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In the winter of 2006, my son came home dragging a Mini-Stock race car behind his truck, pulled into the driveway, jumped out of his truck an said "Hey Dad, I'm going to race." Being an old racer from the 80's I knew how much it was going to cost him and how much work was involved.
He was very proud of that little race car, although it looked like a trash can that had been rolling around a rock pile. Well soon came play day at the track and my son, for the first time on the track, went the same speed on the track as he did in the pits, about 5mph.HAHA! He still managed to tear the motor up.
He went to the salvage yard and got another motor before the first race. Tore it up in the heat race. My son was beginning to realize what I meant about cost and work. His racing days were coming to an abrupt end and I could close my eyes and see an old mini-stock race car sitting in my pasture.
Then came the day when my son came in the house and said "Dad will you help me race? Please! Please! Please!". What can you do he's my son. Then my boy's mom gets in on it and says, "Come on ! It wouldn"t hurt you to help him." So here we go.
First thing to clear up is that I knew nothing about 4-cylinders. I was lost just as much as my son. I got on the internet and started reading everything I could about these little motors while trying to keep him racing (with not much success).
One thing about racing is that your fellow racers are always willing to help with sharing knowledge and helping to work on your car. Needless to say, I was glad that first year was behind us. Now we can start all over the next year with our new knowledge.
Oh yeah! The second year I found out that we had just learned enough to go fast for a little while then "BOOM", it would fly apart. Meanwhile my son was coming into his own with his driving skills. We built five motors that second year and in 2 years of racing had not won a heat race nor an A Feature. It was looking like this was not the sport for us, perhaps we should trash the racing and take up bowling or something.
I was still reading all I could on the net and learning what makes these little motors go fast and hold up. Taking what I had read and what other mini-stock drivers had told me, I decided to buy another car and did. Decided to build a serious motor and did that too. We were ready to take on the Mini-Stock division in year 3.
I told my son, "To be a winner we need to have the never give up attitude and we need to look like a winner". So with that outlook on things we set out to be the best we could be. I must say that car looked like it was meant to win and sounded like a winner too. This was one of those cars the fans would pick as the winner but thier friend would argue and say that they had picked it first. You should of been there when we won our first heat race (Maybe you were). It looked and felt like we had won the Daytona 500, happy people is the understatement. Season 3 cost three motors, but we did manage to win an A-Feature or two and ended up second in the seasons point standing.
Off season of year 4, we changed our colors, hoping for a new look and better luck. We were learning new tricks. The season had a bad start. We couldn't get our car to run right and fought the problem for 3 weeks before we figured out what the problem was. By this time we were way behind in points. With a motor that runs right we started to do good, winning often. At mid season I bought another car. It was a proven track champion. We raced the car 4 or 5 times and got into a bad wreck. My son was spun head-on into the wall. My new car was totalled!
I got a new car and set out to rebuild the car exactly like the wrecked one was. It took me 5 weeks, but I managed to duplicate the car as it was. We raced the rebuild on its first night at Outlaw Motor Speedway. We took second place running the wrong gears. We finished the season with our original car and never raced the new car again that year. We were saving it for the next season. The season ended with us third in the points standing.
Season 5 started the same as before, learning new stuff. All this time we thought that 7800 to 8000 rpm was good for these little motors, boy was we wrong again. We stepped up our game and built a motor that would tach 9000 rpm. It proved to be the single best thing we ever did. We started the season with the original car with the new motor and was twisting 8900 rpm every night. It was going great until about the 5th race of the season when the transmission locked-up and we got the car totalled from the rear. "OH KNOW" the original was gone. Time for the new car to make its debut. In the meantime we took our steel body car to another track and raced for 2 nights of racing which proved to be a bad decision. Took the new car back to the home track and things started to click. We started winning every night. We had finally got to where the car and driver were working as one and that is a very powerful combination when you finally obtain it. We didn't win the championship because of the 2 missed races, but we did win 12 A-Features and the Fall Nationals for the 2nd time. We are set for next season.
The 6th season started out like the 5th one ended, us winning often. It took 5 years of trial and error, but we made it to the top of our game taching 8900 every night with a car my son could drive around the corners with 2 fingers, we were the ones to beat. You all know we had a drought this year and a shortened season, but we still won 12 A-Features, the Fall Nationals for the 3rd time in a row and THE TRACK CHAMPIONSHIP (finally). Strange how you work so hard to get to the top only to find no one likes a winner , but that's another story.
Here it is the off season again and all we think about are races past and wondering about what to do for season 7. The Mini-Stocks are gone, sold and went to Alabama to show them boys how we build things in Oklahoma. Leroy "The Rocket" Burger will be starting over with a "whole motor" (V8) in the sportmod division. We have alot of friends in the sportmod division, so i know this season will be fun while also being a challange.
That's my story I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did reliving it. 
Gary Burger
B-Team Racing
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