People often ask how I “got into racing”. I know everyone that enjoys any type of sport or activity has a unique story about how they got involved and my involvement in racing is as unique as anybody’s I guess. My first passion was baseball, specifically Milwaukee Brewers baseball but I’ll cover that in a future blog. Secondary for me was auto racing and here’s the long and winding path that got me into it back in the day.
When I was in about the third or fourth grade, I don’t recall exactly but my family lived on 302 Joan St. in Burlington, WI and my folks split up and eventually got divorced with my Dad moving out and my sister and I remaining to live with my Mom. My Mom’s sister Marilyn had moved to a small town in southeast Wisconsin called Silver Lake and my Mom soon followed with the help of an FHA loan and hard work, she bought us a new house across the street from my Aunt on Glenwood Dr. in Silver Lake. We went from living in a duplex to our own house with a big back yard and a basement and it was a fresh start for us all. I am still very close to both my Mom and Dad, things just happened and that is how I ended up in Silver Lake which is a key part of my future racing involvement.
I believe it was about the middle of fifth grade that I started attending Riverview Grade School. Most people know me as a bit of a smart ass Yankee but apparently it was really bad when I got to Riverview. It was so much so that one afternoon after school, the entire class waited outside the school to beat me up when I walked out of class. Thankfully for me, cooler heads prevailed but that is how I met Tom Zillmer. Tom was easily the biggest kid in class and a popular lifelong resident of Silver Lake and he kind of took me under his wing and protected me a bit. I had no idea that my friendship with Tom would lead me into my lifelong racing endeavors but that is how it happened.
Most of my Wisconsin friends know me as “Harold” and that is thanks to Tom. Apparently there were too many Dan’s in my class, so everyone had a nickname and that was mine for no particular reason at all. This is a bit out of sequence here but later on, Chuck Miller took it another step and used it on our cars as his alias as he didn’t really want everyone knowing he did our cars so we ended up with “Harold Bliikenschmiik”, you see it had to have (4) i’s or it would be Blikenschmik with a long i and that didn’t work so it has (4) i’s. Half the people I know in Wisconsin don’t even know my real name is Dan!
What happened next was nothing that I could have ever predicted but Tom’s Dad, Dave Zillmer raced a Dirt Late Model at Wilmot Speedway just a couple miles south of where we lived. As I started hanging out at Tom’s more and more, being around the race car (pictured above) was just a normal thing for us. Dave worked at AMC at the time in Kenosha so Tom and I and couple of neighborhood guys that were friends of Dave’s would get the car ready and get it all loaded up so we could go to Wilmot on Saturday nights and that is really my first experience with dirt track racing. God I loved that car, it was one of the very first cars that Five Star Stock Car Bodies had ever done and it was one beautiful piece.
When I turned 14, my Mom told me I wasn’t going to lay around the house all summer, I needed to get a job. I only went to one place and applied and that was Silver Lake Grill owned by a fiery Greek named Pete and his wife Voula. Thankfully they hired me as that was the only place that I went to for an application. I was just a dishwasher but I can always remember on Saturday afternoons those race cars would drive by, some big Sprint Car rigs and many other small open trailers and I just thought that was the coolest thing. I so much looked forward to Saturday’s to get to the races.
Fast forward a couple of years and Tom of course wanted to race too so we acquired an old Pontiac LeMans, put a 400 small block in it and built our first “Spectator Stock” I think they were called in those days. I know Tom was 16 but I’m not sure I was yet but we had a blast in that old LeMans. I think he bought it from Lyle Derler at Five Star and Chuck Miller put some lettering on it for us and we had a blast. We had moderate success winning a couple of heat races but needless to say we had our own race car as teenagers and were racing on Saturday nights at Wilmot.
I had moved to Union Grove to finish out high school and live with my Dad but Tom and I always stayed close and I spent a lot of time in Silver Lake once I got my license and could drive.
Tom and I still went to the races but we knew if we were going to really be competitive, we had to get a small car that handled better so we acquired a Camaro and turned it into a Street Stock. We patterned the car after Dave’s Blue Zoomer and even had many of the same sponsors so while the car looked neat, we just never had much success in it but we always had a great time either way. At that time Wilmot raced 410 Sprint Cars weekly so I have always loved watching Sprint Cars.
At some point there in about 1990, Tom had a really good job while I was going to UTI in Glendale Heights, IL to be a mechanic so between his income and our combined knowledge along with many of our other friends, we acquired a rare Lefthander DIRT Late Model from Jay Maywald. We were just almost drinking age at that time and I think Tom was so we’d go down to Jay’s to hang out and drink Stroh’s beer out of his soft drink machine and do a lot of bench racing.
It was a proven car with Jay and we came about it right. The first thing we did was take it to Fran Prestay at Five Star and he put one of first “new style” dirt late model bodies on it. It had a pavement Lumina nose on it but it was a sexy piece once Fran got done with it. We went to LAM Racing Engines and got us a good 406 and now we were big time, we were late model racing. The late Jim Kjellander from Twin Lakes painted it and Chuck Miller lettered it as he had all of our cars. Back before Chuck went to work for Fivestar and helped develop the headlight decals, he airbrushed these by hand. Man was he talented. We had great support from a lot of great people.
I didn’t turn 21 until November of 1991 but Tom turned 21 in January so the race season of 1991 was one big party. We would go to Wilmot every Saturday and at that time everyone pulled their haulers on the front stretch and just hung out till all hours of the morning. We had sponsorship at that time from the Packer Inn, American Legion Post 293 and Dairy Queen so we’d load up and on the way through town, pick up two cases of beer and coney dogs for dinner on our way to the track.
Well about the middle of summer when the track was hot and slick, we hit on a set up and won three features IN A ROW at Wilmot. Keep in mind we are punk 20 and 21 year olds racing against guys like Skip Martin and we win three in a row. Needless to say that wasn’t very popular but it all worked out. Well now that we’re winning some races, the partying really got wild as we went to Furlan’s Dug Out Inn after the races where everyone went to hang out but keep in mind I’m still only 20 with the drinking age 21. Well one night, the place gets raided by the cops and I am right in the middle of this bar. Everyone knew I was underage so it was like a mob movie, they just all kind of hid me and hustled me out so I didn’t get cited. Fun times indeed.
Tom and I had shared an apartment at that time and the party frequently spilled over to our place with race rigs lined up all down the road, it was wild for sure.
Shortly after we had some success, life started getting in the way, money was tight, women and kids became involved for Tom, I moved to Missouri and so that was the end of z3 at the time but we came back one last time.
I had moved to Missouri in late 1991 and eventually went to work for Larry Phillips which is well documented but when I returned to Wisconsin in early 1993, it felt like I never left. Tom’s job was going good, his personal life was in a good pattern and we were ready to get back at it. With the help of his long time boss Mike Kroening, we acquired a pavement modified. It was a really good piece and we really relied on the knowledge I had gained in Missouri to learn asphalt racing. Man I loved that car, we kept it simple and ran mostly on Friday nights in Madison. Madison was a blast. We parked next to Conrad and Donovan Morgan when we could because they had a Pabst sponsorship and there was always cold Pabst Genuine Draft Lights close at hand after the races. At the time Matt Kenseth still raced there weekly and it was just a ton of fun.
We ventured out to Slinger a time or two and one night in particular, things got really interesting. At the time Al Schill who was the late model kind of Slinger was also running a modified and he was winning about every week. Well they had this claim rule so we puffed our chest up and said if we could, we would claim Al Schill’s motor. They may not have been the wisest thing to do for a couple of young brash know it alls that were complete outsiders to that circle. Well one night, Tom led almost the whole feature at Slinger ultimately getting a little loose coming out of turn 4 but we ended up fourth so we were eligible to claim. Our car owner Mike Kroening always had a lot of cash on him and so he whipped out the $400 or whatever it was to claim Al’s motor and then right about there is when all hell broke loose. Let’s just say we left with a police escort and no engine.
I don’t remember what exactly happened to our racing program after that but shortly thereafter Mike took the car, we quit racing, I moved back to Missouri and the days of the z3 were history but it was a helluva lot of fun and made a race fan out of me for life. It’s amazing how life’s journeys shape your path but I believe everything happens for a reason and me moving to Silver Lake couldn’t have worked out any better. Tom and I are still best friends to this day and talk weekly.
DR
RacerDan’s Ramblings 
👍 cool read.