Archive for 10 Questions
Jun
14
10 Questions with Mike Partin!
Posted by: | CommentsWe here at the website have been fortunate enough to spend some quality time with the Partin family over the last two years or so and we thought we would invite Mike Partin to share his thoughts on the sprint car world and tell you a little bit about himself. In one of the more entertaining 10 Questions you will read, ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Mike Partin!
For those of our readers not familiar with your racing background, how did you get started and where have you raced? Going back a few years, when I was 11 years old, I saw my first sprint car race at Lawrenceburg, Indiana. I remember seeing Bob Kinser, Dick Gaines and also a crazy driver named Butch Wilkerson. I knew right there I wanted to drive a sprint car. Since I had no racing background whatsoever, and no money, I waited until I was around 16 and started racing motocross motorcycles. I ended up spending 10 years trying to get famous racing AMA flat bike circuit and three years racing speedway motorcycles for the Harley Davidson Factory Team as a support rider. Then I moved to Oklahoma as a young father of two, started racing go karts, then micro midgets, moved up to full size midgets, raced all over the Oklahoma and Texas circuits. Then I got a chance to run a NCRA champ car, on the NCRA circuit, and then my next move was to 410 sprints. I spent most weekends at Big H Speedway, then Battlegrounds Speedway. Then I spent two seasons (1987 and 1988) chasing the World of Outlaws. Things were a lot different back then. I quit racing in 1989 and tried other venues. Then I got transferred to Florida, got a divorce, bought a couple of mini sprints and spent some time getting my love of sprint cars up again. Then I bought a car from Bucky Milum and started racing at East Bay. Then I became a team member of the Bob Potter team, and then Bob convinced me to take a shot at running Putnam County Speedway. So I spent two seasons at Putnam, and then moved to North Florida Speedway. Then I bought another sprint car, called up Ryan and now here we are. That is the short version of my career.
As a sprint car driver, what would you say is the one win you are most proud of? Well, I have two and both are here in Florida. First is a mini sprint win at Thunder Cross because I never drove a car that felt so good. But the best ever was the East Bay win on my birthday.
You’ve spent some time running some tracks and doing some promoting. What are some of the things you see lacking when you tow your Flyin’ 14 Motorsports rig into the track? The first thing I see is the back gate is where the money is being made. Fan count is down, so it is easier add another class to sell more pit passes (back gate) which makes the show run longer and you lose more fans. At today’s race tracks we see longer stretched out shows and you can only hold fans for 2 ½ to 3 hours, max. Also, tracks are not building on the driver/fan relationships. We need to have local heroes so that the fans will have a favorite and driver introductions are so important, this is the only time fans get to see the driver’s faces. At Putnam County, we had a little stage where we would walk the drivers over and introduce the driver, and then we would do a short interview before they got to their car. We did this once a night with a selected class. Maybe the only fans a certain driver had were his parents, but they were proud. So be it a box stock driver or a sprint car driver, promoters can turn them into a racing hero.
Do you think Florida should be more like Pennsylvania in the regard that you don’t see a traveling series per se, just tracks working together and using common sense for rules? Traveling series versus track series, a traveling series for a race team is a lot more fun and challenging, yet a traveling series depends on the promotion of the event. If you don’t have a “week before plan” then drivers who are not known to the fans will only have a limited amount of success. This goes back to making local heroes out your racers. When we travel around to the four or five tracks here in Florida, the promoters and track owners don’t do enough promoting to make the sprint cars a really strong draw. We do attract a couple hundred more tickets in the grandstands and maybe 100 more in the pits, but this is still not where we could take this type of racing. Once again, getting the fans and drivers connected is key to getting people in the stands. Now as I see it, right now a track series wins hands down simply because the opportunity to build a better fan to driver relationship is there and we need to build up our fan count so that race tracks want us back. The key to success is not totally the promoters challenge, a lot of it falls onto the race teams as well. The Flying 14 race team has done a lot of track appearances the week before a race and also at other selected locations to promote our team and also to get fans to the track. There are so many ways to do this without costing money. Promoters, help us help you.
As a team owner, what is the one thing you would change about the current sprint car rules package? Tire rules? Engine rules? First let me make a statement – don’t make rules you can’t or won’t enforce. Tire rules suck. They just don’t make sense any more. Originally spec tires were invented to help lower tire costs by making a harder tire that would last longer and cost less than say an Outlaw tire. In today’s world spec tires hitting 52 on the durometer is so hard that you blister the tire and it just does not have any benefit over a good used Outlaw tire, where we are making the cost less, or getting better wear. The state of Florida has three tire rules and one durometer rule. East Bay has Goodyear, Top Gun has Hoosier, FSCA had another Goodyear (but this one is affordable at $130) and then you have Volusia at a 35 hardness rule. Now think about this, you can’t run East Bay without buying tires, can’t run Top Gun without buying a Hoosier and a 40 hard tire on the left side, and FSCA has a Goodyear rule, and while it is affordable, it can’t be used anywhere other than their races and Volusia. Now Volusia does not want to have a brand name rule, only a hardness rule, but if you buy a tire for this track rule, you can run it where? Volusia. Ok, how has this helped to promote sprint car racing? Simple solution is a 35 hardness rule and enforce it. This will allow any team to run any track, and will allow those who snag a pile of discarded tires at the Winter Nationals to run. Now you have cut the racing cost for those teams who can’t afford new tires and your car count goes up, then fan count goes up. So who is benefiting on all these different tire rules? Not the racer or the sport.
You’ve also spent time as a push truck driver recently. Do you guys get enough love? Is it stressful? A few years back I started pushing at the Winter Nationals. The plan was simple – get in free and see some good racing. What happened was I met a whole bunch of good people who love sprint car racing. They dedicated themselves and their truck to push off the sprint cars. This group of die hard sprint car fans care about the racer, the car, and the sport of sprint car racing and all they ask for their dedication to our sport is two free pit passes and maybe $25.00 in gas. Yet the tracks can’t come up with $100 to $200 to have people who care versus a pick-up truck with a piece of plywood and a 16 year old kid behind the wheel. Maybe next time a push truck rolls up behind you, give him a thumbs-up and say thanks.
What do you like to do in your free time? We know you can put away the buffalo wings at Hooters… Free time? Very few people know I just started up a new business, so free time is limited. When we are not racing, I like a great chick flick …right! I pretty much work on the sprint car from Sunday morning to Saturday morning. I love our team and working on the car is relaxing for me, yet the girls and their wings at Hooters are pretty cool too.
Mike and Ryan Partin in victory lane last year.
You’ve traveled all over this country racing, got one really good road story you’d like to share? One of the funniest stories I like to tell is after running a World of Outlaws show in Dallas at the Devils Bowl; we were headed to another WoO show in Houston, Texas. As always, my stuff is a little older than the other guys stuff, so I’ve got this all steel gooseneck trailer and it was so heavy, and 60 mph was all we had. So anyway, we’re rolling south bound about 3 a.m. when a guy that races out of Oklahoma City goes by us doing 90 mph, honking the horn and waving. Another 50 miles down the road, there sits the hauler and no trailer. We pull over and the trailer is 100 feet off the highway down in a ravine sitting upright, no damage. So we ask him what happened. And the reply was they had been smoking a little of funny stuff and you actually could smell the stuff. So here’s the story – after they had passed us and a few other teams, the guy driving the hauler looks out the window and yells at Greg (the owner) and says there is a trailer just like ours as it was passing them without a tow rig. They said it must have been 100 feet ahead of them before they realized it was their trailer. After a tow truck came and got them and got back on the road at 8 in morning, those guys were sober and running slow like us.
Your son was pretty much a bad ass karter, did you ever think he would be joining you as a championship winning sprint car driver? No! Ryan was doing so well in the karting world that he moved to Michigan to run for one of the factory teams. He was not even interested in running sprint cars at all. When my promoting days were over I knew I wanted Ryan in the car. The first year there was a real communication problem as he was using all these crazy European and karting terms, I thought he picked up a foreign language. Once I got him talking dirt redneck, he has come a long way with only 47 sprint car shows. I am very, very proud of him.
Not so much a question – but thanks for making Ryan, we love hanging around him and having him as our Factory Driver. Thanks! He is a cool son. His talent, his good looks and his personality comes from my side of family and all of the bad stuff came from his mother’s side. I am not kidding.
Jun
09
10 Questions with Wayne Davis!
Posted by: | CommentsHe’s been around the block with all manner of racecars and recently decided to try on the promoter hat with the wingless mini sprints, ladies and gentlemen…Wayne Davis!
For those of our readers not familiar with your racing background, how did you get started and where have you raced? I’ve been going to races since I can remember, back in the old Jacksonville Speedway Park days. I was even there when Wendall Scott won his NASCAR race in ’64. My dad raced off and on there and I started racing Skeeters (Southern Modifieds) in the early 70′s at Lake City Speedway (NFS) and North Valdosta Speedway (Thunderbowl) thru ’86. I then sold everything to go Taxi Cab (late model) racing and that lasted about two years. In ’88 my best friend Benjie Mills was down in Tampa racing sprints at the Fairgrounds on Friday and East Bay Saturday nights, so I bought a sprint car from Robert Smith in Tampa and went racing. Along came George Echols and formed the AWOL (now the USCS). I ran that and the TBARA (when they ran dirt) all over the south for six years and Glen Beache’s new Bailey mini sprint with the newly formed FMSA. Then in ’95 I went to Indiana and fell in love with non wing racing. I started my son Darrin in karts at age 5 and he races my car now at 25, so I have been around it, hell I guess since I was born in ’58.
As a race car driver, what would you say is the one win you are most proud of? The first race I won with a car I built under the carport in the ’80′s. I had gone down to Buzzie Reutimann’s and got some measurements off a new car he was building that Winter. Came home with just square tubing, clamps, framing square and tape measure, and I built my version of it. I went to the track and the first night I was 2 1/2 sec faster than any car at the track. After seven wins in a row, someone wanted the car more than I did. My biggest regret in all of my racing was selling that car at that time, I would have like to have seen just how many features I would have won with it that year.
You’ve started the Southern States Lightning Sprints for wingless mini sprint racing. How has your first year gone? I would have to give it a B-. It’s been better than expected, but not as good as I would like. The biggest challenge has been to convince racers to take the wing off. The ones that have, know that it is all about driver/brake/throttle control. The racing is way closer without the wings because you don’t have the car locked down with a wing and it becomes a horsepower or $$ game. You can take an older car and be competitive in my series without the need of spending 15 to 20 thousand dollars especially with my rules package. I don’t want you to go out and buy a $1,000 motor and spend $3,000 on a fuel system or $2,000 to $4,000 on shocks or send off your ECM to reprogram it for $600.
Do you think your move to Friday nights due to the “big track” changing nights will ultimately get you more cars? The Friday night move is just for a select few races and was not because of Bubba Raceway Park. I wanted to give the Lightning/Mini Sprint community a two night show. Actually a three race weekend, when you consider the fact that we will race wing and non wing the same night. They scheduled races at Bubba Speedway Park, so I changed my dates so we could do this. Out in Texas/Oklahoma/Indiana/NY/PA, every week, all with the same car, they race wing…take’em off and race non wing…very little to do to the cars for this transition.
Looking ahead to 2012, do you see adding more tracks here in Florida to your schedule? My biggest thing next year is to get more Lightning Sprint Cars in the area. These are the true upright, scaled down sprint cars with 13 inch tires and wheels, stronger 1 1/4 inch tubing, longer wheel base, basically these cars are midget chassis with motorcycle chain driven engines, not the sidewinder micro cars that you see now around the state. Those cars to me are just unsafe to run on a big race track. The drivers compartment is from front to back with your legs right up against the motor and sticking out front like a go kart and when something bad happens it will be bad. A friend of mine out in California just crashed a few weeks ago in a lightning sprint and cut the frame in half at the motor plate (see below) and this was on a ¼ mile track. What if that was a micro on a ½ mile…bad scene. But to answer your question, we do have some irons in the fire.
Long term, is the SSLS something you’re going to roll out throughout the southeastern United States, or just stay in Florida? As a vision, that is why the name is Southern States Sprints Series. Not Florida/Georgia or Sunshine. Also as you can see it is Sprints Series, Lightning is a division. Not just for Lightning (750/1000/1200) but a 600 class along with a Junior Sprint for age group 9 to 13, even a full size non wing series down the road.
You’ve been wandering around the country following the USAC trail somewhat this year, are you just a hardcore fan or are you helping out a driver? Not really helping anyone, just have good friends there and love the racing. Jon (Stanbrough) and Kent (Christian) are a couple, along with Slipper or Lil Shu (Casey Shuman). Again Benjie (Mills) has wrenched (retired) for a lot of non wing guys, got Stanbrough his first win. We go up together to Indiana for Indiana Sprint Week and a few other shows a year..wish I was up there this week for Indiana Midget Week. I guess you could say non wing sprint car racing is my passion.
You have also worked with Mark Ruel Jr. on his winged sprint car this year. How did that come about? JR, what a cool kid. To me, he’s probably the third best dirt sprint car racer in the state. Mills and I were over at Albany last year for a FSCA race helping a friend, and Mark and his dad were there without a 4 wheeler, open trailer, and a not so good piece of a car. They parked right beside us and needed a little help because they were struggling. Mills told them a few things to do and without question they did them. Now if you have somebody there to help, or wrench the car, that is what they are supposed to do. Do not go get three or four others opinion, so our focus kind of got shifted his way. He listened, learned, and did what was said. If he had not banged the fence and wadded up the Jacobs Ladder, instead of 3rd he would have handed Tommy Denton his first defeat last year. So I’ve been trying to help him as much as I can. He runs my lil car when Darrin (my son) does not. I wish I had the money to take him to Indiana next year.
What do you like to do in your spare time? Well, seeing how I was forced to retire early from an injury, I mess around the house with the three boys Roscoe (bloodhound) Luke (golden retriever) and Hooch (English mastiff) and work on the cars. Trying to teach this ole dog (myself) a few things on this computer.
Where is your favorite place to hang out, eat some buffalo wings and do some bench racing? I guess here at the house, with my two best friends Kari (my wife), she cooks the best wings, and my son Darrin. He comes over at least once a day to check on me or help on the car or stuff around the house. Bench racing…before and after the races..especially in February, there is always a new story to hear for Speed Weeks from guys and gals that come down every year.
Mar
23
10 Questions with Channing Conley!
Posted by: | CommentsIt was back in 2009 when we first met Channing Conley at Citrus County Speedway for a CFWS show. He was a nice talkative young chap with a slightly tore up sprint car. We had our concerns about young Channing after that night but he made us eat our words when he roared to an upset CFSS victory at Punta Gorda Speedway last year. This year Channing is putting a wing on his new Hurricane chassis and going TBARA racing.
Ladies and gentlemen, the comedic stylings of Channing Conley!
For those fans not familiar with your background, tell us a little about your karting exploits and your jump up to sprint cars. We started karting when I was 8 years old at Speedway Park in Fruitland Park. We won a few championships there and in Ocala. We then moved on to some state racing series, FKA & FDDS. We won a few races and lost a bunch. Our engine builder at the time, Blaze Martin, talked us into taking the huge leap into sprint cars. We were thinking about starting in a lower class/division. He told us, if sprint cars are where we really want to end up, then don’t waste time anywhere else, so that’s what we did. We’ve known Dude Teate for awhile, so we asked him if he knew anybody that had a car for sale and he got us hooked up with Brad Davis and Jerry Stuckey. It wasn’t much to look at, but it sure got us started. Without them we wouldn’t be as far along as we are now.
Tell us a little about your current chassis you’re getting ready to roll out. We hear a certain driver we speak very highly of used to drive it a few years ago. Oh Yeah, we finally got a chassis that’s not 23 years old! Believe it or not David Steele won his first race in our old one when he was, uhh, young lol. Anyway, our new piece is a new Hurricane and it’s so much nicer than our other one. Don’t get me wrong, we actually won in the old Staf chassis but it took a lot of work and a ton of luck. His Holiness David Steele helped us get into this new ride. I believe Sport Allen used to drive it and I think Brian Maddox owned it. According to David it has only got about 15 races on it. We’ve got to give a BIG thanks to David and his sidekick Lazy Larry. If it wasn’t for them, this wouldn’t have happened for us. We couldn’t have done it without their help. They changed all of our new parts over from the old chassis and got it set up. We actually went to Desoto this past Monday (before New Smyrna) and got to practice it. Wow, what a difference!!! It’s so much smoother of a ride. Now if we could just find some sponsorship to help with a motor, our world would be a better place.
You won our award for “Most Improved Driver” for 2010. What did you and your team in 2010 to get your program pointed in the right direction? 2009 was a little rough for you guys. Everything, I think. We finally got some brakes on that thing, for starters. It was pretty much always fairly quick; I just couldn’t get it to stop! We did ALOT of upgrading, new brakes, rear end, front end, etc. You name it and we replaced it or at least rebuilt it. We also practiced a ton! We probably practiced nearly 800 laps, just at Citrus County. We were there every practice night they had for awhile. We also asked a lot of questions, and then practiced some more. Leroy and Dude were a BIG help! They are some of the nicest people you could ever meet. Leroy would help us set up the car and even showed us the proper way to adjust the valves, among many other things. There were even times we would called “David’s tech support line” while we were at the track. That was another big help! I think he might regret giving us his cell number though, because we wore it out some nights, especially the night we won at Punta Gorda in CFSS!! It was only our fifth full race we competed in. We would also like to thank Don Rehm for helping us learn the ropes. He and his series were always very professional and all of the drivers were very helpful.
We hear you graduated high school early. So far Amanda Ferguson has the highest GPA of any sprint car driver we’ve ever talked to, with a 4.4. How do you stack up? Well I’m here to tell you, man I did pretty darn good. I mean I can’t remember what the number was, but man it was up there. I mean it wasn’t no 4.4 or anything… but it was up there. I’ve been out of high school for so many months now and the grade just escapes me right now, but it was.. ya know okay. If I remember right it was like umm a 3 or nearly a 4, or something like……. that plus or minus a few…… ya know. Ummm…so…what was the question again?
We also hear you’re a mean guitar player. Do you sit around and play Yngwie Malmsteen songs for fun? Sometimes, man he is really good, although I’m not quite that good yet. I do like to jam some Metallica, Alice in Chains, maybe a little Megadeth and sometimes All That Remains. And maybe a lil Skynard now and again and my Dad really likes it when I play “Simple Man.” I’ve been playing since I was around 10 or 11. I’ve got about 4 guitars and a bass. I took a few years of lessons, but just like anything though, its practice, practice, practice. My parents have been pretty cool about it through the years, I can play as much as I want and they don’t make me shut it down unless it gets real late or real loud. I’ve been trying to talk them into a set of drums lately, but they haven’t given in yet. I’ll keep trying though.
Rumor has it you are eyeballing putting a wing on and running some winged shows. Care to expound? Yup, that was something else David hooked us up with. We plan on running all of the TBARA races, if the funds allow it. That’s what we actually got to practice with this past week at Desoto. We’ve got a few wingless races under our belt and hopefully we’re ready to go get our butts kicked by the big boys. We’ll be at News Smyrna this weekend and with any luck we can make the trip up to north Florida. Rumor has it, that Desoto is trying to get some races together. I hope so, that is a fun track.
You’re the only sprint car driver we’ve ever heard of named Channing. Is that a family name? Was your mom a big Stockard Channing fan? A Carol Channing fan perhaps? Actually my mom was a big soap opera fan when she was young, yeah! She says there was a very popular soap opera back in the day (really?) that had some guy on there with my name and she thought it was different/cool. So that’s how I got my name. It’s not that I mind my name, it’s just how she came up with it. A soap opera? Come on mom! It could be worse though, my Dad was born on the same street he lived on when he was a kid, they just spelled it different. Talk about being creative. I guess he didn’t figure it out until he learned to read though..
Being a teenager, we’re assuming if you go out on a date with a comely young lass that surely the first date somehow involves buffalo wings. Where is your favorite place to score some buffalo wings, before you, uh, score… Who says you don’t score before you go get the wings? I really like Hooters and I’m pretty sure they serve wings there too. We stop there every time we go to Daytona, my dad thinks it’s a sin not to stop every…single…time we go to the beach or a race over there. I also go to the one in Orlando from time to time after work with my buds Mike, Justin, Danny and Tony, it’s always a good time! I guess my favorite though is Gators Dockside in Tavares. Sometimes me and my buddies will go there for the .25 cent wings night and try to make them lose money on their special. One night I ate almost 70 wings! They’ve got every kind you can imagine and they are great, although the scenery isn’t as plentiful as Hooters, it’s a lot closer to home.
What is your long term racing plan? Well, we’re going to spend at least few more years in sprints and hopefully one day soon get to run the Little 500. It takes a lot of money to go big time and without sponsors these days it’s almost impossible. We’ll just keep plugging along and see what life brings us. If nothing else we’ll keep racing sprints as long as we can. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had on four wheels with my clothes on…Giggity Giggity.
Let’s say I’m in need of hiring a good cleaning service company, know of any reputable ones? Well the best one in the state, from what I hear, is TLC Cleaning. They do an awesome job! Although they do most of their work in the Villages, for the right price they would go just about anywhere to work. They’ve been in business nearly 10 years and do a lot of work in that retirement community. My Mom actually owns it and if it wasn’t for her and my Dad, none of this would be possible. I would like to thank them for everything they’ve done for my racing career. They spent a lot of time and money on me and I want to let them know how much I really appreciate it. I would also like to thank my Aunt Tina for always being there and my cousin Anthony; they have always been my biggest fans!!
