Life in the fastest lane
Pushing the pedal right down to the middle?
Just keeping the pedal — and everything else in the race car — attached to the metal would make Tom Neale more than happy in his first season competing in the premier class at Merrittville Speedway.
After making the big climb to Modified 358 from Mini Stock, the 4-cylinder division at the Thorold track, the 30-year-old professional engineer from St. Catharines sees this year as racing up a steep learning curve rather than racing for points.
“I’m just getting more comfortable just driving around with other people,” Neale said. “In the heat, the car is working good, I just can’t get a handle on the feature, when the track gets really slippier.
“I think part of that might have the torsion bar setup. I’ve been running used bars, I hadn’t been changing them.”
Neale, who works for Dofasco, will be satisfied with finishing in the top 10 in points. Being selected as rookie of the year would be an added bonus.
“The main goal is rookie of the year,” he said. “I’m struggling with that right now, there’s a Sportsman guy (Tom Richau) who moved up.”
He came into Saturday night’s program having finished each of his starts so far this season, including the 67-lap Brian Stevens Memorial and a 50-lapper.
“The first feature I ever raced, a 35-lapper, that felt like forever,” he said.
“After a couple of weeks in for the 67-lapper, I kind of got used to it, I didn’t notice it any more — compared to the mini stock, where after 20 laps your arms are like spaghetti.”
His best showing so far in Modified 358 had been two 10th-place finishes.
In Saturday night’s feature, he finished 12th in the 35-lapper behind Mike Bowman, who won his second in a row and third of the season.
Despite placing 12th, Neale didn’t finish out of the money.
On a night when two random drivers were picked to share the first-place payout, Neale and Pete Bicknell, the eighth-place finish, each received an extra $750.
Bowman went home with $1,500.
Neale is feeling a lot more comfortable behind the wheel. He is now going to the green flag in heats in the starting position he is assigned rather than at the tail end by choice.
“I’m pretty fast in the heats — I keep up with everybody — but I just can’t get the car to work in the feature,” he said. “Right now, if I can stay with the back of the field and pass a couple of cars, that would be a good night.”
The most important goal, he said, is finishing all the races with the car leaving the track under it’s own power, not at the back of a tow truck.
“We want to spend our time in the garage making the car better, not repairing it,” he said. “Staying out of trouble is half the battle. You’re not learning anything by putting the car on the trailer.
“The more laps out there, the more learning that I can have, especially the way the track’s been this year,” he said.
He doesn’t regret leaving Mini Stock, a division in which he led all rear-wheel-drive racers in points last season. “It’s a helluva lot of fun,” Neale said. “It’s a little bit frustrating running in the back in the feature some time, but everyone has to start somewhere. It’s probably the best track to learn on, just because becomes so slippery in the feature and the talent here is unbelievable compared to all the other tracks around.”
He spent two seasons racing a Mustang in Mini Stocks. He finished fifth in points and had the top Mustangs in a division dominated by Volkswagens in his second year.
He also raced 4-cylinders at New Humberstone Speedway but didn’t enjoy much success at the Port Colborne track.
“Off the trailer, the car what it liked here, it didn’t like at Humberstone.”
All along Neale’s long-term plan was to race either in Sportsman or Modified 358, but he wanted the experience of driving a rear-wheel-drive racer before making the leap. He fully intended to return for another year in Mini Stock, to the point of “sinking a bunch of money into the Mustang.”
“Went to the banquet, there was a car for sale, just the body and chassis,” he recalled. “I bought it on a whim, thinking we would spend the winter getting a roller together.
“Maybe, if I can get a crate motor, we could take it out for some practice laps.”
That plan changed once the racer started taking shape.
“Once I got in my garage and we started buying parts, it was like, ‘Well, we’re almost there, we just need a motor,’” he said.
With that, plans to recoup his investment in the Mustang went out the window.
“We kind of had to turn on a dime and sell the Mustang,” said Neale, who received what he originally paid for the car when he raffled it off.
Making the leap to Modified affordable was a program offering DIRT-spec, sealed motors coming from a performance shop rather than from a factory assembly line.
An aluminum engine based on a 327 Chevrolet power plant cost $15,000, including taxes. Bolt-ons, such as the carburetor and headers, added about $5,000 to the cost.
“For under 20 grand, brand new out of the box, you got a motor versus 30-35,” he said. “If you buy a refurbished one, you could probably save 25 per cent.”
In the Mustang, Neale was just breaking into the 20-second lap time. This season in a Modified he is covering the same distance in 16 seconds.
“We’re going from an average speed of 65 miles an hour to 95,” he said. “I’m keeping up, but I’m still learning.”
He said the biggest difference is while the Mustang didn’t like to be sideways cornering a turn, the Modifieds do.
“It’s a completely different driving style,” he said.
Becoming used to the higher horsepower, adjusting tire pressure to suit track conditions and what can be tweaked on the car are part of his ongoing education in the new racing class.
“During the week the Mustang went on the trailer, we washed it and that was it,” Neale said. “These things are a lot more work, more temperamental.”
“We’re keeping up, but we still have a way to go.”
Neale is finding a night-andday difference between Modifieds, which are meant to be pushed to the limit, to Mustangs, which need to driven smoothly to maximize speed.
“Fifteen laps in a Mustang I couldn’t race for a week after that, my arms are shot,” he said. “You get power steering here, it’s different, but there’s a lot more dust, it’s a lot harder.
“Physically, the 67 laps weren’t all that bad. Mentally, it’s a bit different.”
His first two features in the higher class both lasted 35 laps and went flag-to-flag.
“Talk about going into the fire right off the bat,” Neale recalled with a chuckle. “But it was good, good learning.”
He hasn’t completely forgotten Mini Stock now that he is racing Modifieds on a full-time basis.
“If someone had a car, I would wheel it in a heart beat,” he said. “If I had the ability to get two cars here, and probably could have afforded it, I would do both.”