Success comes to do-it-yourself stock car team

When last Sunday's Honda Indy Toronto was over, the teams loaded all their stuff onto transporters and then the owners and drivers all went to the airport to fly off somewhere and the truck drivers pulled out of the CNE for what eventually would be a long haul to the next race in Edmonton.

When last Sunday's NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at St-Eustache, Que., was over, Kerry Micks – the owner and driver of the 02 Beyond Digital Imaging Ford – loaded up all his stuff with a little help from his friends, got behind the wheel of his tractor-trailer and then set off for the long haul to the next race in British Columbia.

When the race at the Sun Valley Speedway tonight is over, Micks will drive his rig to Edmonton for the Indy race next weekend, then finally to Saskatoon for a mid-week race in late July.

"After that, I'll fly home and my crew chief will drive the race car back," said Micks in a phone interview recently. "It's the only way for me to stay in business. I'm the original low-buck racer. I work on a strict budget and I'm always watching the dollars."

Micks finished sixth in that St-Eustache race (series champion Scott Steckly won it while rookie Jacques Villeneuve crashed out on the first lap) and sits fifth in the standings after four of 13 races.

To date, he's won about $13,000.

The resident of Mount Albert, just east of Newmarket, started racing in a street stock at Sunset Speedway in 1985 and then formed his own CASCAR team (the forerunner to NASCAR'S Canadian Tires series) in time to race at the CNE as part of the Molson Indy weekend in 1991.

Since then, besides winning the CASCAR national championship in 1993, he won two of the most prestigious stock car races in the land in 2007: the NAPA Auto Pro 100 at Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve (part of the first NASCAR Busch Series weekend in Montreal) and the stock car race at the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières.

But it's an expensive sport and Micks acknowledges having to cut corners so he can afford to keep competing – like doing the long-haul driving as well as racing.

"Just about everybody running in this series has an employee or employees," he said. "I'm the only one of the top guys who doesn't have anybody working for them.

"We have an all-volunteer crew and we all work together. We've got a good bunch of guys and girls and we work as a team.

"My wife, Susan, works just as hard as I do on this business and on our catering business (Kerry's Catering has been the family's main source of income for the last 25 years). Our daughter, Amanda, works hard, too. It's a family business."

Now, last year at Sun Valley Speedway, Micks was a very upset racing driver after he was deliberately spun out early in the race by arch-rival Don Thomson Jr.

His car was too badly damaged to continue and he let Thomson know his displeasure.

It's a year later and Micks is still browned off.

"I took the lead when I passed him," he said, "and I passed him clean. I got a run on him, and it was neat and tidy – and then all of a sudden I'm in the wall.

"It was a really hard hit and the frame was bent and it took a lot of time and money to fix it. I couldn't race anymore that night and I'd gone right across the country and I was really upset.

"You know, we work really hard to do good in this sport. I had a car that was capable of winning races and when it's taken away from you like that, it hurts."

On this western swing, Micks will drive two ovals (B.C. and Saskatchewan) and a pro road course (Edmonton). He's done well in both types, so does he have a preference?

"They're kind of equal for me," he said. "I really like both forms of racing. I really couldn't pick one over the other. But it's funny – I started on ovals and had a bit of a hard time. I had to learn.

"The road racing was easier. I picked it up quicker. I didn't go to a racing school, or anything. I could just do it pretty much from the start."

Micks has no great ambition – other than to continue fighting for race wins and championships.

"I'm never going to `go south,'" he said. "I was never particularly interested in doing that anyway. I'm pretty happy doing what I'm doing here.

"I plan to keep driving till I pretty much can't do it anymore and whether I stay in the sport after that I don't know. I mean, if a big sponsor came along and wanted to put a young kid in the car, who knows?

"But in the meantime, I'm going to keep doing what I've always done and that's to do my best. That's what's worked for me till now and I'm not planning to change."