25 years later, Storm seeks second Mile victory
Jeff Storm remembers.
Not every detail. Of course not. It’s been 25 years.
But of all the victories he has had in local and regional stock car racing, his one at the Milwaukee Mile in 1997 stands on its own. The vibrant Busch Series, as NASCAR’s second division was known then, shared a popular weekend with the relatively new truck division there, and Indy cars carried nine decades of history. And of all the places he’d love to win more, the Mile is on the top of the list.
Storm will get a shot Sunday in the ARCA Midwest Tour Father’s Day 100.
“To win at the Mile … man, that was so cool,” Storm said.
“At the time you may not realize it. That’s the thing with wins. You never know when your next one is going to be or if that was your last one. We won a lot of them after that one, but that was our only win at the Mile, so that was special to me.”
Twenty-five years ago, Storm was young and aggressive, racing with the help of his father and an uncle in the Mid-American Stock Car Series, a regional sportsman-level touring division, hoping to get the chance to race for a living.
Shortly thereafter he got that chance, lost it through no fault of his own, had to rebuild his life outside racing and grew into a 53-year-old avowed hobbyist who has every bit of the competitive drive he had and a whole lot more experience.
“It was just about family. We’re going to the race, we’re going to win the race,” Storm recalled of his approach a quarter-century ago. “I had looked into, once we started winning a lot of stuff, people were watching, man, maybe we could do some ASA stuff, the national tour.
“I was like, man, maybe I can do something. I was this kid out of Waterford who used to race at Lake Geneva, and here we are on a pretty big stage. It was in my mind. I knew about Jerry Gunderman, knew everybody that raced (for him). That was my goal, yeah, I want to race for a living and I want to do it for that guy.”
Gunderman had one of the country’s top short-track teams and had fielded cars for such drivers as NASCAR Hall of Famers Bobby Allison, Mark Martin and Alan Kulwicki. Storm went to work for Gunderman full-time in 2000 but found himself out of a job after two seasons when Gunderman cut back.
“After that ended, in my mind it was like, well, I went as far as I could financially go in the racing world, so when I looked at racing, nothing really mattered to me,” Storm said. “I raced two or three times a year. I had to rebuild my life.
“I put everything into going to race for a living and that ended and I had to buckle down and go to work.”
Storm has since built a regional trucking business that runs out of Waterford and employs another half-dozen drivers. And on the racing front, it took him awhile, but he connected with car owner Scott Dahlberg, who has a similar approach to the sport.
“When we do go race, we put in 100%, make sure everything is right, and it’s showed,” Storm said. “We’ve been running decent here.
“We go to the biggest, toughest races in our area and the Southeast. … It’s me and one or two crew guys helping out. So to be able to go be competitive and be right there with today’s racer, I’m very proud of our little group.
“I’d say what drives me is the challenge. I’m just ultracompetitive. Everything I do, business, work, racing, it doesn’t matter. Bowling. It doesn’t matter. A set of bags in the back yard? Well, dang ’er, I gotta try to win this, too.”
Storm has run well locally, and he qualified last December for the Snowball Derby in Pensacola, Florida, an event generally accepted as the premier race for super late models anywhere in the country that typically draws more than 70 entries.
What he hasn’t been able to do is win on the Midwest Tour, despite racking up his share of seconds and thirds over the past four or five years.
“It’s hard,” Storm said. “It gets harder all the time to work in the shop, to get stuff prepared, to get ready to go. But I think honestly it’s the challenge that keeps me going. These new young guys coming up … they’re whupping up on us pretty good. And it’s good to see. Racing has to have a future.
“But to me, it’s a challenge. I could go out and I can run with these guys and I can beat these guys. When it gets to the point where they don’t even know we’re there, well, then we need to start looking at doing something else.”
After an optional practice day Saturday, activity starts with practice at 9 a.m., alternating among the Upper Midwest Vintage Racing Series, Midwest Truck Series, and Mid-Am Racing Series. Racing starts at 1.
As Storm sees it, there’d be no better place than the Mile to get that first Tour trophy, against a field that includes Johnny Sauter, who won a Busch race at the Mile, and NASCAR Cup Series driver Erik Jones, who won a Midwest Tour event there.
“I’ve probably got as many laps if not more than anybody that’s going to be there this weekend,” said Storm, who back in the day studied the laps run by ASA Mile master Bob Sennecker. “Obviously all the equipment is outstanding. (Successful Southern team owner) Donnie Wilson is bringing a group up. If you’re going to race against those guys, you better have it going on.
“Yes. I truly believe I can go there and win that race.”