This week, I want to follow up my first blog about my dad (“Makin’ Do With Whatcha Have”) with a little piece about how I learned to “keep on, keepin’ on”.
I come from a paycheck to paycheck, cut it close and take a risk, punch-the-clock, 60+ hours a week, Monday through Saturday, fix it yourself, figure it out or do without, work for what you want world. This way of life and upbringing is the greatest blessing I could have ever asked for, and I thank both of my parents for this.
My father graduated high school in 1979 and immediately went to work at Ultra Punch of Dayton (my first sponsor) where he is the longest standing employee today. He grew up in a small town called Miamisburg, Ohio where he had humble beginnings and then met my mom. They married, bought a house, gave birth to a wonderful daughter (me), and another wonderful daughter five years later.
My dad is your typical guy who likes cars, planes, and most anything mechanical. In high school he was on the wrestling team and at some point in his childhood Dad was even a gymnast. He is artistic, analytical and a badass drummer (he started playing the same year I started racing). Throughout everything we’ve done together I learned the meaning of perseverance; an attribute I acquired from my dad.
At age 13, we would drive a few hundred miles to and from the races on Saturdays. My mom and I would drive in a separate car while Dad and our family friend Darrell would pilot the tow vehicle and trailer.
One Saturday, about two hours into our four hour drive, mom and I saw smoke bellowing from the front of the 1990 Suburban, so we followed it as it glided over to the side of the highway. Dad and Darrell hopped out and ran to the front to open the hood. With no other option, Mountain Dew was the temporary extinguisher while Dad ran back to the trailer to get water bottles out of the cooler. Fortunately, dad and his water bottles prevailed, and the fire was put out. Needless to say, the adrenaline was going through all of us. We had to catch our breath and reset ourselves before our next step.
We decided we would risk it, and see how far we could get back home before making any other plans. Luckily, we made it home that evening and were able to focus on our next steps.
My dad serviced the transmission that week and we were off to the races again the following Saturday. We were more than ready to get back on track so we began another road trip. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned and yet again, we saw smoke flowing out the sides of the hood. Right away we knew that our hearts would be the only thing racing that day.
This time it was much worse and the hood was very hot, which made it difficult to open. I was very frightened, but I’m so appreciative that they put the fire out quickly and no one was hurt. We nursed the tow vehicle to the next exit and then made our way back to Miamisburg in the car.
Being a resourceful man, Dad was able to arrange a sponsorship deal with a popular Dayton area transmission place called Brownies IT and gets them to completely rebuild the transmission that week. Success! We were back at it the following week with a like-new tow vehicle and a team of Saturday night racin’ folks who were more than ready to get some dirt under their nails.
As they say, the third time is the charm and that’s what worked for us with our Suburban. In reality, though, things don’t always work and this is why you have to keep on, keepin’ on. It would have been the easiest thing for my dad to get our Suburban home after that first fire and decide we would wait to save our money to get the truck fixed before we even made an attempt to get back to the races.
Imagine how easy it would have been for my dad to make a choice the second time (after having to pay a few hundred dollars to get the tow vehicle and trailer home) that we would sit the rest of the summer out because we didn’t have the money to get to the track. And it would have been easy to give up hundreds of other times when we faced adversity, but my dad didn’t give up, and for that – I was the luckiest kid on the planet.
I didn’t know I was learning a lesson then, but boy was I ever. Today, and every day, you have to keep on keepin’ on and never ever give up. Our greatest lessons are learned through our toughest times.
