Last month I had the privilege of talking with a number of the members of the Whelen Modified Tour championship team. The 2006 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Banquet is on the horizon. I thought this would be apropos to use as a preview for the awards dinner. Let’s meet the Flamingo Racing team.

Crew Chief, Stan “Sly” Szaban

WN: Where are you from?
SS: Springfield, Mass.
WN: How did you get involved in racing?
SS: It started when I was about eight years old going to Riverside Park with my father. I went there and actually, believe it or not, rooted for Bobby Stefanik, Mike’s brother. I didn’t even know Mike at all. Went there until I was about sixteen every Saturday night.

I raced, myself, right after I got out of high school for about a year and a half. I met Mike while he was driving in the Stafford Six-Cylinder Sportsman division. That’s how I got to know him. Then I couldn’t afford to go race anymore and I still wanted to be involved so I hooked up with Mike and Rich Kearns, who had a car together. Bob Witkop was actually Mike’s first car owner, he was from Hampden. He ran for a season with him and then Mike and Rich built a car and I actually started working with them when Mike got his first Modified. We ran Riverside Park about twenty-five years ago.

WN: So you started with Stefanik and this was sort of a reunion for you?
SS: Everything has kind of come full-circle, twenty-eight years later.

WN: What happened after that?
SS: “I worked with Michael in ’89 and ’91 when he won his Modified championships. After that he got hooked up with some Busch teams and he started driving for other teams and I just didn’t feel I would fit into the mix on those teams he was going with and I kind of separated from him. I helped out Chris Kopec, who actually bought some of Mike’s cars when Mike kind of left and started doing some of his own things with other teams. I started helping Chris Kopec at Riverside Park and then with Chris’s team [on the Modified Tour] and full circle back to Mike.

WN: What’s it like working with Mike now?
SS: It’s really good. It’s like the old days. For some reason we seem to communicate well. I think we both have a ton of respect for each other. We believe in each other. I think we’re not afraid if we make a wrong move with the chassis, neither one of us are going to point the finger at the other and say “You made a mistake”. It’s like; we’re willing to take chances together. If they work they work. If they don’t they don’t. There’s no bad feelings from it. It never gets to finger pointing no matter how good or how bad it gets. We just have that trust in each other.

WN: What would you like to see out of the Whelen Modified Tour next year?
SS: More exposure: bigger racetracks. I’d like to see NASCAR bring us to racetracks where the people will notice the Modifieds. I’d love a Richmond, a Dover, there are some really nice racetracks out there that we could go to where we would put great races on and it would make the division bigger and better. People would take notice of it. The competition level in this division is second to none. I don’t think the drivers in this division and the teams get the recognition that they really should.

WN: If you were the Modified Technical Director, what one thing would you change?
SS: I think that Bill Brice and the rest of the officials are very fair. One thing that I would change, that is very hard to police, and I don’t want to police it is the bodies. I think the Modified Division, being that they are Modifieds, they ought to let us work with the bodies a little more. I think we should let these bodies look wild. I think that that’s what people like about these Modifieds is that they’re different. If they had a set of rules where they had dimension where the body has to fit within a box, width, height and length, I’d lets us get a little more creative and give the cars some different identity, that would be one thing I would like to change. If you look at the dirt cars, they’re wild! They’re just crazy and wild. I love looking at them. That attracts me and that attracts me to go watch them.
WN: Maybe that could help bring some more people to the track.
SS: Exactly.

WN: Is there anything else that you would like to say?
SS: One thing I have to add is that this is Chris’s team. Eric owns it, but it’s Chris Kopec’s team. Without Chris, this team wouldn’t have stayed together. Chris was so excited about Mike driving for us this season. He went to work extra hard over the winter and he is really the glue that makes us all stick together.

Team Owner, Eric Sanderson WN: Where are you from originally?
ES: Munson, Mass. Right up the road. This is where I started racing.

WN: This is where you started racing? When was that?
ES: 1969. I had an All-American Sportsman the first year this [Stafford] was asphalt.

WN: And you drove?
ES: I had a driver for a while and I drove for a while and I also graduated to Modifieds.

WN: Who are some of the people that made things happen for you along the way?
ES: Oh, Chris. Chris [Kopec] was number one. He drove for me for a lot of years. Unfortunately, he couldn’t continue driving but he was a real driving force in this season. He wanted this bad and he worked hard at it. The whole team worked hard.

WN: Tell us about your team.
ES: They’re a great bunch of guys. Most of them have been together since I started with Chris. We’ve got some new guys but we’ve got Chris’s two brothers, Chris’s father, Sly has been with us four years, I think he was with us two other years. We’ve got a great crew. Not taking anything away from anybody else, everybody’s got great people but they all work hard at it.

WN: What do you think NASCAR needs to do to improve the Whelen Modified Tour?
ES: I think it needs more exposure, particularly probably TV exposure. I think the series itself is pretty good. TV exposure certainly would help because you could bring sponsors in. As you know, it’s not a money making deal. If we get some TV exposure, maybe we could get some better sponsors. It would make it easier on a lot of these teams. A lot of these guys are really running close [to the financial edge].

WN: What does this championship mean to you?
ES: It means the world. I’ve been racing for a long time. I did take some years off. I took off ten-twelve years. I got involved with Chris at Riverside and he won a championship there. That was great but this is like, we can’t believe it would happen. It’s just a great year.

WN: What are your future plans?
ES: Try to win another one next year. Mike will be driving again next year. We’ll go for the repeat and see what happens. You know we’ll keep doing what we’re doing now and the biggest thing we avoided was bad luck. That was key.

WN: So are you married?
ES: My wife Diane will be here today, she’s not a race fan. But she will be here today to enjoy the celebration. I’ve got to thank her very much. She’s put up with me for so many years doing this.

WN: What do you do during the week?
ES: I work at Flamingo Motorsports and Sanderson & MacLeod.

WN: What does Sanderson & MacLeod do?
ES: We make cosmetic brushes, gun cleaning brushes and we make a lot of brushes for the medical field. We make instrument cleaners and a lot of brushes that are used for cell samples. A lot of general purpose brushes. Model brushes. Test tube brushes but mascara brushes are our big line.

General Manager, Chris Kopec

WN: Are you excited about the championship?
CK: Yeah, the guys worked hard for a long, long time. Getting Mike over here and Barry [Kuhnel] kind of brought the whole package together. It’s a real cool deal for everybody.

WN: Explain your role with Flamingo Motorsports.
CK: I still do everything that I used to do and I still work on it during the week. Whatever it needs, I kind of watch out for the mechanical end of it I kind of help Sly keep everything together so it doesn’t fall apart.

WN: Are you married?
CK: No. She didn’t like the racing. She got sick of it after about fifteen years. It’s my daughter [Melissa], my son [Dylan] and I. My son is here actually and he just won a championship here on the Monday night kart series. It’s his second series [title], he won one last year. It’s pretty cool. They call them outlaw karts. It’s all sealed motors. You’ve got to but the chassis and the cage it all comes from the same place. It’s a real neat series. They start eighteen to twenty-one karts a week. It’s pretty neat to watch him. That’s what I do. Melissa is a little older. She’s in college but she grew up here. She doesn’t know life any different. Both of the kids grew up around everybody here so it’s like one big family and it’s a lot of fun for all of us.

Driver, Mike Stefanik

WN: You’re back in championship garb.
MS: Yeah, kind of a weird season the way that it all kind of happened. They’re all good. I wouldn’t want to give any of them back.

WN: Tell me about this team.
MS: Well, basically I look at this team as it is Chris’s team. I know Eric Sanderson owns the cars, this is basically a family run Kopec team and that’s kind of how it remains. Sly came aboard with Chris a long time ago and now Barry Kuhnel is going to be more involved with the program. They’ll be a lot of changes coming down the road, which is exciting and good. Overall, I couldn’t be happier for these guys. I think everybody in this pit area is probably happy for this team, not so much for me but for this team to get a championship because they never look for trouble, they stay in their pit, they do their work and I think they have the respect of their competitors.

WN: What does this championship mean to you?
MS: I don’t like the idea that they talk about the nine [championships]. I don’t like the idea that that’s talked about as “tying Richie”. Richie was Richie and I looked up to Richie and I will always look up to Richie and I’m not trying to even him on any plateau. I’m a better racer for racing against him and knowing him and for having him help me. It feels kind of awkward to me when they try to bring that point up. I really don’t look at it like that. I’m just enjoying my racing career and enjoying life. His era was his era and he built all of his own racecars, he worked so hard. He was the man. He taught me a lot. Believe me I’m not trying to compare myself to him at all. I’m just happy that I could achieve something that he accomplished.

WN: You work really closely with your wife Julie in your racing, don’t you?
MS: Yeah, you know Julie’s been spotting for me way back since 1982. It’s comforting to hear her voice. She knows what I want to hear and what I don’t need to hear. I never need a cheering section. I never lose focus and never lose desire to want to be out there and have to be pumped up. She does a great job and she’s probably my toughest critic. I mean she’s told me times when I’ve embarrassed her when I’ve had a bad night or when I’ve run into too many people or do something foolish. We have a great rapport on the radio and it’s a pleasure to have her and when she’s not at the races we have someone fill in but everything is in place when she is on the radio.

WN: What are your future plans?
MS: We’re pretty much going to build a new car for next year. I’m going to stay here at Flamingo Motorsports. We’re going to run the Tour again next year and try to defend our championship and win more races. That’s kind of why we do this. I’m looking forward to enjoying the day today with no points pressure and we’ll be back to worrying about where we finish and try to win races next year. I can just try to worry about winning the race and having fun today. If I make a mistake or cost our team, or put us in a bad situation or in a box, I’m not going to feel all that guilty about it like a normally do.

WN: Do you have any further aspirations to compete in the Busch East Series?
MS: No, I’ve pretty much have always been a Modified racer. I’ve enjoyed my time in the Busch East Series, I enjoyed my time in the Craftsman Truck Series and I enjoyed my time in the Busch [Series], what little time I did spend there. It was all challenging, it was all exciting and fun and new but this is where my heart has always been. It’s the cars I enjoy racing the most. The fun monitor is always pegged on ten when you’re in a Modified. I’m looking forward, it sounds like there is some changes coming down with some new tracks. I’m very curious to hear what is said at the banquet because it sounds like there’s some very exciting stuff that is just down the road.

WN: Anything else?
MS: I’m really happy for Eric [Sanderson]. He told us he wanted three things at the beginning of this season. One, win races, two have fun and three win the championship so all of that stuff is off of his list.

***

There’s one more date on our list. December 16th. I look forward to seeing as many folks at Mohegan Sun as possible. We should have a better idea about the 2007 schedule and there are always a few surprises during the ceremonies.