I worked on a dirt car pit crew in the late 90's. I enjoyed racing, but it's like being a heroine addict. You can't just dabble in racing because it's not satisfying if you don't actually make a decent effort to be competitive. Once you've raced with a team, you see it a bit differently. We were a small budget team and raced against guys with 2 complete cars in their trailers. If we damaged the car in warm ups, we had to hustle to fix it or we were out for the night's racing. Other teams just rolled out their other complete car...
There's a lot of cheating in racing. Both technologically and on the track. One year, a guy who won the last race of the year to win track champion in his class refused a paid inspection of his engine after the race and accepted the season's runner up to the champ in his class rather than let the officials look inside his engine for illegal parts. My Crew chief said, "That guy was a known cheater".
One year the track outlawed rear view mirrors because there was so much blocking going on. Instead of racing other guys, the strategy was shifting towards blocking and holding the inside line. I've seen numerous fights in the pits and had to hold one of our drivers back once after a scuffle with another driver who tried to spin him out to pass him.
My favorite driver was Frank Cozzee, who drove in the big block class of DIRT. He would run the outside line at our track. He would clear out all the "marbles" that would roll outward from other cars down on the inside line in the first few laps, then he would set his car for the turn and floor the gas to dig a groove around the outside line and tiny berm above it. He would hit that line for lap after lap until he could get his outside rear tire into that groove every lap. He would be able to go faster and faster on that outside line and eventually would pass cars with incredible corner exit speed as he developed that line. It was a sight to see. Everybody fighting for that lower inside line and this one car way outside going faster and faster until he caught and passed the leader. Once he got the groove established, he would go into the corners so fast I would hold my head as I watched him, thinking that there was no way he could stay off the wall.... but he made it every time. He was a great driver, who found a different way to win. I loved to watch him race.
Needless to say, I have a lot of stories from racing which are probably not very interesting unless you knew the people or were there watching when they happened....
....
is the first driver to win a NASCAR race on debut in 60 years.
who had a stellar IndyCar career as well as a decent innings in NASCAR....
