It's one thing to allow a rival race car driver to waltz into your trailer and help himself to a $10,000 engine. It's something else altogether to let him help himself to an inch of space on the race track.
That's the dynamic that exists between three St. Albert racers: the father and son team of Carl and Daryl Harr and long-time friend Todd Nichol. All three will be among the field this weekend during the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race that's a supporting event to the Edmonton Indy.
"Even though we're competitive on the track, you'll find, on any given day, one of my engines in Carl's cars or one of his transmissions in my cars," explains Nichol, 49.
Nichol was a member of Harr's crew in the late 1980s. Now, the two run separate motorsport teams out of non-descript industrial bays within a block of each other in St. Albert.
"Once the cars are on the track, you're competitors," agrees Carl, 56. "If they want to pass me, they can pass me like anybody else."
The levels of NASCAR
The Edmonton race is the fifth of 13 scheduled for the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series, the top level of stock car racing in Canada. The races and the teams are governed by NASCAR, based in Daytona, Fla.
The Canadian series is several tiers below NASCAR's top Sprint Cup series, made famous by drivers like Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon.
NASCAR operates a truck circuit and a stock car circuit called the Nationwide Series, which are a tier below Sprint Cup. There are two feeder circuits to these, called the K&N Pro Series, which operates a circuit in the western United States and another in the east.
The cost
To be competitive in the Canadian Tire Series costs in excess of $200,000 a year, Nichol says. It also requires a spacious facility, specialized equipment and a supporting cast of dedicated volunteers.
"You can't run this kind of thing out of your two-car garage," Nichol says. "We don't run junky stuff at all, we run good stuff. You have to if you want to be competitive."
Teams at every level rely heavily on sponsorship to pay their operating costs.
"The levels we're at right now are semi-pro," Carl says. "Most of the people who run in the NASCAR Canadian Tire series, they're doing it for the passion of the sport and likely have to get back to their jobs next week."
With a spotless 15,000-sq.-ft. facility, about 12 cars and one full-time employee, Carl runs what's thought to be the largest team this side of Ontario. His own company, WestWorld Computers, is a major sponsor.
The Harrs race mainly in the K&N west series, which involves travelling as far as California, Texas and Arizona. This year Daryl will also enter two races in the Nationwide Series, where the racing is very serious, very professional and very expensive.
Operating part-time at that level would cost about $3 million a year and full-time would be about $8 million, Carl says.
This weekend's hometown race has dual meaning for Daryl. It's a chance to perform in front of hometown fans but it's also a chance to impress his race sponsors in the hope that they'll open their wallets wider, allowing him to expand further into the Nationwide Series.
"I'm not at the age yet where I just go out and enjoy driving a race car because it's cool. I want to go out and win races and compete for championships," says the 28-year-old who lives in St. Albert with his girlfriend and two cats.
"I haven't competed for a full-time championship in about three years. That is where I want to get back to."
The appeal
Weighing 3,100 pounds, compared to the Indy cars' 1,800, these stock cars are heavy taxicabs with big engines and small brakes, Nichol says. But they're not Saturday night specials thrown together in a back shed. Each car costs upwards of $100,000, contains specialized parts manufactured in North Carolina and generates around 540 horsepower.
Crews spend hundreds of man-hours getting the cars finely tuned for each race.
Most outsiders assume speed is the main appeal of racing. After all, these cars will reach speeds of 160 miles per hour this weekend.
But both Carl and Nichol say they don't really notice the speed any more, since all the other cars are basically going just as fast. Carl likes the challenge of devising a plan for the car's set-up and seeing if it actually works out on the track.
"It can be the same as somebody who might build themselves a model airplane that they fly or a rocket or a boat," he says.
Both thrive on the competition.
"Getting out there and racing a guy an inch away and trying to pass him or him trying to pass you, it's a challenge. It's like any other game," Nichol says. "You're trying to beat the next guy."
Drivers come in a variety of personalities, from level-headed to hot-headed bad boys, Daryl says. What they have in common is stamina and reflexes.
Trading paint
There's a poster in the office of the Harrs' facility, directly above a shelf lined with shiny trophies, that says "Rubbin' is racing!" In the movies, stock car racing is typically portrayed as a rough sport in which drivers purposely ram each other.
"That can be part of it. Not every driver does it all the time," Carl says. "We have a saying, I'll race you the same way you race me. If you haven't given me an inch on the track, I won't give you that same inch."
"I'm not going to let you block me for half the race. I'm probably going to move you out of the way," he adds. "Like two hockey players, if you bump me wrong, I might come out just to bump you wrong the next round."
Nichol has a more succinct answer.
"I'm the wrong one to ask," he chuckles, pointing out a stack of damaged nose cones in the loft overlooking his shop.
The course at the Edmonton Indy is spacious enough that "bumping and grinding" isn't necessary, he says, so there won't be much of that this weekend.
Oval tracks are where racers inevitably knock each other around, including these two friends on occasion.
"Carl and I have had our on-track incidents," Nichol says. "But that's racing. You shake that off. When you get back to the shop it's long gone forgotten and you move on to the next race."
"I remember years ago down at Race City (in Calgary), Todd got into my back end," Carl says. "Daryl and I have swapped paint on the race track. That's just good, close, door handle to door handle racing."
Teamwork
Nichol and both Harrs will be off to Iowa the day after the Edmonton Indy to prepare for one of Daryl's Nationwide races. Nichol is a regular member of Daryl's crew when he races in the U.S.
"I used to change Daryl's diapers. Now I'm changing his tires," he says.
But that's the day after Edmonton. When the three get behind their respective wheels this weekend, their racing faces will be full on.
"We're not going to do anything that's going to jeopardize the other guy," Nichol says, "but by the same token, we're not going to give an inch."
Qualifying is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. on Saturday and the race is scheduled for 11 a.m. Sunday.
