Chett Gehrke rolls the race car into the small trailer, shoving aside miscellaneous items to make room. Old tires are piled in the front of the trailer, along with scattered tools and a few spares.
Normally, this is the hardest part of the night. It’s not easy to load a car all by yourself, after all. But tonight at Indiana’s Mt. Lawn Speedway, Gehrke has boyhood pal DeDe Dorsey — a running back with the Indianapolis Colts at his day job — to help him out.
A nice pit cart sits just outside the trailer. Dorsey points to the cart and asks his pal, “Is this yours? Does it go in the trailer?”
Gehrke shakes his head and laughs.
“You kiddin’? I don’t have anything that nice,” he says. Then he offers a bright smile, and it’s obvious the guy isn’t bothered by the fact that he’s about as blue-collar as blue-collar gets.
A few months ago, I wondered in this column if the blue-collar racer has disappeared from our sport. While I still fear that the working man is quickly being pushed to the margins of short-track racing, every now and then you meet someone who has managed to race on in the same spirit that has shaped our sport for decades: grit, guts and determination, and not just spending piles of money.
Limited resources? Chett Gehrke is about as stark an example of that as you’ll find.
But racing on peanuts isn’t really all that newsworthy; the trick is to run up front despite having to stretch the dollars until they rip. Gehrke, 22, is a shining example of that scenario, as he’s currently the point- leader of both the Indiana and Midwest USAC Ford Focus series. In 14 outings this season, he’s won four (on both dirt and pavement) and finished outside the top three only twice.
His path to Indiana has been interesting. A native of Broken Arrow, Okla., he raced trucks in a regional series there for a couple of seasons. In 2006, he acquired a Ford Focus midget for a new series in the Oklahoma region, but the series dried up after just one season.
So, Gehrke loaded his midget in his old trailer this spring, hitched it to his weary pickup truck (160,000 miles on the clock and counting) and moved to Indiana. One reason was that he needed a place to race, but in the back of his mind he’s also hoping for an opportunity to expand his promising career.
The move brought some lonely nights for Gehrke. His parents have business commitments back in Oklahoma, so the kid was on his own. He rented an apartment, got a road map and figured out how to get to tracks such as Anderson, Plymouth, Mt. Lawn, Grundy County and Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
He got a day job and funnels every dollar — after rent and utilities — back into his race car. The Indiana series runs primarily a Wednesday-night schedule, so each race day he loads the car, drives to the track by himself, prepares the car, pushes it up in line himself, climbs in and races.
He can’t afford a new right-rear tire every night. In fact, sometimes he has to stretch a tire through two, three, maybe four nights, even though the tire clearly falls off after a couple of races. When faced with the choice of money for a new tire or buying a meal, he’ll forego the meal and buy the tire. That makes for some hungry nights, to be sure.
Some of his new friends at the track, in fact, have caught on to his situation. Each Wednesday several stop by his pit to make sure Gehrke has eaten, and if not they’ll offer to buy him a cheeseburger at the concession stand.
Gehrke smiles at their generosity.
“It’s kind of nice,” he says quietly.
He and Dorsey finally get all his gear in the trailer, and Gehrke grabs a grease gun from the side door. He stops at both sides of the trailer and kneels, applying some grease to the wheel bearings. He shakes his head and worries.
“I was coming back from Grundy County early Sunday morning and the left-side bearings went out,” he explained. “I unhitched the trailer and drove back to town and found a parts store and got some new bearings and had to install them alongside the road.
“I thought I was going to get hit by semis as they passed until I finally got ‘em on and got going again. But the grease caps came off, and I’ve got to figure something else out. I have to grease them every time out now.”
He puts the grease gun back and wipes his hands with a rag. There is still a deep, dark stain on his fingers, a sign that his young hands have already seen much work.
Some might look at a young racer with grease-stained hands and turn up their nose. It doesn’t impress the high-dollar sponsors, they say. Isn’t polished enough. You’re supposed to wear clean white golf shirts and crisp khaki pants, and heaven forbid you get a drop of oil anywhere on your clothing.
I thought of that while I watched Gehrke finish loading his stuff. He had a ball cap tugged over his tousled hair, and even though he was tired you couldn’t wipe the smile from his face.
He was racing, and that’s all that matters. Never mind the cost of fuel, or the fact that next week he’s got to ante up for a new tire. He’ll worry about that later. For right now he’s happy, and he smiles.
It’s the kind of smile that’s contagious. A bright smile. A pleasant smile. A blue-collar smile.