Rob Hart is a racer, pure and simple. Ask him what drivers he’s worked with and the names roll rapidly.
“In the big leagues, Jeff Swindell, Joey Saldana, Danny Wood, Craig Dollansky, Danny Lasoski, Brad Furr, Bud Kaeding, Matt Neely — and a few more I’d have to think about.”
A talented bunch of wheelmen, indeed. And Hart, a New Yorker transplanted to a home in Indiana he rarely has time to occupy, must be a pretty good wrench to land gigs like that.
“It’s dedication more than anything else,” he says with a smirk. “You have to show up, stay sober and get the job done under adverse conditions. You need a certain amount of mechanical talent, but there’s a lot of great mechanics out there who just can’t handle the road.”
But what’s so hard about seeing America, one race track at a time?
“Time! There’s never enough to do everything right,” Hart said. “You always run out of time and every day you have to cut corners on something. Every day! Just the basic maintenance, with no problems to address, takes four hours, and that’s with three quality guys.
“Every shock has to be dynoed every night now, where you used to pick the right number shock, put it on and run it until it got bent. Now you tune for every track. There’s also a fuel flow bench where we do the nozzles and the pump and all that, so it gets more time consuming all the time. And you have to keep the trailer clean and mount all the wheels and tires. It’s a lot of work for everyone.
“In NASCAR, there’s a few dozen guys. I worked for a guy once with Cup cars, and I found there were too many people, too many egos. Here you only deal with four or five people. NASCAR guys will tell you our cars are simple and it should be easy to win. The first part’s true,” Hart continued. “The cars are simple, but that makes the fine adjustments more difficult. And things are always evolving. You start the season with stiff torsion bars on the right and soft on the left. By mid-season, you’re soft on the right and stiff on the left and taking stagger away. And the motor programs change constantly, day to day, week to week.”
Hart is now working with Roth Motorsports and driver Lasoski.
“Davey Whitworth has run this team for three or four years, and he’s got me and Steve Tiner with him,” Hart said. “Danny Lasoski has a lot of input, too. They hired me because they were struggling car wise and getting way behind. They needed another guy.”
With other teams also going through mid-season “adjustments,” we suggest that many problems may not be mechanical or talent driven, but conflicts of personality.
“Definitely!” said Hart. “It’s a very close relationship here. You’re either racing or in the truck 24/7, and in the last 10 days, none of us have been away from the others more than four hours. Luckily, Steven and Davey are easy to get along with. Danny is a little more high stress, but Davey deals with him and the car owner.”
Hart’s wife, a native of Australia, worked with Rob on the cars before their family came along. Now she has to pick and choose her races.
“She was at the King’s Royal, Lima, Knoxville and Lernerville, and she brings the kids when it’s convenient. She helps the Saldanas in the T-shirt trailer, which gives her a good place to keep the kids in sight,” Hart said. “Her dad’s a racer, too. He’s here for the Knoxville Nationals, and after that, my wife, my daughter and my son are going to Australia for a month.”
Hart misses the family. And since he lives in the heart of USAC country, he could have the best of both worlds by working from home.
“I’ve done that, and it’s not a bad deal. But once you’ve done this, it’s like a drug. You can make more money and the adrenaline level is higher, too. It’s the big league,” Hart said. “But there’s money to be made with USAC because there’s a bunch of affluent families with kids who need rides. I’ll probably end up there, but right now, this is where I want to be.”
When asked if he has any regrets over how his career has gone, Hart shakes his head, “No‚” but he soon reconsiders.
“I had a good time driving and went all over to race. My only regret is that I talked with two or three guys about driving for them but didn’t, and they turned out to be really good car owners. That was my biggest mistake. Otherwise, I have no regrets.
“I will say that you never know when you’ll win your last race. I think mine might have been at the Orange County Fairgrounds Speedway. At the time, it was just another race, and we just packed up and went home. Now I wish I’d enjoyed it more.”