RACING TOGETHER
Van Pelts’ love of racing keeps them connected
JOHNSTON — In a manner of speaking, Jeff Van Pelt’s adoration for auto racing happened quite by accident. Then again, maybe force is a better word.
He’s now 46, but he recalls the night it occurred – back in the summer of 1982 – like it happened during supper the night before.
“Honestly, I was 10 years old, and my brothers (Randy and Jeff) and I were at Riverside Park in Agawam (Mass.), out by Springfield,” Van Pelt stated. “All of a sudden, my dad said, ‘Hey, Jeff, let’s go see the race cars.’
“I didn’t want to go, and I told him that; I wanted to ride the rides. I mean, it was an amusement park, but Dad said, ‘C’mon, Jeff. Give it 10 minutes, huh? Let’s go!’”
With a mischievous grin, he added, “I went, but it didn’t take 10 minutes. I absolutely fell in love with it.”
Laughed Van Pelt’s father, Dorsey: “We went to the track and Jeff’s eyes got as big as dinner plates. It was love at first sight. He just kind of eased over, sat down in the stands and started watching. He couldn’t take his eyes off it.”
The youngest Van Pelt brother went decades without racing, but he now finds himself in a pretty decent position as a mainstay in the Limited Sportsman division at nearby Thompson (Conn.) Speedway Motorsports Park.
After winning his first event last summer, the Pawtucket resident currently ranks eighth out of 35 drivers in the Limited Sportsman standings.
He hasn’t won this season, though did land a seventh and ninth in his last two races. He currently has 158 points, 101 behind leader Shawn Morahan of Waterford, Conn.
Still, Jeff – one who comes across as a calm, laid-back sort (perfect for his occupation as a veteran RIPTA bus driver) – would never take all the credit. It’s never been, his style. He states he couldn’t have made all these relatively recent strides without the help of his dad, not to mention older brother Randy.
“Let’s put it this way: This is our pit crew; a handicapped 52-year-old baseball lover, then there’s Jeff the driver, who’s getting there but still a ways off and me, a 75-year-old senior citizen, as the crew chief,” Dorsey grinned while sitting next to his adult children. “What does that tell you?
“No wonder why Jeff still needs some help.”
Those sitting at the table laugh heartily. Such self-deprecation isn’t unusual, not with this bunch. It’s obvious this is a family that enjoys sports, competition, humor and mischief, but most of all loving and supporting each other through thick and thin.
Heck, even nephew Logan Van Pelt, now a “mature three and a half,” helps out in the garage.
Dorsey had explained Randy’s disability – he walks with a left arm that’s limited in mobility – had occurred at birth; he has cerebral palsy, but it rarely has interfered with what he wanted to pursue. In fact, all levity aside, Randy, of North Smithfield, is a key cog in ensuring Jeff can pilot his orange 1985 Chevy Monte Carlo with safety, accuracy and power.
“I basically run the tools for him, make sure all the safety belts are where they need to be, make sure the radio’s hooked up and the window net is hooked up right,” Randy explained. “I do it because I love it. This might sound crazy, but I almost live my life through my brother and son, Brian, because I can’t do some things that they can.
“When Jeff is racing, I’m more nervous than he is; I feel like I’m racing myself,” he continued. “Ifthere’s an accident down low (on the track), I’m yelling, ‘Jeff, get up, get up! I always worry about him.”
Noted Dorsey: “What Randy means by living through Jeff is he’d never miss one of Jeff’s baseball games (at Smithfield High or the Community College of Rhode Island), and he’s never missed a race. Whatever Jeff does, Randy’s right there, and vice versa.
“Nothing phases me on the track (when it concerns Jeff), except for the boneheads who, when they get into their cars, they change personalities. All of a sudden they think they’re Dale Earnhardt. They race like super-aggressive idiots.” (Isn’t that just like a dad?) “Not all of them are like that,” he stated. “There are some really great people in racing; the boneheads know who they are. If the race is clean and everything’s done the right way, it’s really entertaining. It’s also extremely rewarding when you see the guys (drivers) getting together afterward to talk about the race, laughing and joking without fighting about a wreck that may have happened.”
How Jeff first started driving is a story in itself, especially the fact he never got behind a wheel until about 2010.
“For years, I didn’t race, but the three of us would go to Seekonk, Thompson and NASCAR Cup Series races, including Loudon (N.H.),” he said. “We actually traveled to some races nationwide; we even went to one at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.
“We could do that because at that time I was working for an airline, and I could get ‘space available’ tickets. We had a lot of fun.
“I remember when I was a kid and we’d go to Thompson, I told Randy and my dad, ‘If I ever win the lottery, I’m buying a Sportsman.’ We never hit the lottery, but the passion was always there.”
As for driving, he started slowly, taking part in demolition derbies and figure-eight competitions at the Seekonk oval.
“Those were fun, but it’s not racing,” Jeff said. “Yeah, I got to bash people’s cars in and excited the crowds, but I always to race, compete, but definitely not crash.”
During the course of demolitions and traveling, he met quite a few people more involved than he, yet it was Randy who got the ball rolling.
“I connected with a man named Scott Fanning on Facebook back in 2012; he lived in Burrillville and raced, and his son Corey was involved, too,” Randy recalled. “I knew him because he went to Smithfield (High School) like all of us; I went up there to help them with Corey’s car, and I asked Jeff to come up with me one time.
“The next thing I knew, Jeff was buying a car. That was in July.”
According to the baby brother, he purchased his Limited Sportsman on a Saturday, put a seat in it with the Fannings and was racing it at Thompson that Sunday afternoon.
“Let’s put it this way: I had my car less than 24 hours, and I was racing,” he chuckled at the memory. “We had one huge problem, though – I didn’t have a truck or a trailer to tow it on.
“Scott helped me out; he said he had a trailer with another car on it, so he took that off and let me borrow it,” he continued. “But I didn’t have a truck, either, so I borrowed one from a friend of Corey’s.
“Get this: I had just got behind the wheel of his truck, and the kid got in the middle while my father was in the passenger seat. I said, ‘You know, I’ve never driven anything with a trailer on it in my whole life, and the kid got really nervous.
“He didn’t stop me, but …” Dorsey interrupted: “That kid couldn’t quit praising Jeff’s driving. Nice turn, Jeff. Good job, Jeff.’ He was just worried about getting his truck home in good condition.”
As for his initial race, Jeff avoided a crash on the first lap of a 20-lapper, but suffered a flat right front tire shortly thereafter. He indicated he raced in six events that season, and in his fourth race finished seventh out of 24.
“It was like a win; we were thrilled,” he said. “I knew then I belonged out there.
He hesitated, then tacked on, “It went downhill from there. Racing can be very humbling.”
In 2013, he ran only three events due to a cracked head in the engine, broken horn in the chassis, etc., and – the following April in his opening race – he hit a wall and bent the chassis. That spelled the end of that season.
“I actually sold the car to somebody in January or February of ‘15 for financial reasons,” he offered. “I was going to get out of it. We (the Van Pelts) went to the Icebreaker as fans on April 15, and we saw the guy I sold it to; that’s when he told us he couldn’t afford to fix it, either.
“With me, I had just got laid off by the airline, but I got severance and vacation money, so I bought it back and we fixed it up again. We took it to Lee Speedway (N.H.), but I crashed again (that October).” Despondent, he called Dorsey. “He told me over the phone, ‘Dad, I’m done. The car’s ruined, and I just responded, ‘Jeff, I don’t think so,’” he said. “He brought the car home, and I pretty much laughed at him, not to be mean but to let him know we’d be OK. I made sure he got back on the track, and he did.”
He started in April 2016 and raced three times before blowing the engine in late May. Jeff said the engined swallowed the valve.
“He was talking about getting a new engine, and I told him that we’d tear it down and see exactly what was wrong with it,” Dorsey said. “We found a crack in the cylinder wall and a cracked head, so we took the engine block to a machine shop and had someone put a sleeve on it.”
Jeff mentioned that happened to be Norm Perry of Westerly’s Ashaway Performance Engineering, and he did wonders for it. They returned to Dorsey’s home garage in Johnston, bought new parts and the Van Pelts and the elder Fanning got it up and running.
“After the engine blew, I told both Jeff and Randy that I wanted to get it in shape for the World Series at Thompson; that’s the season finale in October,” the father mentioned. “We had been told that the engine couldn’t be fixed, that it was dust, but I didn’t think so. I believe the only ones who thought it could be repaired was us three and Scott.
“I saw Jeff leading that first lap, and I felt no greater joy, no greater satisfaction; we had proven the naysayers wrong.”
Laughed Randy: “My dad and I just looked at each other and smiled.”
That same season, Jeff began experiencing more success.
“In September (2017), We led the first six laps of a 20-lapper,” the pilot stated. “We were holding our own against the big dogs, and got knocked into the wall, but we knew we were competitive with that engine. The car was running great.
“The final race that season was the World Series, and we ran the second for almost the entire thing,” he added. “We ended up second, but then it went to ‘Tech’ (or inspection to ensure all the parts were regulation). The winner was disqualified, and I was named the winner.
“It was extremely rewarding because of the lows we had experienced the previous five years, but now we knew we belonged out there. I knew I could compete in something that I had waited so long to prove.”
Remembered Randy: “I felt like I won. I called my wife and told her, ‘We won.’ and – for the first time – she said, ‘We won?’ It used to be I’d call her after we finished seventh and would say, “We took seventh.’ and she’d tell me, ‘Randy, don’t you mean Jeff took seventh?’
“That was the first time she realized that the three of us, we’re a team – Jeff, me and Dad. She now knows, I think, how important this is to us. We’re in this together.”
For that same reason, Randy – who started umpiring Little League games at age 16 (as a Smithfield sophomore) and remains one to this day – knew he could count on his family after being selected the North Smithfield Little League’s Umpirein-Chief in 2014.
“I got into it because Jeff was on a farm team and they needed umpires,” Randy said. “When I became the umpire-in-chief, I didn’t have much help, so I recruited Jeff, my dad and Greg (another sibling) to give us a hand. I even had my son Brian before he moved to Tennessee.
“They were there to support me. In fact, my dad and I did the District 4 Softball Major Division Tournament this year, and we had a lot of fun.
“It’s the team sports we love, and some people may not think racing is one, but we beg to differ,” he continued. “For the Van Pelts, this is a family affair, and this and baseball always will be. We love this stuff.”