Montpelier Speedway
Schlenk's long hauls dial in Midwest success
By Bryan Ault
Special to DirtonDirt
Carter Schlenk (left) and his father Rusty Schenk earlier this season. (photosbyboyd.smugmug.com)
MONTPELIER, Ind. (April 11) — Rusty Schlenk isn’t afraid to make a long road trip or two and race in regions that are far, far away.
With March weather less-than-cooperative in the northern Ohio region, the McClure, Ohio driver — who will soon move back to his native Michigan —made the long haul to Florida to dial in his Domination Chassis before racing gets underway in the Midwest. Schlenk wanted time behind the wheel before racing regionally, starting with the Northern Allstars-sanctioned Breakout Bash at Montpelier (Ind.) Motor Speedway, where he took home the checkered flag, beating Jason Jameson of Lawrenceburg, Ind. by a 0.273 margin.
“We had a really good car,” Schlenk said. “Just got kind of stuck in traffic there. I didn't get through traffic as quick as I should have. I hadn't seen anybody for a while and I figured I had a pretty good lead. Jameson was rolling there at the end. He was poking around and found a line there, because he closed pretty quick, snuck up out of nowhere.”
Indeed, Jameson took the lead and led for laps 36-38 before slipping off turn two, allowing Schlenk to pass by and pace the rest of the 40-lapper.
“I knew I had a good car,” Schlenk added. “Like, I knew I could have gotten back to him. I knew it was going to be hard to pass him, though. I got lucky there in lapped traffic and he kind of zigged when he should have zagged, and I got a run on him and got him back there. He's a hell of a race car driver and it feels good to get one over him because usually he gets one over me. It's good racing with these guys, and hopefully we can keep this streak going.”
The decision to go test down in the Sunshine State proved to be a wise choice and might have made the difference between winning and losing on Saturday’s event at Schlenk’s adopted home track.
“Damn weather around here, man,” Schlenk said. “It's just, we've been wanting to go testing. We needed two or three nights, at one track, so we could test a bunch of (stuff) that we came up with this winter.”
The trip to Blackwater Speedway in Baker, Fla. was worth it for the Buckeye State driver, who also made an early season racing trip to Oklahoma. On the first night of the Ultimate Southeast Series doubleheader weekend in Florida, he lowered the track record and finished on the podium, second to Mark Whitener of Middleburg, Fla. The second outing was even better: he further lowered the track record, started on the pole and took home the checkered flag, leading 49 out of 50 laps.
“It was good, man,” Schlenk said. “It was good to come right out of the gate swinging and all the (stuff) we tried this winter helped us out and got a little better. Hopefully we can keep it rolling up here.”
Schlenk isn’t unfamiliar with racing in that part of the country, having turned laps at Southern Raceway in Milton, Fla. and dicing it up with some of the South’s standouts. One of Schlenk’s sponsors, Blackwater Trust, is based in the area which gave him time to connect with a backer of his race team.
“We've been down there every couple years,” Schlenk said. “We try to sneak down on that area, just depends on if the weather is (bad) around here and the spring if we can't do any racing, we'll try to. We try to try to get down there and race, their home track once in a while if we can.”
Notably coming along in the Schlenk family is Carter Schlenk, a 15-year-old upstart who Rusty says continues to get better with time.
“Seat time, man,” Schlenk said on what Carter needs to keep growing in the sport. “He's a little wheelman. He puts that car in places that I wouldn't expect him to put it, and does some s--- on the racetrack that I was like, man, I don't know how he pulled that off at 15. But yeah, he doesn't need anything but seat time. I don't even really need to coach him because he kind of coaches himself. He reminds me a lot of me when I was at age. He knows what he did wrong when he gets out of the car and kind of yells at himself for it. So, I coach him along here and there and give him some pointers, but for the most part, he just coaches himself. He's pretty easy.”
Carter has the added benefit of watching Schlenk’s stepson, Collin Shipley of Bowling Green, Ohio, to help as well.
“He just grew up around it and he's watched me drive so long and he's been around it since the day he was born, literally. I think he just kind of picked up on ‘Watch Dad,’ and his brother. They run good together. They work on their cars together, help each other out. They talk a lot of s—t, as brothers do, but no, they're awesome together. I definitely couldn't ask for them to get along any better.”
Carter’s career is still in its infancy. The 15-year-old driver is very motivated to start winning races, especially behind the wheel of fresh equipment.
“I got higher hopes than last year,” said Carter, who appreciates his father’s advice. “I got a brand-new car, a new motor, so we should be all right as long as everything goes smoothly. He’s had a really good career, so he's obviously who I look up to. He helps me with everything. He knows a lot more than I do. He teaches me. The things I'm doing wrong, he tells me when I'm wrong and he helps me out a lot.”
“(Blackwater) was a track I haven’t driven on before,” Carter added of his Sunshine State experience. “It was pretty technical, but I think I think I did pretty good down there. It was really sandy. We don't have that up here, we don't have that down there, that was there was mostly sand. So it was a new surface to learn
As the Schlenks begin their season, they are wrapping up the family’s move to his native state of Michigan. Schlenk’s cars, equipment and Domination Chassis business will all be moved to Jackson, a town situated between Detroit and Kalamazoo. The move allows Schlenk’s father, Shane, to be more involved in the family’s racing operations, and gives Schlenk some much-needed space.
“I wanted to get my dad back involved in the stuff, and he's getting. … I don't want to say old, but he's getting older, 63, 64, something like that. He wants to get a little more involved, and he's actually got a daughter that's still in high school, so he couldn't move down by us, so I decided to move back up there on his property and it worked out good because it allowed me to not have to buy property. So, I moved on that property and built myself a bigger shop. I could put my money in the shop instead of the property.”
