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Set' Er Up to Run Second!

Doug Wolfgang is one of the greatest sprint car drivers in history. After a
fast start in 1975, within two years he rocketed to the top as the most
successful driver in the country. His powerful driving skills, along with his
eloquent interviews and “everyman” persona, built a wide and passionate
fan following that is still present today, 30-plus years after Wolfie’s career
was cut short in his prime due to injuries suffered in a fiery crash.

In the summer of 1984 Wolfie’s career was at a crossroads. His last couple
of rides had not achieved long-term success. The “doubt and fear” that
haunts every racer was very much on his mind. Then, as if the stars moved
into perfect alignment, Wolfie got a call from powerful Pennsylvania car
owner Bob Weikert. Today, their time together is the stuff of legend; they
remain one of the most dynamic pairings in the history of motorsports.

Several years ago Doug and I teamed up for his autobiography, Lone
Wolf. The story he told of the very first night in Weikert’s car is one of the
most fascinating vignettes I’ve ever encountered. Let’s let Doug tell the
story again here, straight out of the pages of Lone Wolf:

Bob Weikert was a prominent Pennsylvania beef rancher who had owned a
sprint car since the early 1970s. Some great drivers had been with Bob at
one time or another, some of whom had great success. Kenny Weld, for
example, won the Knoxville Nationals with Bob in 1972 and ’73.

I first heard from Weikert in June 1984, a day or so after LaVern Nance
quit. In fact, after driving from Williams Grove to Sioux Falls, the phone was
ringing almost when I walked into our house.

Bob asked if I’d be interested in driving his car. He explained that they had
gone through a bunch of cars and engines but they were in the process of
regrouping. He was going to let Smokey Snellbaker—a very successful and
popular Pennsylvania racer—drive it for a few weeks while they
replenished their inventory of spares.

I told Bob I didn’t think I was interested. See, he was a Pennsylvania car
owner; by that I mean he only ran in that region. I had raced those tracks
before, but I didn’t consider myself a local racer, and sure wasn’t interested
in only running there every weekend. After all, I was looking to follow the
Outlaws.

Bob was persistent, and I finally said, “I’ll tell you what…when you get all
your stuff totally ready, give me a call. Maybe I’ll be interested by then.”

One month later he called again. By this time I had been running for Doug
Howells, and I was ready for a change.

I knew almost nothing about Weikert’s operation. He had a father-son team
of mechanics, Davey Brown Sr. and Jr. I knew them only casually, but had
never worked with them. I had certainly seen the Weikert Livestock car at
many races, but I didn’t know much of what the whole deal was all about.

I knew they weren’t afraid to get on the road a little bit and run the bigger
races, because I had often seen their car at such events. So I felt like
maybe it was a bit of a compromise: Yes, it was a local car (which didn’t
thrill me), but on the other hand I could also run some of the big races.

When Bob called me back, I agreed to give it a try for a couple of weeks.
You know the drill: “Let’s see how it goes.” Kind of a trial relationship.

I ran for Doug Howells at Cedar Lake, Wis., on July 17, then boarded a
flight to Youngstown, Ohio, the following day. I caught a ride from the
airport to nearby Sharon Speedway, where I hooked up with Davey Sr. and
Jr. for the first time. That night’s race was paying $4,000 to the winner,
sanctioned by the All Stars, a touring group that wasn’t quite as big as the
World of Outlaws.

Our “two-week trial” was about to begin.

One of the reasons I wanted to give the deal a try was that just prior to his
death in a racing accident in 1978, Dick “Toby” Tobias told me that Davey
Sr. was a helluva mechanic. Toby really praised him, and that stuck with
me. That’s probably what caused me to say yes to Weikert; in the back of
my mind I was intrigued with the idea of working with Davey Sr.

The first time you race with somebody new, it’s a matter of everybody
feeling each other out. There isn’t a cast-in-stone “right” way to race; there
are lots of ways to go about it, and it’s mostly a matter of everybody being
comfortable with each other, communicating well, and having some basic
chemistry.

Right off the bat, I felt good with these guys. I liked both Browns, and Fred
Grenoble, the third crewman who helped with mounting tires and driving
the tow rig. We all seemed to match up just right. They had good
equipment, for starters. Their motors ran real well. They weren’t what I’d
call piping powerful motors, but they made me go fast. I like motors that run
into a corner hard because I’m more interested in the entry into the corner
than anything. Well, these motors ran great into the corner. I liked it.

We set fast time that night, and won our heat. We were going to start sixth
in the feature, and after the heats were over I was in the trailer, putting
cover-ups on my helmet.

I’ll never forget what happened next. It stands out in my mind because it
perfectly illustrated what it was going to be like working with these guys,
and told me we were going to be all right.

Davey Jr. walks into the trailer. “What do you want us to do with the car for
the feature? How do you want us to set it up?” Naturally, the track was
getting more slippery as the night wore on, and Davey wondered if I wanted
them to change the setup accordingly. I hardly looked up from putting the
cover-ups on my helmet.

“Oh, I don’t know…I guess whatever you guys normally do…as long as it’s
good enough to run second, that’ll suit me.”

Davey looked at me kind of funny and walked out of the trailer. Not five
minutes later he comes back in.

“We, uh…we don’t really understand why you want to finish second.”

“No, I don’t want to finish second. I didn’t say that. You asked me how I
wanted this car. I said I just wanted it good enough to run second.”

“Oh, okay,” he says, and he walks away.

A minute or so later Davey Sr. comes ambling in. Davey Sr. is more
relaxed, a little slower-moving than Davey Jr. Davey Sr. ambled; Davey Jr.
walked. There’s a difference.

“We don’t understand,” he drawled, “why you don’t want to win the race.”

I just smiled and said, “You didn’t ask me if I wanted to win or lose. You
asked me how I wanted the car. So I answered the question: I want it just
good enough to run second.”
He looked at me with kind of a puzzled expression, but nodded his head
and ambled back outside.

Jac Haudenschild was in Bob Hampshire’s car that night, and I think he led
the first 39-and-a-half laps. But I beat him off the final corner to win it. That
felt good, yes, but not as good as the feeling I had from the start of the
race, because I knew I was going to get along great with this car and these
two guys.

So the car was good enough to run second, but I passed the leader on the
final lap and won the race.

We climbed into the hauler and turned east, back toward the team’s shop in
Fairfield, Pa., not far from Gettysburg. It’s probably two a.m., and I’m sitting
in the back seat of the truck, with Davey Jr. driving and Davey Sr. riding
shotgun. I’m about half-asleep when Davey Sr. turns around and looks at
me.

“Now I understand,” he said slowly.

“Understand what?”

“I understand what you were talking about, about setting up the car.”

When he said that, I just grinned. I had found a new home.

Do you know what I meant when I told them to give me a second-place
car? Let me explain.

Every team wants to hire the best driver they can get. At the same time,
every driver wants the best mechanics he can get. Both sides want to be
the best, and they’ll both try very hard to hold up their end of the deal, to be
the one that makes the difference.

I didn’t want to tell those guys to make the car a hot-rod, capable of lapping
the entire field. Because when you tell a set of mechanics that, they’ll try to
do it for you. But when you try to make a car killer, killer fast, you can also
mess it up to where you can’t drive it.

All I wanted was a nice, consistent car over a period of the next 100 races,
which is about a year. If you can get that baby capable of finishing second
every night, that’s all I’m asking. Because in that many races, we’ll win 20,
30, 40, because we’re close.

If you can get me close, I’ll make up the difference. That’s what I was telling
them. Don’t do back-flips trying to give me a killer car; just get me close,
and I’ll do the rest.

What’s really cool was this: On our very first night together, we were
already on the same page. Boy, that’s tremendous. Tremendous! I felt so
good that night, riding down the Pennsylvania turnpike, it was like I had a
new lease on life. I was energized and felt really, really good about how all
this was going to work out.

To learn more about Dave Argabright’s books, click here

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