1986-1988: An Early Start in Motorsports

Wow.

‘Guess I’m not afraid to publish embarrassing pictures of myself anymore.

I look like I’m still waiting for puberty to hit, and my shorts look like they’re made from Muppet pelts.

Priceless.

This was shot at the Carlsbad track in ‘86 when we won an SCCA National club race. “We” happened to be Mike McHugh, long time family friend, bon vivant, and SCCA Pro Super Vee racer. I still have the checkered flag pictured here–my first flag from my first team victory.

He and my father had known each other since the ’60’s, and when my dad stopped racing in the early ’80’s, the spark of interest that came from my childhood spent at race tracks reignited. It only seemed logical to wander over to Mike’s house, a 10 minute walk, and ask if I could help him with his race car.

Frankly, and despite my having grown up at the race track and at my dad’s auto shop, I had no experience or qualifications to come within 10 feet of a Super Vee. My simple mind saw a cool looking car, wanted to be around it, and hoped I could have a role in McHugh’s team. At sixteen, and still in High school, this was a dream opportunity—something I’d skip my Senior Prom and most other events in deference to a race with Mike.

Entrusted as the “Windex Engineer,” and official team “Gofer,” Mike was beyond gracious in letting me drool over the car, ask hundreds of painfully stupid questions, and on a good day, complete one mistake-free task.

Cleaning the bottom of the car was a common punishment-slash-corrective tool used to wake me up.

At least he didn’t roll up a newspaper and swat me in the nose…

He wasn’t always forgiving of the 29 blatant mistakes-to-1-mistake-free task ratio I had, but in order for me to learn, how could he have been?

Mike’s wife, Colleena, was very gracious in dealing with me. I’m not sure what the senior mechanics thought about me, but as most pups in racing encounter, the veterans heckled the h*ll out of me in trade for teaching me a few low level responsibilities. Back then, and unlike now where many schools exist for those wanting a career in motorsports, the tradition was one of apprenticeship and old racing wisdom passed down to the new guard.

I’m quite proud to have learned at the heels of some great veterans, and it all started with McHugh’s Pro Super Vee team.

I can say that there were times when I thought I’d made the wrong choice of desired careers—it took a while for my proverbial light bulb to turn on, but when it did, the structure of racing, individual tasks, and greater levels of expectation and execution finally made sense.

Doing Pro Races were mind blowing at first; rolling out to pitlane for my first Super Vee practice came just as an Indycar session ended. Seems we were slotted next to Mario Andretti’s pits. At sixteen, I nearly shat myself when I looked up and saw MARIO ANDRETTI standing 5ft from me. This was a guy of mythic proportions in my young life–a poster of his championship winning JPS Lotus adorned my bedroom wall for years. He was someone I’d never dreamt of standing next to on that pitlane, or heck, ANY pitlane for that matter. I later had the same kind of encounter with Rahal, Unser Sr., and every other driver of importance.

I’m sure the starry-eyed kid staring at them was an odd thing to encounter, but for me, these were “OK, Lord, Rick Mears just smiled at me—you can take me now!” kind of revelations. It’s funny how years later, and having worked amongst so many of these folks as a professional and competitor, there’s still that teenager inside me that thinks “Hey, I’m talking with RICK freakin’ MEARS about aero balance in today’s overcast conditions…”

What a blessed life I’ve led to walk and work amongst my heroes (just don’t tell them so…)

McHugh was an extremely good driver, and had solid fortunes with his Anson SA4-VW. We had plenty of other interesting club and pro experiences in my time with him–I stayed from ‘86 through early ‘88, and left after the Phoenix CART/Pro Super Vee race when I left to take a full-time job as a race mechanic with TR Raceservice. I maintained and ran anywhere between 4 and 8 formula cars a weekend, and we also fielded a Pro Formula Atlantic effort.

I met McHugh as a kid with enthusiasm and no skills, but thanks to Mike and his team, left to take a job two years later to single handedly maintain a big stable of formula cars based on the potential he saw in me and cared enough to develop.

Thanks Mike.

If you can’t make fun of the English, who can you make fun of?

An old friend works in the paint and graphics department at Ganassi–one of the perks of the job was my friends immediate inclusion in any of the devious activities Darren Manning would wreak upon his fellow British drivers in the 2005 IRL season.

In this instance, Manning stole his friend Dan Wheldon’s helmet (with assistance from fellow Islander and AGR driver Dario Franchitti), passed it off to my friend, and had his staff manufacture, cut, and apply a variety of Target-Ganassi graphics along some other choice logos that called Wheldon’s manhood into question. Having the ability to make one’s own graphics at the track isn’t always a good thing.

As Wheldon has since learned, just because you can trust the guy next to you while sharing a piece of track at 200 mph doesn’t mean the same guy isn’t dangerous off the track…

From what I’m told (and keeping Dan’s “I won the Indy 500, yet Danica gets HER own autograph line at the next race instead of me?” incident in mind), the “Danicar” and “Racegirl” stickers weren’t that well received. Makes me wonder if Wheldon’s revenge on Manning was getting him ousted from Chip’s team…

With Dan now driving for Ganassi, I can only hope one of the Andrett-Green drivers takes the time to life Wheldon’s helmet and cover it with AGR stickers. This is this kind of stuff that keep racing fun and entertaining–if you can p*ss off a friend in doing so, even better…