You wonder why sometimes you do all that you do. The short answer is because you (and I mean all of you including those who don’t have a wheel in hand) race.
There is excitement in going fast.
The feeling you get when you throttle up and drive down past that flag stand and into that first turn is one that never gets old.
Part of the thrill is speed, but the endless possibility of outcomes is the other element. You have to wait until it plays out. No matter what level of experience – you simply must let it all unfold to find out what is going to be.
Somedays you are the hero, somedays you are disappointed, somedays you are angry.. somedays you win!
Yes, you can tilt the wheel a little in your favor with skill, preparation and experience, but no one escapes a bad day sooner or later simply because life is a gamble.
Recently, everyone lost. Let me explain..
The entire Xcel tour series towed (at great expense for many) to a track only to miss out on the opportunity to race the feature. It was bad luck of the worst kind. A driver in the other series had a nasty accident and was injured. He was transported to the medical center in the ambulance and the night was called due to the emergency so at the most basic level of explanation – no race for our division.
Frustration was palpable. Out of respect for the injured racer, many wished a speedy recovery, but you could feel the disappointment in the air made even more prominent by the fact that every car was lined up in the staging area and had to turn around and return to the haulers without a green flag lap.
Realize it or not, I am willing to bet some good came out of disappointment.
The last couple of weeks we have been asking teams to chime in on the website with surveys and polls. I want to share some of the responses to set the stage for my argument.
Q: What is your favorite track and why?
No surprise, Lindas Speedway was in position one in our survey. With 58% of the vote.
Penn Can, Lincoln, Grandview, Bridgeport (big track), BAPS and Action Track (Kutztown) were all in the mix.
Reasons given for the variations were nostalgic, location, size and passing and of course a driver’s winning ways.
Here is a sample of the answers:
Lindas: “It is a perfect mix of what makes great racing. It is small enough to be consider a small track but with the speeds of bigger tracks. It’s a drivers track. And it’s tricky! Multiple lanes to get around the speedway. Is almost always guaranteed to make for a good race.”
Lindas: “2 races 2 wins (bet we can guess who this one is from 😊)”
Action Track: “Multiple grooves. Optimal size track for our cars.”BAPS: “Because it’s close to home, very fast track and close racing. Just overall a fun track.”
Lincoln: “This track reminds me of my hometown track growing up. Flemington Speedway has a lot of elements that were similar to Lincoln. Love the feel of the place.”
One thing they all have in common.
No matter which tracks you chose they all have one thing in common. They are likely far away. Sure one might be close, but no matter which, the others aren’t right around the corner.
When we were younger a friend told us he was going on the Weichel Tour! (not actually sure how to spell it, but it is pronounced: Y-cull)
His son piloted a slingshot, and this was a tour race for the division. He was as excited as a high school kid fixing up a his first car.
He and his son ran the season and travelled hundreds of miles to do so. We latched on the fact that he was given a jacket for his efforts at the season ending banquet and to this day poke fun at all the money spent to ‘get a jacket’.
Thing is that in reality, it was much more than a jacket.
Getting to my point, the time spent IS the thing that actually makes it all worthwhile.
We also asked teams to tell us about how many folks come with them to the races.
As you can guess, answers varied from the guy who goes it alone to some who bring the entire hometown with them. The sweet spot in our survey was somewhere around 7 crew with many over the mark. The real surprise is that some came in at 30 plus adding in spectators! Most were over 20!
Thanks to Kevin Inglin for the images
When we asked about bringing sponsors (actual, not family) a full 2/3rds of you said yes. We also asked if this was some type of special occasion, most said no. A few do have an annual get out to the races day, but most were big numbers at their home track.
Seems you all were up on the wheel when you have a cheering section as almost all responded that they did well when they had large spectator counts.
Quick aside: I myself had one of the biggest cheering sections that we have ever had and crashed backwards into a Yuke tire busting my fuel cell (thankfully no ignition) and ruining my run. Korey won that day. We had people from NJ, NY, MD and NH representing and three generations of Inglin’s in the stands. I believe I won my one and only heat race that day so at least I have that going for me 😊
If you look at the responses to which tracks you have spectators, it appears to be regional. Guessing again, that distance is the primary factor.
Some responded Hamlin, Lindas, Big Diamond while others said Penn Can, Thunder Mountain and 5-Mile.
Here are some of the comments:
“We have a big crew and spectators. We have at least 4 guys per car not including driver 90% of the time.
Crew job per person includes mud removal, tires, gear changes, check car over, fuel, and my daughter does the helmet.”“Sometimes challenging to get folks out when we are so far away from many tracks. It takes planning for us and logistics for travelling. Also, hard when the nights end so far away at the wee hours of the morning.
Still people are supportive and impressed with the speed of it all when they come. Many come back more than once We post our week coming up on our Facebook page and let our people know the what’s and where’s”.
Often we are the last class to take the track. It is impressive to say the least that fans are still in the stands at the late hour of the night. Sure, many of them are ours, but race fans love our class and the action so they stay.
Going back to title of this article, WINNING WITHOUT A RACE let’s offer a summary.
If you are lucky enough to have people supporting your racing endeavors and.. you get to go fast you are winning – even if you had a right front flat 3 laps into the feature or a race is cancelled before it is started.
The sum total in life experiences when you get older and are looking back more than forward will bring to life the realization that these are the times that you will fondly recall.
Some of you know that recently I lost my dad at the age of 86. He lived every day right up to the end in a way that we would all be jealous of. The week he passed, he was quite literally replacing a leaf spring suspension with coil-overs on his t-bucket project. He was able to get a guy down the road to fabricate new mounts, chopped the length on the front and when us siblings went down to settle his affairs he had completed the welding and mounting of the front axle. It needed to be painted, but he was happy with how it turned out. A little sad he wasn’t able to ‘tear down the road’ with the thing, but tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone so we live for today.
I want to close out with a personal summary of winning off the track. We were on our way to Lincoln and had this little video. My dad happened to be in the tow vehicle that day and was a part of the conversation about the impending weather. It is a typical exchange of all of us in the truck. Priceless, funny and part of the reason why even though we didn’t race (151 miles towing each way from home) that day it was still a win.
The video is only 1 minute long, but it is a great summary of why racing is not just what happens on the track. We were indeed rained out, but often found our way to Mission BBQ (not sure about this trip if we did) and that alone makes the travelling worth it.
Hope that you are enjoying the articles and appreciate you being part of our Xcel community.
Betting you have your own stories, I hope reading this brings them into a conversation.. don’t be afraid to share them with your racing friends and thank your crew chief for all the effort, even if it is your dad.
