KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE
Opportunities to turn pro are precious and few in drag racing.
Just ask Brady Kalivoda and Brad Plourd – gifted young
drivers from the state of Washington without major league rides.
Catching on with a corporate-backed team has been difficult and
frustrating for two of the area’s promising second-generation racers whose
fathers made their marks on Northwest strips.
Second-generation racers Brady Kalivoda and Brad Plourd still
feeling
the need for speed
Opportunities to turn pro are precious and few in
drag racing.
Just ask Brady Kalivoda and Brad Plourd – gifted young
drivers from the state of Washington without major league rides.
Catching on with a corporate-backed team has been difficult and
frustrating for two of the area’s promising second-generation racers whose
fathers made their marks on Northwest strips.
Big money talks in this
expensive and obsessive game, and finding the right people with the right
sponsor remains as elusive as ever for many deserving
candidates.
Kalivoda and Plourd hope to fall into the right hands. The
dream to race professionally still burns inside them.
“It’s a stop and go
battle,” said Kalivoda, 33, of Seattle, who has struggled to ignite his Top Fuel
career since making his pro debut at Pacific Raceways in Kent, Wash., in 2001.
“It ultimately comes down to dollars. It’s a big thing in motorsports, whether
it’s right or wrong. There’s a lot of talented people sitting on the sideline
who I think should be in race cars but don’t have the funding and the people to
get into the seat.
“Motorsports is more a business than a sport.”
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Plourd, already a U.S. Nationals champion at age 24, is
well aware of how the sport operates. Despite a dazzling string of driving
performance in the sportsman ranks, the Covington, Wash., driver continues to be
on the outside looking in for a full-time job. He has established contacts,
shaken some hands but given no promises of a factory ride.
“I talked to
people all the time,” said Plourd, who drives in the sportsman category in hopes
of securing a Pro Stock seat. “I haven’t found the magic words to use and I
haven’t found the money tree, I guess.
“But I do know that I need to win
some races so that people don’t forget my name,” he added. “We’ll see what
happens and hopefully it will happen some day.”
For many young
prospects, that day never comes. While the Northwest is steeped in drag racing
history, few of its best drivers have escaped this far outpost to race
successfully on the national stage.
Seattle area’s Jerry “The King” Ruth, a fearless driver who essentially
footed his own bill, won world titles in the early 1970s. Tacoma’s Pat Austin,
backed by a strong racing family, won big regionally and parlayed that into a
winning run nationally. Semi-retired now, Austin remains fourth on the NHRA
all-time national-event victory list with 75.
“In my case, I was very
fortunate,” Austin said. “My dad (Walt) had his own operation that worked out
real well.
“There were guys who are driving now … Ron Capps, Larry Dixon
… who were crew members on major teams who eventually worked their way into
rides. They were ambitious, hard working and got the opportunity when the door
came open.”
Austin said today’s young guns are just as worthy and
willing to get there. Winning frequently in front of scouts helps the cause, he
said, but the rest depends largely on fortuitous circumstances. Austin worked
and caught a break in sponsorships, notably Castrol, to fund his team’s surge to
NHRA prominence.
“It’s a lot of do with who you know and being in the right
place at the right time,” Austin said. “There’s a lot of really good drivers out
there. There’s a lot of drivers, like Brad (Plourd) who can drive a Fuel car if
given the opportunity. They all want to work hard and they have a lot of
ambition.
“But when you look at it, there are only so many Top Fuel and
Funny Car teams,” Austin said. “You’ve got probably hundreds and thousands of
sportsman drivers who are capable of driving, but there are only 18-to-20 Top
Fuel and 18-to-20 Funny Car teams. The percentages are small, slim to drive for
one of them.”
What makes it even more difficult is the fact that today’s pro
teams are suiting up young drivers who likely will stay in those seats for a
long time. Greater TV exposure and limited, innovative sponsorship deals also
make for tougher competition.
But Austin urges young drivers to be
persistent and follow their dreams, however long the odds might
be.
Kalivoda hasn’t lost sight of his dream despite some
setbacks.
A successful sportsman driver with Renton roots, Kalivoda
learned the craft from his father Dick Kalivoda, a legendary record-breaking
driver. Young Kalivoda worked his way up to the NHRA ranks as crewman, engine
builder, then journeyman driver with some part-time under-funded
teams.
Just last year he lost a close audition to Melanie Troxel for a
Top Fuel ride with the Don Schumacher racing empire.
Turned away in the U.S., an undaunted Kalivoda raced
internationally to maintain his skills. He set the track record and won the
NitrOlympics in Germany last year and plans to return to defend his title next
month.
Kalivoda was called to fill in for a Top Fuel driver at an NHRA
Chicago race last month, but was called away to be with his mother Sharon, who
had taken a turn for the worse battling cancer.
“I’m so glad that I was
able to spend that last week at home with her,” he said. “She was my No. 1
fan.”
Kalivoda’s mother died peacefully in her sleep at her West Seattle
home on June 15.
For Kalivoda, racing had to wait. Hopefully another
chance will come his way. In the mean time, he is working as part owner and
manager of a replacement window and door company with offices in Phoenix and Las
Vegas. The job will allow him the flexibility to pursue a drag racing
ride.
“I worked long and hard to get to this point,” he said. “I’m not
going to fade away that easily.”
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