photo courtesy of Travis Dunbar
Story by Chris Roy
Travis will be racing the #6 car sponsored by Spurwink, Northeast Log Sales, LLC., Heavy MD LLC, The Autism Society of Maine, in the weekly Budweiser Super Late Models Series at OPS.
Travis has been keeping busy in the off season. “Besides running my school and preparing the race car for the 2017 race season, I have introduced my 12 year old son, Ethan Dunbar, to Kart racing down at Southern Maine Karting in Scarborough. He took the class and passed it and then was able to race against myself and Jason Simard, pit crew member, and he only finished five seconds behind myself and two seconds behind Jason. Prior to this, Ethan had only driven our lawn tractor and had backed it into a tree, so I was kind of sweating it out, but he did really well and was much better than a lot of the boys in his class. The funny thing is, he then asked me, “Daddy, can I drive your pro stock now?” My response was, “yeah, probably not now buddy.”
The #6 race team has plans for a full race schedule in the 2017 race season? “We will be competing in the Budweiser Super Late model division at Oxford Plains Speedway full time. We will continue to be working with Crazy Horse and Mitch and Judy and several of my students will be maintaining the car and being on the pit crew on Saturday nights. We are hoping to make a qualifying effort for the Oxford 250.”
PASS Super Late Models (SLM) will first race at OPS on April 22nd and, the Budweiser Series will start racing on May 7th. “The car will be all set for the first race of the season. We will also be taking advantage of the pre-season practice sessions. The only thing left to do to the car at this point, is vinyl, lube, and set up with Mitch at the Crazy Horse Racing shop with the students. While I don’t want to talk about the details of our set-up, let’s just say that we are going all out and will have the same stuff as the top teams including Mike and Ben Rowe.”
Travis is the principal of the Spurwink School, and working with students on his pit crew. “Last spring, I brought the car to my school parking lot and worked on it with the students at my school. Many of the boys were hooked and wanted to continue to learn about Super Late Model racing and be involved. These are students who are placed at my special purpose private school for many different reasons. As for education, they are the students who need an alternative school setting with an alternative approach, rather than just sitting at a desk all day. This proved to be a perfect means of teaching them math, science, etc. Many of the behaviors that we saw with them before the motorsports class started, went away as they were engaged and had bought into the program. Part of the program mandates safe behaviors, sobriety from drugs and alcohol, and a level of professionalism that instills new self-confidence and self-worth for these students. It then went from our school parking lot to one of the boys coming up to Speedway 95 with his parents to participate on the pit crew. He did very, very well. The second race that involved the students was the Granite State Pro Stock Series race at Wiscasset Speedway. Two of the boys came with their families and ended up being the pit crew, as we had one of those days from hell where everyone called out due to either illness or something came up and they could not make it to the track. It is tough when you are a low budget and volunteer team. So it was myself, my wife DJ Simard as my spotter, and these two Spurwink students as the pit crew for this big race. We started out with the right rear hub detaching from the axle. When I went out onto the track for the first practice I felt something break in the rear end. I told my wife on the radio that something was broke and that I could feel the rearend moving. I brought the car in and found that the hub had separated from the axle. It needed to be welded and I had no welder or anyone that could weld. At that point, one of the boys said, “I can weld.” I looked at him and his parents and said, “What?” His mother then told me that he had taken a welding class at Gray/New Gloucester High School, but that he only attended for the first week. I was thinking to myself, “What?” We found a welder up at the race shop on the hill in the pits and Richard Jordan said we could use it. As I watched the student hook up the welder, I felt more and more comfortable with what he was doing as I have observed Kenneth Beasley, who helps me a lot and works at BIW, and the student was doing it correctly from what I could see. When he was done welding, it looked better than any weld that Kenneth had done. I hopped in the car and went out on the race track for the third practice and the car was fast and the weld held. In the last couple of minutes of practice the car got loose coming off of the turns and I spun out coming off of turn four and went into the grass. The weld held! We then were on the grid for qualifying in heat number 2 and the pit road official found a leak on my right front just minutes before we were about to go out to qualify. He told me through the window net that I had a leak and that if it was not fixed for this heat race we were not going out and therefore would not be able to race in the 100 lap feature event. The boys came running down to the car on the grid after I radioed to my wife that we had a problem. They lifted the hood and found the leak to be a loose brake line. One of the boys told the other boy that he needed a ½ inch wrench and so the other boy ran and got it and they tightened it up and it was fixed. They showed the official and he said it was a “go,” just as we were firing up the engines to go out in our heat race. They saved the day twice and we ended up qualifying for the 100 lap feature event. During driver introductions I was standing there with one of the boys from my school next to several drivers that I had watched race in the NASCAR Busch North series. Truly a dream come true for myself and these two boys from Spurwink who have really tough backgrounds. At the end of the season, we got caught up in a big wreck up at the 150 at Speedway 95 which destroyed the car. We brought the car to Mitch and Judy at Crazy Horse expecting to get only a quote of damage and parts. It went from that to the boys and I rebuilding the car at the Crazy Horse race shop with Mitch. The plan for all of us is to continue this relationship and continue to work together right through the season. I finally have the equipment and support with knowledge to be competitive. It is exciting and also nerve wracking, because as my grandfather told me, “now there will be no more excuses.” The students at Spurwink, Spurwink themselves as an agency, and myself and my crew are very excited for this great opportunity. I want to thank Mitch and Judy Greene for working with me and the boys as none of this would be possible without their help and support.”
Travis has teamed up with the ASPIRE program. “The ASPIRE program is similar to what we are doing with Mitch and Judy with our students. Oxford Hills Middle School has the ASPIRE program where their students go to Crazy Horse and build and team their own cars. They are there on Thursdays and Fridays I believe, and we go to Crazy Horse on Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the car needs to be there.”
This season Travis, will be teaming up with Crazy Horse Racing. “We are working out of their shop doing repairs and set ups. During the season outside of their shop, Mitch is assisting us at the track with guidance and answers to our questions regarding the set up and adjustments on the car. This is a huge learning curve for us with regards to the shocks, springs, and bump stops we will be using this year.”
This race season Travis, will be returning to OPS. “I have always enjoyed racing at Oxford Plains Speedway. It is close to home and the fans are great. We also realized that it would be in the best interest of what we are trying to do with our students to stay local as it is too hard for them to travel to other tracks throughout New England. I have always dreamed of attempting to qualify for the Oxford 250 and so with Mitch’s guidance I felt like this would be a great opportunity for me to try and make that dream happen. We will be talking with Spurwink and Oxford Plains Speedway about ways that we can work together to benefit the students, but also the speedway and the fans this coming season. We will also be continuing with our longstanding Autism Awareness program that we have been doing all over New England for the past ten years.”
Travis would like to thank his sponsors: Spurwink, Northeast Log Sales, LLC., Heavy MD LLC, The Autism Society of Maine.