Bumpy's road: A day in Hedman's life never without racing
Originally Posted in the Warren Times Observer
By DEREK FARR, Sports Writer
6/26/2007 - All this for 30 minutes of action.
It was race day in Sugar Grove.
Bumpy Hedman and his crew were hard at work in Hedman's three-car garage. That's a three race-car garage.
Bright florescent lights mixed with the afternoon sun as pneumatic tools serenaded the five men.
The pace was brisk but relaxed. Each man had done this countless times before.
Bumpy ' that is legal name ' joked and jabbed with his crew as they made final adjustments on the two Super Late Model cars destined for Stateline Speedway, Busti, N.Y., a familiar track.
Charlie MacKenzie was adjusting a car's rear suspension. His brother, Donnie, was covering the tops of the cars' massive air-intake valves with blue duct tape to prevent dust from entering the aluminum engine.
Vince Haibach was sitting in the back-up car, turning the wheels so Bumpy could fine-tune its front suspension.
John Headman, Bumpy's father and the team's patriarch, emerged from the two-story-sized car hauler parked in front of the garage. He brought bags of chips for the crew.
'All this for 30 minutes,' said John. 'It's hard to believe.'
Thirty minutes of racing is about as long as a driver can expect in this sport. For Saturday night's race, Bumpy would compete in a qualifying eight-lap race called a heat, and then a 25-lap race called a feature. That is if everything went well.
Last week, Bumpy crashed one of the cars. Donnie ended up putting 10 hours into fixing the car and John logged another 15 hours to get the machine back to racing form.
Super Late Model cars are 2,600-pound behemoths. Not much more than a roll cage covered with thin aluminum paneling, these one-seat beasts are loaded with 800-plus horsepower engines. They have heavy-duty suspension systems that hold the car not much higher than waist-level and are designed to manage the bumps, ruts and pot holes of dirt-track racing.
The cars have no speedometer, no windshield, and no headlights.
Speed is measured in seconds, or how long it takes to complete a lap. This night's race is at Stateline where laps are completed in 16 to 17 seconds and estimated top speeds reach 85 mph.
Windshields would either mud-up or crack. Instead of a windshield, Bumpy looks through a set of screen-covered bars to protect him from large and potentially harmful mud clots and rocks.
Headlights aren't necessary. All night races are under the lights, and these aren't the kind of cars used to fetch a midnight snack.
All of this adds up to work, and a lot of it.
After a weekend race, Bumpy's crew gets to work on Monday cleaning the car. Every inch, inside and out, must be cleaned of packed-on dirt from the dirt track. Then the car dries.
The next day begins the routine maintenance.
The oil and transmission fluid is changed. The car is greased and lubricated. Each tire is buffed with a drill and a sanding wheel to remove built-up dirt and grime.
The shocks are checked, the body is straightened out, and every nut and bolt is inspected.
The car's chassis is checked for its weight distribution and adjusted for the following week's raceway. The car's rear-end location, pinion angle and panhard bar height are adjusted.
It begins to sound like a different language or a calculus class gone awry.
What it all means ' is time.
The process of readying a car (Bumpy's car) takes about 64 hours of labor during the week, not including fixing a wreck. And that doesn't include a full day of work on race day.
Bumpy's pit crew regulars are Donnie and John, who primarily focus on body work, and Charlie, who tag-teams the mechanical side of the car with Bumpy. For this week's race, Haibach was making a guest appearance and lending an extra hand.
None of the men get paid for their labor. They volunteer.
It's a good thing Bumpy has a volunteer crew, because putting a car on the track takes money, and the cost is staggering.
Sounding like the unabridged version of a credit card commercial, John explained the expenses.
The car's body, transmission, shocks, and drive train ' all sold separately: $30,000.
One engine: $30,000.
Each extra shock: $200 ' Bumpy has eleven extras.
One racing tire: $350'the team carries 40 extra.
A quilted nomex fire-proof racing suit: $800.
A racing helmet: $700.
One pair of driving shoes: $100.
This doesn't include a double-decked hauler and the tow vehicle mounted on a semi chassis.
The return for all this time and money is a nominal winner's purse of $1,500 to $3,000, just enough to keep the car and the tow vehicle gassed and new shocks and tires in the hauler.
'This is all his money,' John said. 'Nothing about this is cheap.'
To afford it, Bumpy owns a manufacturing company in Jamestown, N.Y., where he logs a full-time work week. Then in the evening he participates in his full-time hobby ' and it is a full-time hobby for Bumpy and his team.
'I used to hunt,' John said. 'But now I don't hunt anymore. (Racing) just becomes your life. Once it's in your blood, it's there.'
Working at a constant but ever-more anxious pace, the team irons out the last necessary adjustments.
The caster ' the backward or forward tilt of the steering axis ' is measured and set. The camber ' the vertical angle of the wheels to the ground ' is adjusted, and, finally, after well over 70 man-hours of work, the toe ' the forward angle of the wheels ' is set and the cars are ready to load.
Ten minutes later, the tow rig, the hauler, two cars, five crew members, and a mobile workshop arrive, fashionably late, at Stateline Raceway.
From the moment of arrival at the pits, the camaraderie is obvious.
Like a congenial and very loud village of motorheads, everybody knows everybody.
Help, tools, and tires are offered to those in need. It is nothing to walk through another team's hauler for a look around.
The atmosphere is temporarily copacetic.
'(The drivers) are friends out here,' John said. 'Until they put their helmets on.'
A driver has a lot riding on his or her performance. The car's expenses and hours upon hours of volunteer time condense into heart-pounding moments between green and checkered flags.
Seeking a first-place victory is every other driver and his team.
'There's a hell of a lot more misery than there is joy,' John said. 'There's 25 guys out here and only one is going to win. You got to learn how to lose in the racing business.'
The car was unloaded and, within ten minutes, Charlie had replaced the tires. After seeing the track conditions, Bumpy decided on the change. It is a choice between harder and softer tires, wider and narrower tires. Unlike the family van, a car can have a variety of tires on the car.
Now that the car had the proper tires, Charlie took the back tires off the car so he could adjust the rear suspension to fit the track conditions. He adjusted the panhard bars and the rod angles.
More of an art than a science, each team modifies and adjusts almost unlimited variables in hopes of creating a harmonious marriage of car and track.
Dirt track conditions are everything. Is the track wet? Is it dry? Is it drying? Is it dusty? Is it hard? Is it soft?
Bumpy and Charlie made one last walk to the turn-one fence to watch the other car divisions race. They weren't watching to see who won the race; they were trying to get a feel for the track.
Finally the call came and the Super Late Models were ready for their heat race.
Bumpy climbed into the No. 22 car and drove to the track.
The cars made a few laps and the green flag fell. Nine cars unload 800 horsepower onto the track and the ground shook with their exhaust. The 22 car made contact with a car driven by Doug Eck. Then the two cars made contact again.
The race was over in less than two adrenaline-filled minutes and Bumpy took fifth.
Back in the pits, any sense of harmony was broken by a fisticuff between Eck and the MacKenzie brothers. Pushing, shoving, and profane sonnets of irreverence exploded from the men in a heated debate about the on-track incident.
Order was restored and both drivers were fined $50 for the commotion.
Undaunted, Charlie immediately went to work. The team changed the tires, adjusted the rods and worked tirelessly to give to Bumpy an edge for the feature.
The sun set on the dusty scene while Bumpy and his team continued fine-tuning the car.
Bumpy was set to start 13th in the feature, which meant a victory would be difficult.
'If I get 5th, I'll be happy,' he said. 'I expect myself to place in the top ten.'
Dusk became dark and the 22 received its final adjustments. A deafening roar enveloped the pits as 27 Super Late Models started their engines for the feature. Then it was time.
The cars circled the track steering sharply from side to side to warm their tires. As they rounded turn four, all 25 cars were bumper to bumper when the green flag dropped.
'The only thing you see are top of the cars,' Bumpy later said. 'You watch to see if one turns sideways. Then you know there are problems.'
The No. 22 car held its position in the first lap and then on the second lap Andy Kania's 76 car turned sideways and barrel-rolled three times down the back straight-away. Bumpy flew passed the cart-wheeling car at full throttle.
'I could see the whole bottom of his car,' he said. 'At least when they're in the air, you know where they're going.'
After the restart, Bumpy fought his way to sixth only to be caught in a three-lap-long battle with Darrell Bossard. Bossard finally won the battle and took over the position. John Lobb also slipped passed Bumpy and Hedman ended the race in 8th place.
The 22 car returned to the pits. Bumpy climbed out and took off his helmet. His face was dripping with sweat.
'That's a workout,' he said as he unzipped his race suit to let in the cool night air.
It turned out his team's calculations were wrong.
'(Our tires) were too hard,' Charlie said. 'They didn't grab the race track.'
Bumpy estimated his 8th place finish earned him $400.
The race barely over, John was already scrapping some of the dirt from the front of the 22 car. Charlie, Donnie and Vince worked to put the still-warm car back in the hauler and the night was over; the whole process to begin anew on Monday.
All that for 30'heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping, speed-filled'minutes.
