wolfie360

He wanted to share the story of how he got interested in racing midgets...

In my mid 20s I worked for a motorcycle shop. My friends and I would ride around on our motorcycles and sometimes the police officers riding on motorcycles would ride with us and have fun if they had time. One time they took us over to the race track and they were racing midgets. Most of my friends were laughing at such little cars, but I said "I could race those!" During the intermission I heard that they were selling a midget, so I went down there and took the guy up on the offer. He wanter $400 for it, so I put $20 down. I went home and asked my mom for the rest of the money. I only told her it was for a car though. I didn't say that it was a race car. So she gave me the money because she didn't want me driving my motorcycle anymore. I towed home the race car a few days later. When she saw what I did she wouldn't even talk to me.

Well, I have to say yes. I had some close calls. Then again, if you weren't scared, you weren't driving hard enough!

I retired because my family was growing. I wanted to stick with them. But I wasn't completely out of the picture. I was on the safety team for about 10 years. I went to races almost every weekend. I also taught my kids how to race quarter midgets and I still am involved with the old timers in Indy. I go to the Indy 500 almost every year. People still ask for my advice sometimes.

Passing my drives test at Indy. There was a lot that I had to go through. I had to drive 10 laps within 1 MPH of what speed they told you to go at without a speedometer.

They perform much better, mostly because of the tires. You get a lot better traction now than they did back then. Also, the safety features have much improved. They didn't have fireproof uniforms back then.

It's a big difference of how fast people race now too. When I set my world record I was racing at about 104 miles an hour.

By the seat of my pants! You just had to feel it. The sound of the engine and the sound of the exhaust helped too.