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Trickle’s on the mend and having fun at this year’s Oktoberfest Race Weekend. He calls himself “kind of a grand marshall,” as he doesn’t get more than a few feet in the pit area of the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway before someone stops him in his tracks, and says, “Do you remember when…”
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Nascar legend Dick Trickle talks at a drivers meeting at the La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway during the Oktoberfest Races.
Erik Daily |
And Trickle does remember. And he’s willing to chat with anyone and everyone.
It’s a good bet that Trickle has equally as many stories as short-track victories, which is far more than 1,200, and has a way of telling them that captivates race fans, drivers and pit crew members like no other.
That’s why he’s still the best-known Wisconsin driver — ever. More so than one-time Cup champ Matt Kenseth, or former Craftsman truck champion Ted Musgrave, or Cup drivers Johnny Sauter or Paul Menard. Yes, the Trickle fan club is alive and well.
That’s part of the mystique, the aura, that surrounds Trickle, a one-time Winston Cup (that’s back when it was cool for tobacco companies to sponsor big-time racing) rookie of the year. So when Trickle was asked to speak to a diverse group of drivers called Super Late Model Futures on Thursday, he gladly told them straight up what they need to do, and don’t do, to have chance to move up.
“They have to remember that I’m only going to finish first if I first finish,” Trickle said. “We can’t put 29 cars in first place. You’ve got to have a top-10 car to have a shot at winning, and if you don’t, set yourself a goal. If you’re 20th, shoot for 15th. If you’re 15th, shoot for 10th.”
Trickle is one of the drivers who shot for the top and made it. He will never tell young drivers to stop chasing a dream, but they need to stop chasing everything else — he means, everything else — if they are indeed going to be the “one in 2,000” drivers, Trickle said, that get a taste of what it’s like to be a Cup driver.
“You’ve got to want it. You’ve got to want it,” said Trickle, who will be at the West Salem track throughout the Oktoberfest Race Weekend. “So many times things don’t go well in racing. You’ve got to be willing to go the extra mile, be willing to give up everything else but racing.
“I was lucky. I got a call to be a reserve driver for Bobby Allison. I made enough of an impression that I had 13 years of racing at that level. I was 48, but I felt like I was in my 20s.”
Trickle, who said he plans to get back in a race car next season — if his doctor lets him — knows that marketability and the ability to sell a sponsor’s product means as much as driving talent these days. In fact, it’s been that way for years.
That’s when the question many of us wonder, but haven’t had the chance to ask, came out: Could top local drivers Steve Carlson, Kevin Nuttleman and Steve Holzhausen compete on the Sprint Cup level?
“I know they could. The problem is they are too old,” Trickle said. “I think it’s wrong, but that’s the way it is. Racing is a major-league sport now, and has been for a while. Money, as in television and sponsors, made it that way. Money drives racing.”
And if you don’t have a big-time sponsor, or very deep pockets, good luck. It can be done, but it’s a long, long shot. A shot very few drivers, when it comes right down to it, are willing to take.
“One of the biggest problems is money buys speed. It takes big dollars and plenty of support to race these days,” Trickle said. “I tell young drivers to start in a class you can afford and do well there before thinking about anything more.
“There is a lot of financial strain in racing, a lot of hardship you have to put up with. I tell people if they want to follow in my footsteps they will be walking in a lot of ditches along the way. That will tell them if they really want it.”
Trickle wanted it in the past, and he still wants it. That’s why he quickly looked up, smiled, and said, “Oh no, you never lose that feeling. This is OK, but I’d much rather be driving.”
