As unlikely as it seems to me, I turned FIFTY a couple weeks ago on Wild Turkey Wednesday no less. You can imagine how that turned out. I have always considered myself older than my age as I seemed to always be the youngest at about whatever I did growing up but now all of a sudden, I’m not the youngest any more.
I started Kindergarten at age 4 so I was always the youngest in my class throughout my public school years. I graduated from Union Grove Union High School at 17 in May of 1988 and I moved to Phoenix, AZ to attend school at Universal Technical Institute in August of ’88. I didn’t even turn 18 until the end of November and here I was living 2,000 miles away from home by myself working a full time job during the day at Dodge City in Phoenix and going to school at night at UTI to earn the illustrious Associate Degree in Automotive-Diesel Technology.
Moving from a small town like Union Grove, WI to a major metro area like Phoenix certainly had it’s challenges especially as young as I was but it helped me to mature and grow up fast. I didn’t even have a car, I rode a bike everywhere or hitched rides as my apartment was pretty close to school. I didn’t realize it at the time but where I lived wasn’t the greatest neighborhood in Phoenix but that was in one of the housing complexes that the school used. The last time I drove by that apartment at about 23rd and Camelback the entire complex was gated and surrounded by barbed wire. I understand now where I was at.
My first roommate had a pretty bad drug problem and a good drug business apparently as he was much older than me and had a steady flow of traffic into the apartment and into the bedroom. See he wouldn’t let me have a bed in the bedroom, I had to sleep in a bed where the dining room table should have been. I came home one day from shuttling cars at Dodge City to find the Phoenix Metro SWAT team there arresting this fine fellow. I never saw him again and I had heard he went to Fort Leavenworth. I moved downstairs with a couple of dudes named Greg and John from CA. Greg liked me and John didn’t so it was always a bit uncomfortable. I turned 18 while I lived with Greg and John and as they were from California, I went home with them that Thanksgiving and to celebrate my birthday. I remember sitting in a hot tub in the mountains in the snow smoking dope and drinking beer. It was the one and only time I ever smoked or took any type of drugs in my life.
Eventually UTI had finished building a new school in Glendale Heights, IL so as I was homesick I moved back to Union Grove and finished my degree there in Glendale Heights commuting to the suburbs of Chicago every day in a white Ford Fiesta. I was only able to receive a diploma in Auto Mechanics and not an Associate Degree as I set out to get. All it took was one air brake class after removing those rear semi duals, I dropped that diesel portion like a hot potato. There was no way I was working that hard all of my life.
I finally graduated from UTI and took a full time mechanic’s job working for Tom Pyatt at Pyatt Automotive in Bassett, WI at the ripe age of maybe 19. Tom was a long time GM Mechanic and opened his own shop so it was basically me and him in this new shop. It was a good gig and we worked hard and had a lot of fun. It was unique because Tom’s shop in Bassett was located between Five Star Stock Car Bodies and the original location of Bassett Wheel. Yep, that’s why it’s called Bassett Wheel, Bassett, WI.
Tom was also the son in law of one of Five Star’s founders and owners, Fran Prestay so needless to say we always had a lot of cool things going on between those two companies as we did a lot of work for both. It was there that I got to know Fran well and he was one of the greatest guys I have ever met. Of course, Five Star went in a different direction with Carl Schultz as he bought Fran out and Fran moved to MI but I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. I’m still great friends with Carl and all of the Five Star staff.
After a couple of years working for Pyatt Automotive, my Mom got divorced from her second husband and decided to move from Silver Lake, WI to Missouri where her mother lived. She just wanted out of WI and needed a fresh start. My grandmother owned a bar in Needmore, MO (not sure if it is a real town but there is a sign) located between Bolivar and Stockton. We had visited often as kids and I always really liked the area, so after awhile I decided I needed fresh start too and loaded everything I owned which was basically my tool box and my clothes in the back of a short bed Ford and moved to Missouri. I’m not sure exactly when this was but I think I had just recently turned 21 or was just about to.
As you can imagine I was pretty lost, jobs were scarce and the pay in Missouri was quite low so I struggled once the new wore off. I spent too much time drinking beer in my Grandmother’s bar that my Mom now managed and worked on cars in the driveway for some of the locals but it took me a bit to get my feet on ground. Missouri is very cliquish as many places are and so as an outsider, I just didn’t have many ins to get a job. I also didn’t have many bills as I slept on my Grandmothers couch in her double wide behind the bar. I did have to pay a truck payment and finally, I couldn’t even afford my old ’90 Ford so I traded my Dad for an old Nissan truck or something that he had that didn’t have a payment. I eventually got a job working for a little Texaco gas station just west of the square in Bolivar. The location is now a Farmer’s State Bank branch I believe but at the time this tiny little gas station was owned by a group called Baker Management which had a host of facilities to house developmentally disabled individuals so I would pump a little gas and fix up their fleet of vehicles. At least I had a job and something to do and was making a little money.
It was about this time I met my future wife but I’ll spare the details of that arrangement for another time. Through this meeting however, I made my first trip in I think ’91 to Bolivar Speedway USA for Polk County Bank night on a Friday night. This was when Bolivar was pretty new and it and Lebanon I-44 Speedways were the shit. As many know, I grew up in Wisconsin watching what I thought was the best racers there was but it didn’t take me too long to to see how much of a badass Larry Phillips was. Finally, Missouri had kind of hooked me as I had a job and races to go to.
While I got kind of sick of the Texaco station and one of the owners, I walked across the street to talk to Ron, the Service Manager of Bill Roberts Chevrolet about a job and he hired me to be mechanic right there in the used truck lot. This would be the beginning of a long and enjoyable relationship with Bill Roberts and everyone there. In addition to finally getting a real job at Bill Roberts, I became more and more involved in the local racing scene and was pitting on a Late Model for a guy named Paul Wallen out of Arcola, Missouri. I loved Paul, his brother Phillip and his whole family. I loved driving to Arcola to work on his car and going to the races with them. Things were were going pretty good for me by then.
During this time, I had gotten to know Larry Phillips a little bit and during that season in ’92, James Ince left to go NASCAR Racing and at end of the ’92 season, I quit my job at Bill Roberts Chevrolet and went to work for Larry Phillips Autosports.
That story is pretty well documented so I’ll stop here for now but as I got way off topic, all this has happened and I just turned 22 in November of ’92 so I’m still young for what I was doing. That seems like only yesterday and forever ago at the same time.
Fast forward back to this Big 5-0 deal and I got my AARP card in the mail, I have a Colonoscopy scheduled for Thursday, and a Shingles shot in January. Birthdays have never bothered me and this last one didn’t bother me so much as much as it made me realize, I’m not the youngest one around me any more. I’m becoming one of the elder statesmen in my circle and that has just been more weird than something that has bothered me.
How the hell did I get to be FIFTY years old, I was 19 yesterday. It’s crazy sometimes to look back on all the things I’ve done and been able to accomplish. I don’t mean that arrogantly at all but more from the standpoint of being blessed to have so many opportunities not only in my career and my hobby but even my family. My kids even are 21 and 23 and that just doesn’t seem possible when I see so many others with small children.
Either way, I’m thrilled to be 50 and look forward to 50 more.
DR
RacerDan’s Ramblings 