fact, they started blaming Amy for it
(jokingly). I did end up getting hired and
have enjoyed many days of work at the Speedway giving rides to
excited race fans. |
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| PAVEMENT
RACING @ THE BULLRING! |
In 2001 I was in the middle
of my first full season on the pavement in my Chuck Wahl / URE
chassis. It was also the hey-day of my
friend Carly's LVLocalracingscene website and message
board.
For some reason I had incredible, almost sickening luck with
the invert on the pavement. After qualifying 3rd,
the invert would come up 3, after qualifying 5th, the invert
would come up 5. If I wasn't on the pole, I oddly
enough wound up inside the 2nd row, only once was I outside
pole for a feature. These great starts allowed me
to rack up quite a run of wins on the pavement and it brought
out the haters pretty quickly. I was slammed on
Carly's message board for "blocking the bottom for 30
laps" to win races. This went on for 2
months, right up until the end of June. LVMS is
famous for their "Night of Fire" which coincides
with the 4th of July holiday. I have to admit, the
message board chatter really bugged me. As much as
I tried to let it go, I couldn't. Part of me
wanted to just find this guy, but I'm far from a tough guy, so
instead I chose to deal with it differently.
I had my chance to deal with the chatter when I was fortunate
enough to win the race before the Night of
Fire. In victory lane I was asked about the
race, etc. I happened to start on the pole (again)
that night and led every lap. So in response to
the chatter, I said, "it's nice to win but I'm tired of
starting up front. I think they should make the
Night of Fire exciting for the fans and invert the whole
field." The crowd roared in approval and it
was now up to the powers above me to make it
happen.
Happen it did. At the Night of Fire there was a
great field of modifieds lined up for the feature and the
track inverted 16 of us. I had qualified 2nd quick
that night so I was 15th on the grid. My
competitors weren't happy but I loved it. Passing cars
is fun. Most had radios, I did not. In
fact, they made me install a rear view mirror that I
would turn up to the roof (so I couldn't see) when I went out
onto the track. The Bullring is known for being a
bottom groove track, one line, tough to pass. At
the green we were racing two and three wide and it was out of
control. Just a couple laps in all heck
broke loose when a car lost it and everyone piled
in. I zig-zagged my way through safely but some of
the front runners weren't as lucky. When the race
got fully underway I slowly raced into the 3rd spot only to
get together with the guy running 2nd. While
spinning to the infield I felt a major pain in the middle of
my back. It felt like I was being
burned. I was concerned that the battery was
broken behind my seat with acid making its way inside the
car. The track crew said all was well so I
continued. Restarting in the rear I made my way up
to the 2nd spot at the finish. My back was still
hurting in tech and we began look for the problem.
Turned out that a piece of the brake rotor had broken off and
flew through the car. It wound up wedging itself
between my back and the seat. It burned a hole in
the seat cover and my suit giving me a large welt and
ultimately a scar on my back. We found the
actual piece in the seat and matched it up to the missing part
of the rotor.
Now I know what it feels like to be branded.
Ouch. |
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| AVOIDING
THE SNOW! |
In 2005 I had
a car that needed a new rear clip and it had to be taken to
Belleville Motor Sports to have that work done. At
the last minute I decided to make the trek back to Kansas
during my Spring Break from school. It was late
March and the weather was pretty nice in Las
Vegas. The same cannot be said for the weather
along the way. I have never been around snow and I
had certainly not driven in it. My dad and I set
off through Utah, then Colorado, and into Kansas.
While there was snow on the side of the road we encountered no
bad weather along the way and made it safely to
BMS. Stayed at the nearby hotel for a couple of
days while the crew at BMS worked on the car to get the clip
replaced.
As it came close to us leaving for home I began checking the
forecast for our return trip. Denver and all the
towns through the Rockies were going to be getting pounded
with snow. Uh oh, new route. The
decision was made to travel southwest through Kansas, dip into
Oklahoma before heading through New Mexico, Arizona, and
finally into Nevada. We began our journey at about
5am Kansas time and began the long drive home through little
Kansas farm towns. I drove all the way to Gallup,
NM and we made another stop to eat. About 30
minutes down the road I got really sick to my stomach as the
fast food we grabbed took hold of me. I had
to stop and then jumped in the back seat to lay down while my
dad picked up the driving duties. By now darkness
had descended on our journey and we were about 11 hours into
the trip. I finally got to sleep a ways down the
road and shortly afterwards I was awakened by my dad saying,
"OH MAN!" The truck slowed and I shot up
in the back seat. Snow. It was heavy and
coming down at an angle aimed right at the truck's front
window. My dad pulled off at the next exit and
pulled us into the nearest gas station parking
lot. He went in to use the restroom and returned
saying, "the guy in the station says if you don't make it
through here tonight, you will be stuck sleeping in the
vehicle." I said,
"you?" What happened to
"we?" He says, "I'm tired, you get to
drive now." Oh no! I have never
driven in snow and certainly didn't want to towing my $10,000
race car on an open trailer in the dark.
Before we hit the freeway onramp snores echoed from the
backseat. Lovely. I entered the
desolate freeway and slowly got up to about 40 miles per
hour. The snow was piling up quickly and there was
only one set of tire tracks over the west bound travel
lanes. I was trying to follow the tracks as the
piled snow kept tugging the truck over. All
was going well although I had a death grip on the
wheel. The 'goodness' wore off quickly when the
window defroster couldn't keep up and the window iced over
except for a small opening low on my side. I
ducked down in the seat to see. Had just calmed
down from the lack of vision and here comes headlights from
behind. Very quickly I might add. A
semi flies past me and completely whites out the windows on
the driver's side and covers my little hole of
vision. I used the tail lights of the semi to keep
on the road until my little spot of vision
reappeared. The snow was getting thicker on
the road and the falling snow was making me somewhat dizzy as
it swirled in front of the truck. But my fear was
not disrupting the sleep of my father as he rested peacefully,
snorting and snoring away from the warm back
seat. It seemed like hours had passed and my
head was pounding with stress. Not a car was in
sight for miles and I would have gotten the same results out
of the defroster had I just shut it off. I
couldn't stop but going on was getting more and more
scary. Suddenly like walking through a doorway,
the snow stopped. Nothing coming down, nothing on
the road. I thought I had fallen asleep or
died. But it was true I had made
it.
About twenty-five and a half hours after leaving Kansas, we
pulled up in the driveway safely, just as the sun peeked up
over the horizon. Dad said he was ready to
unload the car and get to work. Me, not so
much. |
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2011 Sponsors |
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Eisele
Motorsports
Grinnell, IA |
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Jerry's Extreme
Machine
Pahrump, NV. |
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Phat Chassis
Modifieds
Pahrump, NV. |
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Kim Reason
Clear Lake, IA |
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O'Hanley's
9-inch rear ends
Las Vegas, NV. |
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