Slightly Modified - By: John Sullivan

Posted Jody Shannon on November 26th, 2007 | Filed under Articles, John Sullivan, The DRC

I would like to start off my second article for thedrc.net by telling you all a little about myself. I am, what we in the racing world call, a lifer. I have been around racing in some form, for just about my entire life. My step-father, who has raised me my entire life is a second generation lifer. Just before my seventh birthday, he completed his first race car. It was at that time a bomber, that we raced at Florence Speedway. For the next 20 years, the bomber classed evolved and changed, and my father followed suit with the division.

For 20 years, he raced a super stock car at Florence Speedway. Over the years, he allowed me to take over more and more duties on the car. After 20 years, I was pretty well suited to do anything you wanted me to, on a stock clip, leaf spring car. During the offseason leading up to the 2007 season, my world would be flipped upside down by an open wheeled modified.

When we first rolled our Bob Pierce Race Car into the garage, I was baffled by the lack of leaf springs, and realized I would never figure out the complexity of all those fancy bars. I went from having a couple of lowering blocks I could tinker with in the leaf spring world, to having an endless supply of changes in the four bar dimension. I was overwhelmed. Mr. Pierce was kind enough to supply us with a setup sheet, which might as well have been written in hieroglyphics. I automatically wrote off 2007 as a “learning year”.

On opening night at Florence Speedway, it was time to jump into this headfirst and figure it out. We couldn’t get out of our own way fast enough. Apparently everyone in the pits wanted to help us out, but none of them had the same information. It was going to be a long season. We had run leaf springs for too long, and technology had eluded us. I instantly understood how an elderly person felt trying to use the internet. As we were leaving the track, we finally got some information that was pertinent, “You guys need to stop listening to all these know it alls, and do your own thing off that setup sheet.” Ok, duley noted.

Two weeks later, we pulled off the impossible. We were in victory lane at the highbanks of Florence Speedway, just the third time our driver ever sat in a modified. Folks, I’ll tell ya, that is no easy task. Florence has some very stout talent, and plenty of great cars been piloted by said talent. I’m not going to lie here. I felt like we had just won the World 100. Anyone that knows my father, Dan Dehner, knows that he races with a little less than what alot of his competition does, and that nobody works harder in the garage. It was the proudest I have ever been of him.

We were on an instant high, knowing we had found the hot ticket, and would be a force to be reckoned with. The following week, we finished 18th in the feature, followed by a pair of 14th place finishes. We had been delivered an entire truck load of “HUMBLE”. And so, this would be the pace we followed for a couple of months. Up for a week or so, and then put right back into our place. It was back to being a very long season.

The first road trip of the season took us to a track we had never seen, Portsmouth Raceway Park. The night would change our program. A lucky draw put us on the pole of a heat race, only to see the local competition flat out embarrass us when the checkered flag fell. A fellow Pierce racer, and friend, Josh Weinmann gave us some setup pointers that actually proved useful, and “The Dude” drove from deep in the pack to the front, before overheating. However,the night was not a complete loss, as we did finally get some helpful advice.

As the season wound down, we managed to travel to a few more tracks, and still ran weekly at Florence Speedway. Things had began to look up a little. We had made every race attempted, and had a few good showings to boot. Things still felt a little empty after beginning the season with that big win. Just a few weeks before seasons end, Florence hosted “White Castle Night”, which boasted an extra $1000 going to the modified feature winner. Things looked promising early on. We started on the pole of our heat race, and drove to an easy win. Ok, not bad. With the passing points deal, we lined up 3rd for the feature. As soon as the green flag fell, our 00 looked like it was on a rail, driving by the front row cars on the bottom and pulling away.

I became a nervous wreck on lap 3. In our 20 years of racing, we had only won 5 features total. I’m accustomed to bad things happening. When the white flag fell, I stopped breathing. We were just a 1/2 mile away from our biggest pay day ever. I lost my voice in that short distance, and we did win the race.

Ten months later, I still don’t have a clue what a lot of those things are under the rearend of our car, but I do grasp the important stuff. We’ve still got a ton of learning to do. I don’t think you can ever have too much information when it comes to racing. We would also like to thank all those involved in making our rookie season a very successful, and most importantly a FUN one.

The views in this article are solely those of the author, and do not reflect thedrc.net in any way.

You can contact me @ jcsullivan@insightbb.com