It was very interestng to read some recent articles with quotes from Coopersvilles Butch Miller and Muskegon's Mike Garvey. Both drivers made their rise up the racing ladder, but interestingly enough read their quotes below.
Miller’s racing career took off in the 1980s when he won 1987 and 1988 championships in the now defunct AC-Delco American Speed Association Challenge Series while driving for Throop. That helped launch Miller’s NASCAR career.
Miller landed a full-time Cup ride with car owner Travis Carter in 1990 but was replaced after 23 races. He later went racing in Nationwide and then NASCAR’s Camping World Truck division, finishing fourth in the series point standings in 1995 and seventh in 1996.
While Miller had an opportunity to race against the best in NASCAR, he said those weren’t the favorite days of his career.
“It wasn’t Cup. Cup was the worst time I ever had,” Miller said. “Up until then, I was hands-on. The minute I went Cup racing, I couldn’t be hands-on. Too many people wanted your attention. The sponsors, press, I don’t know. It was too business-like.
“I will tell you what, the most fun a driver will ever have is running Saturday night at Berlin. If you are lucky enough to get to the (Camping World) Trucks, it’s not going to be as much fun. If you go there from Nationwide, it’s going to be less fun. The higher you go, the less fun that you have.
“Saturday night racing is where the fun is.”
Mike Garvey also has driven in the NASCAR Truck, Nationwide and even Sprint Cup series.
“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.
Garvey recently talked about short track racing during an interview at Five Flags Speedway in Florida. “It’s a riot,” Garvey said. “I’ve done a lot of other stuff. 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.”
“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.”
Go visit your local tracks. You might realize what two of top short rack racers of all time already know. Money can buy you top equipment and even a ride, but it can’t buy you talent. Some of the best talent in racing might just be in your own backyard.
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