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| At
the end of the 2006 season Daryl Turford said he had
run in his last race, two weeks later he was making
plans for 2007. Does he suffer from Mark Martin
Syndrome? Well we sat down with the driver out of
Mitchell, Ontario for an SOS Q&A. Find out why he
is making a return to the drivers seat, why the switch
to #29 and why he thinks today's racing is just as
good as the past.
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| At
the end of the year everything was for sale - 2 weeks
later you're back in - What's up with that? |
| I
was living with friends when my dad and I decided to
go racing 5 years ago. I moved back in with my parents
and that's how I was able to afford to race. That was
the only possible way that I could afford a sprint
car. It was now getting to the point though that I was
never going to be able to move out and move on with my
life. Late in 2004 season I decided I had enough, I
was spending too much and that we were going to quit
racing at the end of the 2005 season and
start helping other guys in the club.
I
was actually quite content and very at peace with my
decision. Dad on the other hand wasn't. He needs a
race car to tinker on. We talked to a couple of teams
to see if they'd leave their car at our place so
dad would have something to play with but nothing
really panned out. I was completely ready to go
crew for the Middlemissesesesses and John Watson when
my dad and I had a dinner and he told me that he
wasn't ready to be done. We decided we would race
the car this year, but if the car isn't
self-sufficient we're done. If we hurt something we're
not going to jump through hoops to be ready the
next night. Basically, on nights when we can afford to
race we'll race. Fortunately the SOS has the best
purse structure in sprint car racing so as long
as I don't run into things and the motor doesn't
blow it should be another fun year. |
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| Who
is the most underrated driver in the SOS - you don't
get to name yourself? |
| In
my opinion there are 3 very underrated drivers in the
SOS. John Watson, Tim Zack and Adam West.
I
think John Watson is generally considered a good
driver amongst the drivers of the SOS but because the
fans don't really realize the kind of equipment he has
he doesn't get the credit he deserves. John is a very
good front runner, very rarely does he give up the
lead when he gets it and he showed at South Buxton
that he can pass people from deep in the field too
when things are right. He also analyzes the crap out
of everything including his driving and I think that
helps.
Tim
Zack is driving a car that raced in the very first SOS
race and was even considered old then. He won the
Patriot Sprint Group Rookie Of The Year title this
year and in my opinion he really earned it. The
biggest thing about Tim is that he doesn't make
mistakes. He puts his car in the right place to keep
from being passed and also in the right place to take
advantage of other people's mistakes. If he ever had
good equipment I think a lot of people would be
surprised by what he would be able to accomplish.
One
driver who I think may STILL be underrated is Adam
West. He doesn't put up big win numbers and he didn't
chase points this year so he didn't get nearly the
headlines some of our other top guys get but he's
probably the toughest driver in our club night in
night out. He's especially good in important shows as
he proved last year at the SOS Invitational, the Full
Throttle Nationals and the Canadian Sprint Car
Championship (until he got taken out in his heat).
When he's on there's no one in our club who's better
and I'm not sure everyone realizes that yet. |
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| If
you ever do really quit racing - what part of it will
you miss the most? |
| I
will miss the anticipation. I will miss waiting all
offseason waiting so see how competitive we'll be and
how much everyone else has improved. I'll miss
spending all of my time at work preparing mentally
(And even doing work sometimes) for the next week's
racing. I figure I'll stay very involved in racing
once I quit so really, that is the only aspect I will
miss because the people and the competition will still
always be there. |
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| The
SOS recently voted to adapt cockpit adjustable
hydraulic wing sliders and you apparently refuse to
run one- Why? |
| It's
my belief that wing sliders, and any cockpit
adjustables for that matter reward mediocrity. If your
car doesn't leave the pits ready to win then you don't
deserve to win. It also rewards teams with more
horsepower and gives them an un-earned and completely
unneccessary competitive advantage. If you have a low
budget racer the one thing he could hope for was
to set his car up better than yours and he or she
might have a chance. Now, the low buck racer can hit
the setup and the big budget guy can miss it but now
he can make up for it with the slider which makes the
low buck racer a sitting duck. I just think it's
comical that I have guys who have WAY better equipment
than I will ever have whining to me that they need
sliders. It's not enough that they're bringing an uzi
to a gun fight, but they actually can look at a guy
like me with all of $10,000 in my whole
"Program" and say they need sliders with a
straight face.
One
of the reasons the sliders are being implemented this
year is because our drivers felt they were at a
disadvantage to other groups when they came in. My
first question is, why should that effect someone who
plans to run the SOS exclusively and shows complete
loyalty to our club? If they think that adding wing
sliders evens things up too they are flat out wrong,
the other groups allow adjustable everything...does
that mean we should too? An adjustable wing slider is
one thing but now you're opening a can of worms that
includes adjustable torsion bars, sway bars and
adjustable shocks. Have you seen the cost of a set of
Penske's!?!?!?
It
was also brought up that wing sliders make the racing
more safe. Um, look at the Canadian Sprint Car
Nationals. Ron Blair, Alain Bergeron, Justin Barger
and Rick Wilson to name a few all took by far the
scariest rides of the year at Ohsweken at the
Nationals and I'm not even including the night before
when the track was bumpy. All the adjustable
everythings didn't help them one bit.
Pro-wing
slider people also always try to say they want the
wing sliders to help the new guy. That's a load of
bull, the last thing a new guy needs to be worrying
about is a wing slider and if you ask guys who run a
sprint car for the first time most of the time they'll
tell you they're so busy they don't even know it's
there!
People
also try to make the arguement that wing sliders put
on a better show for the fans. When cars are hooked up
it's harder to pass, it's easier for the front runners
to get away and lastly, if you ran 10 races, 5 with
sliders and 5 without I bet you the fans wouldn't even
come close to being able to pick which rules were
implemented for which races.
Lastly,
the most telling thing about this whole situation is
what the rest of the sprint car world is trying to do.
Right now the WoO and the All Stars are going to a
tire that is harder to hook up and they are looking
for more ways such as the top wing to un-hook them
even more. Practically every sprint car fan across
North America is begging for these cars to be
un-hooked and what are we doing here? We're going
backwards.
In
the end though it essentially comes down to
this...guys need wing sliders and any other cockpit
adjustables to make up for their own shortcomings both
on and off the track. |
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| A
lot of people helped you out last year - care to name
them and explain how they helped? |
| This
is a question that's going to get me in trouble
because I can name 100 people who helped us and I'll
forget 50 others but here goes...We have to send a big
thank you to Lloyd Moore for finding Dad when he was
stranded on the way to Brighton, thank you to Willy
Northcott for heading out and towing dad and the car
to the track and home...along with Lloyd. Another big
thank you to the Wests for lending us a motor for the
last 3 events of the season. The Mahoney's, Tim
Phillips, Bob Crawford and anyone else who we have
stolen parts off of, John Watson for all his help, the
Middlemisses for a lot of things. Garry Evans, Jim
Davies, Kevin Job and Ken Swan for all their help
after we wrecked at Humberstone. I should also mention
that when we raced with the PSG at Freedom last year
Rich Swarthout was very good to us (And was rewarded
with a vicious flip that evening for his generosity).
Yeah, there's so many more people who helped us in so
many different ways and to everyone I've forgotten I apologize
and thank you once again. |
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| You
study the sport and have strong opinions about it -
What isn't being done, that should be done, by the
powers that be within the sport? |
| I'm
very happy about the future of 410 racing. Most people
are down on it but I think the World of Outlaws are
being run by some very smart people with the proper
motivations and intentions. If 410's can be saved
these are the guys who are going to do it.
There
are a couple of things that trouble me about the 360
world.
The
first thing is in our area specifically. Right now we
have the SOS, ESS, PSG and SOD all in our area. Each
group has enough tracks to sustain themselves but it
seems like that's not enough. I'm getting very sick
and tired of groups actively and aggressively going
after tracks, especially ones that make no
geographical sense whatsoever. These groups need to
look after their own backyard before they even think
about going into other people's and the fact that they
do have to go into other people's backyards should
tell everyone something about that organization. It's
to the point now that I will travel to New York or
Michigan instead of racing at home when a group
invades. I'm sure it's a protest that doesn't get
noticed but it's all I can really do.
The
other thing that bothers me is the trend in 360 groups
of going towards ASCS heads only. There is absolutely
no compelling reason for me spend about $2000 on ASCS
heads when I can find decent heads for about $500 and
put the ASCS gasket on them. People really need to
realize that it's not the head that makes an ASCS
legal motor cheap. IT'S THE GASKET!!! Look at the
price of an ASCS headed motor versus the price of an
ASCS legal motor. All things being equal in almost
every instance the ASCS legal motor is cheaper than a
motor with ASCS heads. Emmett Hahn doesn't profit
nearly as much from that though so I guess it's not in
his best interest and thusly, it's not in 360 sprint
car racing's interest.
I've
heard plenty of arguements for ASCS heads only, but
certainly nothing strong enough to justify an
additional $1500 when I'm already ASCS legal.
Also, under the current system, everyone gets to race,
under and ASCS head only system only the people who
can afford them get to race.
I
could write a book on those two topics and many more,
but I'll leave it at that. |
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| One
thing I know that winds you up, is when people say how
good racing used to be and today is not as good - What
do you say to that? |
| I
could write an essay on this too but what it comes
down to is this. Catalogue racing. Right now everyone
is basically running the same engines, chassis and
parts as everyone else. Most people are running brand
new stuff. Even guys like me who don't have a big budget
have been able to accumulate fairly decent equipment.
What this has done is brought everybody closer
together and made everybody more competitive. In some
ways it sucks when you are a low buck guy racing
people with what seem like limitless budgets but at
the same time I'm able to buy that same equipment off
them a few years down the road and be fairly
competitive. In the past if a guy like Bob Trostle
went out and built a car that was really trick he'd
have a distinct advantage over the competition. Today
that just doesn't exist and if someone does have an
advantage it doesn't last long. That is the short
answer to a long and complicated question.
Oh,
and one more thing. I'm sick of hearing how much more
brave drivers from other eras were. Go to Eldora and
watch Joey Saldana, Tim Kaeding or Haud and try to
come back and tell me with a straight face that they
couldn't go toe to toe with the drivers of the past. |
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| Last
year was a terrible year for you with 0 top 10
finishes - where there ANY bright spots? |
| There
actually was a few. We won our first two heats of the
season and we led some laps. I think we could have won
the opener but as usual we found a way to lose it.
There were
two HUGE bright spots for me however. The first was
the 2nd last race at Ohsweken. I had invited one of my
best friends; Shawn Van Loon and his family out
to see a race. I also had family in attendance.
Unfortunately we landed in a tough heat. I appeared to
be headed into the A Main through my heat when Adam
West pulled a beautiful move on me on the last corner
of the last lap to get the last transfer. We were
devastated. The B Main was stacked, we had all kinds
of people there and we knew we weren't getting through
it. My dad even gave me the "Go out there, give
it your best" speech, which in his language means
"We're screwed". Anyway, we had the pole,
they dropped the green and we went out and won by a
straightaway. We always suck at Ohsweken so it was
quite a shock to run so well even to us and to win in
front of all those people meant a lot to us.
The
second bright spot came late in the year after we
blew our only motor at South Buxton. We assumed
we were done but we got an e-mail from Adam West
telling us that if we whipped over we could throw
his back-up motor in the car. In about the span
of 2 nights we went from being done to having a motor
that was in some ways better than our previous motor.
We didn't get to run it at the Labour Day Classic
where we thought we'd be pretty tough but because of
rain it was cancelled. We did put it in the show
(Barely!) at the SOS Invitational and put up what I
thought was a very strong performance at the Canadian
Sprint Car Nationals given our equipment and the level
of competition.
The
Wests gave us our two biggest highlights of the year
and we'll never be able to repay them...unless I win
the lottery. |
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| Why
the number change from 93 to 29? |
| 3
days before the Labour Day Classic my best friend's
brother; Greg Van Loon was one of 3 people killed in a
tragic car crash. Greg was a huge Kevin Harvick fan
and as a tribute I wanted to run the #29 during the
Labour Day Classic. Unfortunately it rained out so we
ran the number during the SOS Invitational and the
Canadian Sprint Car Nationals. Over time though the
number has become more than a tribute to Greg to me.
Every time I see that number I remember Greg and I
realize that this may be the last time I am fortunate
enough to get to strap into a sprint car so I better
enjoy it and drive my ass off. For that reason I have
decided to keep the #29. In no way, shape or form am I
a Harvick fan, I can't stress that enough people! |
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| You
are a staunch supporter of the SOS - Do you feel that
the SOS gets the respect it deserves by the fans, the
tracks and the sprint car community in general. |
| Sometimes
I do, sometimes I don't. In terms of US press coverage
we are by far the most respected and covered racing
series of any kind in Canada. We also have had an
incredible record in the National Sprint Car Hall of
Fame 360 poll when it comes to the Rookie of the Year.
It's also pretty cool that people in Florida have
heard of the SOS and that I can go to a pavement
supermodified race in Toledo, OH and have a person
actually know who I am. So on a North
American level and in the sprint car community I
think we actually get quite a bit of respect, more
than I ever thought we would get.
On
a local level I sometimes question whether we do
or not. The best example is a race that took place at
Ohsweken in 2005. Adam West, Warren Mahoney and
Les MacMillan went 3-wide for the lead with a
couple of laps to go in an action packed feature
before Adam won with a late pass. Not a word on the
message boards. A couple of weeks later another group
came in, brought 13 of their own cars but thanks to
our support they had a 39 car field. People around
here couldn't stop tripping over themselves
complimenting that group and the show. That stuff
bothers me, especially when 1 year later we bring 43
cars to the opener (41 were SOS cars) and once again
it didn't really seem to get attention. That kind of
double standard really bothers and frustrates me.
That
being said, some nights I'm embarrassed to be a part
of the SOS after some of the shows we put on. The
last couple of years it has happened a lot less
frequently but every now and then I wouldn't blame
fans if they didn't come out. I can say however that
every year we try to address this and that I think
fans will see a marked improvement this year and
beyond. If you look at our show 2 years ago versus now
there's no comparing them.
Probably
the biggest thing that bothers me though is the
coverage we get in the media in Canada. Inside Track,
Norris MacDonald and the Toronto Star and Tim Miller
of the Hamilton Spectator have all been great to us.
What drives me crazy though is that aside from the
people I just mentioned most of the coverage of
Canadian racing goes to CASCAR. I'm sorry, I just
don't get it. How can you watch a sprint car flat foot turns
3 and 4 at Ohsweken and then watch those abominations
"Fly" around a paved half-mile in just a
shade under a decade (Sorry, 20 seconds, my bad) and
call that exciting? Unfortunately aside from the
Can-Am Midgets, the Alberta sprint car scene and us
there just isn't much great oval track racing in
Canada but to put CASCAR at the top of the heap
in Canadian racing is an embarrassment. |
