E3 Spark Plugs News

Team E3 Racing winner James Steffenhagen doesn’t believe in luck when it comes to ruling the racetrack – but a little superstition doesn’t hurt.

It all started with a mystery Christmas gift. Then 15 years old, James Steffenhagen, Jr. was a bit perplexed when he unwrapped a small package that contained a toggle switch.  But when he realized that the switch was for a car’s ignition system, it all made sense.

“It confused me at first,” said Steffenhagen, the newest Team E3 Racing Tier 1 winner. “But then Dad explained that it was my turn to get into the car and see what I could do.”

Steffenhagen had been enamored with the racing world since he was 10 years old. His Uncle Ed Steffenhagen ran NASCAR modifieds at tracks throughout New York and Pennsylvania and his father worked crew. Eventually, both of James’ parents would race as well, his father driving a street stock numbered 31. So, it’s no wonder that the youngest Steffenhagen would anxiously await his turn behind the wheel of a racecar.

“The car we had was older, obtained cheap after a big wreck, and put back together, complete with home built motor,” Steffenhagen says of his first racing ride. His first time competing proved he had some potential – “which means, I didn’t get lapped,” he says. But victory would prove elusive early on.

“I had dreams of winning, holding the flag in victory lane, but it didn’t happen that way,” he recalls. “After a few good wrecks, and some bad finishes, I started to think maybe it was me, maybe I just didn’t have what it takes. I immediately dismissed this however, because to me, I was driving that thing as hard as it would go.”

Steffenhagen refused to give up. He continued racing and gleaning pointers from fellow competitors and racing vets. Some advice he put into practice – other tips, he tossed. Still, cracking the top 10 in race finishes and series points proved tougher than he had expected.

“Someone said, ‘It’s just bad luck,’” he recalls. “I couldn’t accept that. In my head the same four or five guys were winning every week, and no one’s luck is that good.”

To debunk the luck theory, Steffenhagen began pouring himself into researching what makes a winning racecar. He found a book that explained “just about everything there was to know, from Ride Height, to cross weights and so on,” he says. Once he put his newfound knowledge – and a little superstition – to work, things changed quickly. He finally – and consistently – began finishing in the top 10 of nearly every race.

“I couldn’t help but remember that line though, ‘It’s just bad luck’. So to challenge, that I changed the number from 31, to 13. First one win, then six, then seven straight feature wins. Needless to say, my lucky number is 13.”

Steffenhagen has been a regular on the winner’s podium for both race wins and series championships ever since.

He’s currently on the Big 10 Super Stock Series Roster and plans to make his 2013 season debut May 17 at Spencer Speedway in Williamson, NY. He’s part of the JamesGang racing team along with fellow Team E3 Racing winner Darryl Barrett. Long term, he’s got his sights set on NASCAR. But as much as he loves winning, he loves interacting with fans, too – especially kids. He’s been known to take young fans for a spin through a track or event venue parking lot in his racecar.

“I hate it when guys velvet rope or have ‘do not touch’ signs,” he says. “In my mind, if a kid can break something on your car, it’s probably junk to begin with.”

Steffenhagen credits his family with being a solid support team. This includes his beautiful wife and toddler son, Uncle John, siblings numerous cousins, aunts, nephews, nieces and friends.

“My Dad does almost everything on the cars himself,” Steffenhagen says. “He is a retired mechanic and, as much as he won’t admit it, loves doing it. He paints the letters on the tires orange every week.”

But he has a special place in his racing for his late mother, also a racer.

“My No. 1 fan rides with me now as I lost my mom to cancer a couple of years ago,” he says. “I’ll never forget the time I won, and she took the mic from the announcer and told a story about me in a plastic pedal car, saying that it was in my blood to win. That’s my favorite racing memory of all time. I couldn’t tell you anything else about that night.”

We expect there will be many more memories over the course of a very successful racing career. From all of us at E3 Spark Plugs, welcome to the team, James!

Formerly banned NASCAR driver Shane Hmiel returns to the tracks this weekend in Accessible Racing’s Race to the Rock. Photo courtesy of “Shane Hmiel Road to Recovery.”

An admitted former drug addict once banned for life by NASCAR in 2006 says he’s driven out his demons and wants back on the track. Shane Hmiel was Rookie of the Year in the NASCAR Goody’s Dash Series in 2001 and seemed on pace for a very successful racing career. But numerous failed drug tests and one memorable obscene gesture to Busch Series competitor Dale Jarrett made him pro racing’s undisputed bad boy.

In October 2010, the controversial Hmiel was paralyzed in a near fatal crash during a USAC Silver Crown qualifying race at the Terre Haute Action Track in Indiana. Hmiel’s car hit the retaining wall and its roll cage collapsed, leaving the then 30-year-old in critical condition with head, neck and back injuries. Doctors put him into a medically induced coma to minimize brain swelling and gave him a 10 percent chance to live. But in true Hmiel style, he not only survived but regained limited use of his limbs, though he still requires the use of a wheelchair.

Adamant that he’s successfully battled his addictions, Hmiel is set to return to the tracks Saturday, competing in the Accessible Racing Race to the Rock event at Rockingham Speedway in North Carolina. Dedicated to helping disabled veterans and civilians build morale and reintegrate into society, Accessible Racing outfits racecars with adaptable features like doors that open to 90 degrees, swiveling seats and hand controls that operate the car’s accelerator and brakes.

“I want people to understand that with a lot of work and a lot of trying, you can do things like this [despite injuries],” an ever defiant Hmiel told reporters. “I was told I wasn’t going to breathe on my own. I wasn’t going to do anything that I’ve done and now I’m going to get to drive a racecar. That’s another thing I can check off my list that people said I wasn’t going to do.”

Hmiel, son of former NASCAR Crew Chief and Earnhardt Ganassi Racing Competition Director Steve Hmiel, appears regularly on the racing show Three Wide Life and founded a USAC Midget team.

E3 Spark Plugs congratulates Hmiel on his brave and inspirational recovery.

What remains of Michael McDowell’s dramatic 2008 crash is on display at the new “Wrecks! Dramatic Crashes of NASCAR” exhibit.

Perhaps even more memorable than the amazing NASCAR wins are the fiery crashes that cause a driver’s teammates and fans to gasp like they’ve taken a collective punch to the gut. If you’re an avid stockcar racing follower, surely a wreck or two has just come to mind. Wonder whatever happened to the wreckage of a few of those cars? Well, you can find out with a visit to the NASCAR Hall of Fame Museum.

Opened on October 12 and running through mid-February, the new Wrecks! Dramatic Crashes of NASCAR exhibit features what’s left of the vehicles involved in some of the most spectacular crashes in the history of stock-car racing, along with video footage of those potentially devastating moments. Fans also will learn about the safety innovations that resulted from studying each of those wrecks.

Featured are a total of 18 items including the original wrecked stock cars and other artifacts related to various NASCAR wrecks. Among them: Michael McDowell’s Toyota that hit the wall and flipped nine times down the tracks during qualifying at Texas in 2008, and Phil Parson’s Pontiac that barrel-rolled in a memorable crash at Talladega in 1983. Both men walked away from these accidents with minor injuries.

Be sure to take the lil’ tykes. Wrecks also features a kids’ play station filled with NASCAR Bashers, a new line of toy cars and haulers that do some way cool transformations. Wreck, rebuild and hit the toy tracks again. But seriously, dads – don’t Bogart all the Bashers. Let the kids play, too.

Which NASCAR wreck do you most remember? Post your thoughts on the E3 Facebook fan page.

Team E3 Racing winner Jeff Byer worked three jobs to buy his first race car at ate 17.

When Jeff Byer saw his first stockcar race at eight years old, he knew exactly what he wanted to be when he grew up. And while he did lots of practice hot laps around the tracks at Jacksonville, Florida’s 103rd Street Sports Complex in a go-kart his father bought him, it would be nearly a decade before he raced his first event.

“It wasn’t until I was 17 and after saving enough money by working three jobs that I was able to buy a stock car and the necessary equipment to start racing,” he explains, noting his family’s financial strains and his concern about getting a late start. “Growing up I was a Jeff Gordon fan because he started out as the underdog. It took him awhile to be accepted in racing community, and I knew that that would be me someday because I didn’t come from a racing family and started later then most drivers.”

It is, in part, that dogged determination to overcome all sorts of odds that makes Byer the perfect choice as a Team E3 Racing winner.

After purchasing his first racecar, Byer landed several sponsorships and founded his Rolling Thunder MotorSports team. He raced two seasons at Florida’s Citrus County Speedway, where he was first runner up for Rookie of the Year in 2011. For 2012, he’s racing a 1981 Pontiac Firebird at the Bronson Speedway in Archer, Florida and has yet to finish outside of the top ten this season. He’s also testing late models at New Smyrna Speedway.

Though he’s racking up some impressive real-world experience, Byer also is immersed in studies that will help rev up his professional racing career.

“Owning my race team has given me hands on experience that cannot be taught in a class room,” he says. Still, he’s studying business and administration at Ava Maria University in Naples, Florida – a move that trips up many a would-be pro racer. Byer understands that a successful career is about much more than talent on the tracks – it’s about the business side of the industry, too.

Byer’s ability to intensely focus on and aggressively pursue a goal comes in part by way of his years-long participation in the Boy Scouts. To help land his Eagle Scout designation, he built a $15,000 meditation garden at age 16.

“It took a year and half to complete and hundreds of hours of work. I had to acquire both the funds and the labor force to complete this,” he says. “The skills I learned here definitely helped me in acquiring sponsorships for my race team.”

Over the next few years, Byer plans to graduate to late models and continue developing his race team. Eventually, he aims to become a NASCAR owner/driver.

“I know my eventual goal will be difficult to reach, but I am up for the challenge,” says Byer, who clearly has a drive and determination far beyond that of most 20-year-olds. “I know where I want to go in life.”

And we here at E3 Spark Plugs are confident he’ll get there. Congratulations, Jeff!

A celebrity auction hosted on eBay is raising money to benefit late IndyCar racer Dan Wheldon's two young sons.

Danica Patrick’s ride in Saturday’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race will honor the late Dan Wheldon, who was killed in an IndyCar crash at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last month. And a celebrity auction on Ebay is racking up tens of thousands of dollars to benefit Wheldon’s children.

Patrick’s car will feature Wheldon’s famous Lionheart logo on the hood and promote the racer’s memorial website. In place of her famous American flag-themed helmet, Patrick will wear a special tribute helmet that will be auctioned off. At the time of his death, Wheldon was slated to replace Patrick at Andretti Autosport in 2012, as Patrick begins her fulltime NASCAR career.

The auction benefiting the trust set up for Wheldon’s two-year-old son Sebastian and infant son Oliver began with a simple, loving gesture by fellow IndyCar racer Graham Rahal. Almost immediately after Rahal announced he would auction off his Las Vegas finale helmet to help raise money for Wheldon’s young sons, offers from other celebrity athletes came flooding in. Eleven-time ASP World Champion Kelly Slater offered a surfboard. Lance Armstrong pledged a Tour de France Jersey. Rahal’s phone rang off the hook.

Rahal enlisted help from GoDaddy.com and got connected with eBay, which waived all fees. Los Angeles-based Auction Cause stepped up to manage the auction. And a Twitter account, @DWheldonAuction, landed more than 4,000 followers within 20 minutes of its launch, growing to nearly 13,000 at press time.

Thus far, the auction has raised nearly $220,000.

“I thought we would have a lot of support and a pretty good turnout of people saying ‘We’ll give this’ or ‘We’ll give that,’ but for it to get as large as it has—nobody ever expected this,” Rahal told reporters Wednesday. “It’s been pretty cool. I think it shows how tight-knit the sports community is overall. It isn’t just racing.”

E3 Spark Plugs sends continued thoughts to the Wheldon family and kudos to the racing pros and fans helping them through a heartbreaking time. And we encourage you to visit the auction site and bid high!

Betty Skelton set women on a daredevil course to competitive fame on the tracks and in the air.

The racing world bid farewell to one of its legends this week. E3 Spark Plugs joins fans, friends and family in saying good bye to Betty Skelton, the 5-foot-3, 100 pound lady who proved that women, when given the chance, are a force to be reckoned with on the tracks and in the air.

Skelton, famed Chevrolet Corvette test driver, daredevil speed racer and acrobatic airplane pilot, packed the equivalent of several lifetimes into the 85 years she lived before passing away August 31 in Florida. She is credited with establishing a solid precedent for women’s involvement in aviation, aerobatic performance and auto racing – all the while maintaining a successful advertising and magazine publishing career.

Born in Pensacola, FL in 1926, Skelton skipped out on conventional girls’ toys and games, instead tinkering with toy planes and hanging out with pilots at the municipal airport, learning all she could about real airplanes. At age 12, Skelton made her first solo flight – illegally. Her first legal solo flight happened when she was 16 and by 18, she had landed a commercial pilot’s license and became a certified flight instructor. From there, she developed a flair for aerobatics and performed in aviation shows nationwide.

Skelton held the U.S. Female Aerobatics Championship title from 1948 to 1950, setting a world altitude record in 1949 for flying at 25,763 feet. Two years later, she would break her own record, reaching 29,050 feet. Her most memorable “stunt” (she disliked the word) was cutting a ribbon tied between two poles with her propeller while flying upside down at ten feet above the ground.

“I considered it an art,” Skelton once said. “And I spent a great deal of time trying to convince people that it was not simply diving to thrill a crowd, to make a lot of noise and to put out a lot of smoke. It was an art that took many thousands of hours to perfect.”

Skelton retired from aerobatic flying in 1953 and was working as a charter flight pilot when she met NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. France invited Skelton to Daytona Beach, where she drove a pace car and breached 105 mph on the sand in a Dodge Sedan, setting a women’s record for stock-car speed.

Skelton would go on to become the first woman to drive an Indy Car and land speed records from the sands of Daytona Beach to the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, including a 1956 transcontinental speed record covering 2,913 miles from New York to Los Angeles in just under 57 hours. That same year, she became the first female technical narrator at major auto shows. Soon after, she began test-driving Chevy Corvettes and launched Corvette News magazine (later called Corvette Quarterly). She since has been inducted into 10 halls of fame including the International Aerobatic Hall of Fame and the Corvette Hall of Fame.

“My heart makes me tick,” Skelton said when asked in a 1999 interview what made her tick. “And it’s my heart that makes me do these things. I don’t think I have any better answer than that, except that everyone is built a little differently, and my heart and my will and my desires are mixed up with challenge.”

From the bottom of our hearts, E3 Spark Plugs thanks Ms. Skelton, the “First Lady of Firsts” for inspiring generations of flyers, drivers and dreamers.

Check out this footage (no audio) from a 1948 ceremony honoring Betty Skelton at a Tampa, FL airport, courtesy of the State Library and Archives of Florida.

Round 5 of the 2011 Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series paid tribute to the late Jeff "Ox" Kargola.

Round 5 of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series presented by Geico and co-sponsored by E3 Spark Plugs got underway Saturday at the Glen Helen Raceway in San Bernardino, California. Fans were loving the sunny springtime weather and the excitement got kicked up a notch with the presence of off-road legend and NASCAR star Robby Gordon competing in the weekend’s Pro 2 Unlimited field.

Before the engines revved, racers, staff and fans paid tribute to the late Jeff “Ox” Kargola, who passed away April 29 after sustaining a head injury on the second day of the Desert Assassins’ Rip to the Tip motocross event in Baja, CA. Kargola was among the rising stars of the series and is deeply missed.

In Saturday’s Pro 4, Rick Huseman was a marked man, having won the first four races. Sure enough, he bolted out front, followed closely by Adrian Cenni and all three LeDucs – Kyle, Todd and Curt. But, that didn’t last. Cenni ended up in the hot pits on lap six with an unknown issue. Todd LeDuc suffered a shredded left rear tire compliments of a determined Carl Renezeder.

When the green flag dropped after a competition yellow, Renezeder charged past Huseman. The on-track upset didn’t set well with Huseman, who over-jumped the tabletop into turn two of lap 14, planting his front bumper and nearly sidelining himself. The result was a broken shock that kept him from catching up with Renezeder, who gradually increased his lead all the way to the checkered flag. Huseman managed second place followed by Kent Brascho, Josh Merrell and Todd LeDuc.

The Pro 2 Unlimited provided some serious fireworks – literally. The race began with Renezeder and Robby Gordon starting side by side. Renezeder quickly took the lead with Gordon charging hard behind in the first lap, but pulled off the track and out of the race before completing the second lap. The race continued with two red flags for fires onboard Robby Woods’ and John Gaston’s machines. Robbie Pierce’s rollover in turn three brought full course caution. Flat tires for Brian Deegan and Rob Naughton, plus a scary-looking crash that involved Rodrigo Ampudia over-jumping into turn five and landing on Naughton’s side added to the suspense. When the dust and smoke cleared, it was Renezeder who held on for a clean sweep of the two big truck classes. Rob McCachren took second followed by Deegan, Ampudia and Naughton.

E3  Spark Plugs racing fans, be sure to check our next blog for Pro 4 and Pro 2 highlights from Round 6 of the Lucas Oil Off Road Racing Series.

Hey all you E3 Spark Plugs racing fans, it’s party time! This Friday night (August 13) is the traditional racer get-together held each year just prior to the GEICO AMA EnduroCross, presented by E3 Spark Plugs, at Guthrie’s Lazy E Arena in Oklahoma. This year’s party revs up at nearby Pole Position Raceway in Oklahoma City, an indoor kart racing track.

Come with E3 Spark Plugs and top motocross racers at Pole Position in Oklahoma City Friday night.

Ever dreamed of going head-to-head against the world’s top off-road motorcycle racers? Now is your chance. Of course, you and your worthy opponents will be in electric go-karts on smooth, bumper-lined tracks rather than on motorcycles traversing an obstacle course of rocks, boulders, logs, sand, mud, waterholes and giant tires. But the competitive spirit remains alive in this family-friendly fun place frequented by the likes of Chad Reed, Jeremy McGrath, Travis Pastrana and NASCAR champion Kurt Busch.

“Everyone had a great time when we opened the 2010 GEICO EnduroCross season at Pole Position Raceway in Vegas. Our Oklahoma City event at Pole Position Raceway should prove to be just as fun,” said Lance Bryson, Director of Sales and Marketing, GEICO EnduroCross. “Everything’s casual and friendly – until the GEICO EnduroCross racers get behind the wheel, then all heck breaks loose.”

If you’re in Oklahoma for Saturday’s race come out Friday night and race go-karts with the world’s top off-road motorcycle racers, sit in on some bench racing sessions and grab a few autographs. It all happens from 6-8 p.m. at Pole Position Raceway, Oklahoma’s coolest motorsports enthusiasts’ hangout. And if you want to boost your own motorcycling performance, be sure to get E3 motorcycle spark plugs, designed specifically for motorcycle engines. We’ll see you at the races!