The Vault
HITTING THE ROAD
Posted on: Thursday February 16, 2023
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(The following is an excerpt from the 2021 release “5-10-32 McBride, Parker & Anvelink” from the chapter titled “Hitting The Road.”)
While the battles between M.J., Pete and Terry were fierce and competitive in northeastern Wisconsin throughout the decades all three at different points in their respective careers did travel outside of the area.
Of the three McBride’s career started the earliest and much of his travel early on involved the USAC stock car series.
Years down the road one of M.J.’s favorite races he loved attending in the month of September was the Punky Manor Challenge of Champions. The race was held at Red Cedar Speedway in Menominee, Wisconsin near Eau Claire.
The event honored an Eau Claire area racer whose life was taken much too early. “M.J. really loved going out to the Punky Manor race,” Marilyn McBride recalled. “It was always a fun time when we went out to western Wisconsin and the points races were all done. It was a race he said he wanted to get his name on the event shirt that listed all of the previous winners of that race.”
McBride also had a saying ‘What happens at the Punky Manor stays at the Punky Manor.’
While M.J. may not have won the Punky Manor (best finish in that event was 4th) the stories and fun times had while on the road are still joked about to this day. “I remember one year we were all in the bar out one night after the Punky and M.J. and Rick Aukland were shooting pool,” crew member Jim Flaig recalled. “Aukland was disqualified for being light at the scales that night. When M.J. went to ask him what he wanted he said, ‘hey Rick – want a BUSCH LIGHT?’ Everyone got a laugh out of that, including Rick. Aukland actually took it pretty well.”
Foosball was another tavern ‘sport’ M.J. took seriously, especially when the team was on the road. “He wanted that win no matter what we did,” Flaig said. “Everything to M.J. was a competition but in a fun way.”
The WISSOTA 100 Cedar Lake Speedway in Somerset, Wisconsin was another favorite special of McBride’s to compete in. “M.J. always said if we qualify into the show Friday night that we’d go bowling as a team that night and we did,” said McBride crew member Bert Lehman. “He was very competitive at bowling. I remember we went mini golfing one Saturday. He would do everything he could to beat you in that too. He was always trying to learn something new. One year we didn’t make the show at Cedar Lake. But after the races he took the car out to test and try a different setup while we were there.”
Usually on the way to the track on these longer road trips McBride and the crew would play cards – usually a game of sheepshead. “M.J. was very competitive and that included when he was playing cards,” Marilyn recalled. “He would do anything to get another quarter out of you and was always counting the cards. We always seemed to make those trips a lot of fun win, lose or draw.”
While the northeastern Wisconsin racers may have been rivals back home, when they traveled outside of the area the teams often pitted together, raced together and (shockingly) partied together after the final checkers flew.
,Sometimes things could get a little out of hand. “Bert (Lehman) started pitting for us and hanging around, but he wasn’t nearly old enough to drink yet,” Marilyn said. “Well, the rest of our crew – those guys drank and had a good time. Well one night Jim Flaig, Bert and M.J. had a room at a hotel. M.J. turned in early for some reason and told Bert ‘Whatever you do don’t answer the door. They’ll be drunk and knocking on it at all hours of the night.”
It just so happened Flaig was out partying with the Anvelink’s into the wee hours of the night. Flaig pounded on the door repeatedly to get back to his room and get some shuteye. But Lehman being the loyal team soldier refused to let him in. “Jim wound up sleeping in the hauler that night,” Marilyn said.
Brian Thielke recalled an ‘incident’ in an establishment in Marshfield after the races one night in the early 1990s.
“After the races we went to this bar where myself, my pit crew and guys like M.J. and Chuck Buckbee were all having a great time. This big dude who resembled a gym rat was running his mouth and bumping into people. He was basically being a jerk and he started giving M.J. a hard time. And mind you M.J. was not a real confrontational guy. I intervened and told this guy to lay off. He got in my face. I had enough of him and decided to lay him out.”
It got chaotic in there and everyone ran for their trailers and their haulers. Once we got on the road, we really were a tighter knit group. It was a real ‘us versus them’ mentality for those specials and we all sort of wished the best for one another.”
Thielke added: “Traveling to other tracks only made you a better driver. I saw that with Pete. I wanted to travel more and go on the road. You experience different track surfaces and configurations. Unfortunately, my car owner at the time Roger Rosek had no desire to hit the road and wanted to race locally. I saw Pete’s dedication to his craft, and I did everything I could to keep up. I had a 15-question sheet and made 50 photocopies of them. I’d be on the phone for a month during the off season. I’d be calling chassis manufacturers, crew chiefs and drivers from all over the country. I’d go right down the line and ask them all these questions. Then I’d read their answers. I took the common denominator with all their answers and that’s where I started with my car setups. Remember this was before social media and what not. Cell phones weren’t even that prevalent then yet either. In my mind that’s the sort of stuff I had to do to keep up with guys like M.J., Pete and Terry.”
“I think for all of us in northeastern Wisconsin whenever we went to travel to another track it turned into a race within a race,” said Shawano’s Tom Naeyaert. “You would try to see if you had the opportunity to be the best of the drivers who came from the eastern part of the state. Those guys weren’t happy to see us at first to be honest. Because we were good – especially Pete. He’d win over that way and Terry also picked off a couple of wins in western Wisconsin over the years. Terry won a race at Cedar Lake later in his career. It’s always fun to go over that way and see Pat Doar, Steve Laursen Jon Kurshinsky and John Kaanta, Jimmy Mars. They are all real good racers.”
“Truth is I loved when we’d run those specials on the western side of the state,” Buckbee admitted. “It’s how I learned how to drive on a dry slick racetrack. I learned to love that too. It helped me with my ice racing background too. I mean Shawano was always so wet and muddy. I remember it seemed like we’d scrape 100 lbs. of mud off the car.”
With the WISSOTA/NDRA co sanction in the mid-1980s Buckbee, McBride and company would even tow to Central State Speedway in Colby, Wisconsin. “It was a smaller track, and the payout wasn’t really big,” Buckbee recalled. “But we’d go to support the deal. They had reopened the track and were struggling to get cars. But boy was that track rough. I got hit with a rock and it broke my glasses. I had to use Grover Thomas’ glasses when I raced the feature there one night.”