Veteran racer Garvey chases fun on short track at SAS

Veteran racer Garvey chases fun on short track at SAS
By: Ken Rogers Dothan Eagle

For as long as he can remember, Mike Garvey has been doing what every race driver does – chasing.
He has chased the leaders. He has chased the speed, looking to shave a couple more hundredths of a second per lap. He has chased the sponsorship dollars that make the difference at the highest levels of auto racing.
Garvey, 49, has driven in the NASCAR Truck, Nationwide and even Sprint Cup series.
He was in Daytona for SpeedWeeks two weeks ago. And as much as chasing as he did there, an odd, but liberating realization hit him: with all the chasing he was doing, he wasn’t gaining on what mattered most – having fun.
“It’s not that it’s not any fun, it’s just a business,” Garvey said, explaining his decision to keep chasing this year not on the top three NASCAR circuits, but instead going after smaller checks but bigger thrills on short-track asphalt tracks.
His sights are squarely set on fun.
“I don’t have that many years left to race and this is where I like doing it,” Garvey said as rain fell at South Alabama Speedway, where he is competing today for two coveted titles.
The 36th annual Rattler Weekend was washed on the past two days, but organizers are determined to salvage the premier events of the lineup today. Rattler 125 sponsor Rheem agreed to run the pro late model race, originally scheduled and traditionally run as the Saturday night feature, as part of today’s weather-adjusted lineup.
Tentatively, qualifying will take place at 1 p.m. for both the super late model Rattler 250 and the pro late model Rattler 125. A SuperTrucks race will be held after the qualifying session. The 36th annual Rattler 250 will follow the trucks race, followed by the Rattler 125.
Ironically, it sets up as a busy day for Garvey, who is entered in both the Rattler 250 and the Rattler 125.
Garvey, an Atlanta resident, said he raced at Cordele, Ga., recently in both pro late model and super late model races.
“We finished second in the pro race and in the super race we fell out about 60 laps in,” he said.
The driver added he’s raced at South Alabama Speedway about half a dozen times. What keeps him coming back to these tracks?
“It’s racing, man,” he answered with a shrug. “We’ll go anywhere to race. It’s a fun little race track. I love the race, I love John Dykes. John’s a great promoter. He does everything to help the racer, so we’ll try to support him any way we can.”
And, don’t forget, it’s fun.
“It’s a riot,” Garvey said. “I’ve done a lot of other stuff. This is by far the funnest racing. This is just a lot of fun. We get to hang out with our friends, we get to race. This is way more fun than anything else.”
Garvey said the camaraderie at the small tracks still prevails. The competition is fierce, but friendly. That is getting more difficult to find at racing’s top levels.
“These guys are our friends. We work with them,” he said. “It’s not so much money that everybody’s uptight. We have fun doing it. We race hard and we try to win, but we’re having fun doing it.”
Garvey, who has just started his 32nd year in the sport, is driving for Tracy Goodson Racing this season. He says he will stay plenty busy just concentrating on the short-track program.
“I think there’s 42 races this year we can do between Pensacola, Mobile, Opp and Gresham (Ga.),” he said. “So there’s a lot of races we can do. We stay plenty busy. When we’re not racing we’re working on race cars and building race cars. This is all I do.
“So we’ll race and get that side of the business going again so I have something to retire with in a few years.”
In addition to the two races he is scheduled to run, Garvey said the challenge will be adjusting to the different racing styles the cars demand.
Asked to compare driving the pro late model car against the super late model car, Garvey laughed and said, “Man, it’s like driving a Yugo and then getting into a ZR1 Corvette, horsepower wise.”
“The Pros are fun to drive because you’ve got to drive them so hard. It keeps the price of the motors down, but you’ve got to drive them so hard because you don’t have any horsepower. They have 450 horsepower.
“Then you get into our supers, which have 650 horsepower. It’s totally different driving style. Everything’s different – the set-up’s different, the driving style’s different. That’s what makes it so fun.”
Garvey said just because these aren’t the top series of racing doesn’t mean there aren’t superb drivers.
“That’s the biggest misconception,” he said. “Not everybody wants to be a Sprint Cup guy. There’s great racers any local race track you go to that are capable of running with anybody, anywhere. And they’re content doing this.
“You can find just as much competition here at Opp this weekend as you can in a Sprint Cup race.”