The Vault
BOB ABITZ – HONORING A VIETNAM VETERAN ON MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND
Posted on: Sunday May 30, 2021
Bob Abitz served in the United States Army. His service included a stint in the Vietnam war. We thank Bob and all veterans retired and active for their service!
(A chapter titled ‘The Flyin’ School Teacher’ from the 2016 release ‘Wisconsin International Raceway – Where The Big Ones Run.’)
Bob Abitz has been fortunate enough to play the short track racing game
on both sides of the fence as a driver and a tech official. What’s even
more amazing is he acted as both a driver and tech inspector at the same time
for some years, which is almost unheard of in modern times.
“The Flyin’ School Teacher” taught collision repair and other automotive
specialties as a shop teacher at Freedom High School.
“The district hired me in 1972,” recalled Abitz, who was also a racer at
the time. “I began racing at WIR that same year with a Plymouth Roadrunner.
I’d race for those first Red, White and Blue shows we had.”
As a shop teacher, Abitz exposed his students to many different disciplines
in the automotive industry. They would rebuild engines. They went to frame
shops in the area and learned how to fix cars.
“I’ve had students I’ve taken under my wing and a lot of them served
on my pit crew along the way,” said Abitz. “I had some kids who had not
been out of Outagamie County. They got to go with me to races all over the
Midwest, including Illinois and Indiana. For them, racing was an extension
of the school. I never had any beer with us, either. Just soda.”
Abitz was asked by Wisconsin International Raceway owner Joe Van
Daalwyk to write the rules for the Red, White and Blue State Championship
series when it was created in 1972.
“Joe says to me one day, ‘I’ve got to find you a sponsor,’ ” said Abitz.
“He came to me and said, ‘I’ve got Old Style beer to sponsor your race car.
It’s a $5,000 deal.’ ”
As a high school teacher, there was no way Abitz could take that sponsor
money from a brewer – which was a whopping amount for that time period.
Abitz refused to take a dime.
“I think for that reason, Joe just thought the world of me after that,” said
Abitz. “Every other driver would have jumped at the chance.”
Old Style would appear years later as a sponsor on cars driven by Jim
Sauter and Rod Wheeler.
WIR was struggling to get late models on the track in the early to mid-
1970s. One of the reasons was many other paved tracks in the state had their
own individual wrinkles in their respective rulebooks which discouraged
drivers from other tracks to tow to Kaukauna.
“I remember Rich Somers from Stevens Point and I were two of the very
few late model drivers who made it to WIR every Thursday night that year,”
said Abitz. “That year, the rules in Wisconsin you could have called them
‘every which way but close.’ ”
Clem Droste was president of Central Wisconsin Racing Association
(CWRA), which sanctioned races at tracks located in Wausau, Madison,
Wisconsin Dells and La Crosse.
“Sunday was always open for specials that year, and theoretically you
could race six of the seven days of the week with the specials,” Abitz pointed
out. “In ’75, we were starting to draw guys like Larry Schuler and Roger
Regeth to WIR on a weekly basis. That was the type of caliber of cars that
started coming there weekly.”
Talk of rules changes began to surface when the post-season meetings
commenced in the fall.
“There were a lot of leftover guys from the Apple Creek days with their
cars, and I suggested we needed to change our rules to adapt to other tracks,”
said Abitz. “A few guys asked why. The answer was simple. So we can race
someplace else if you do want to chase other tracks.”
Roger “The Bear” Regeth stood up at one of the meetings.
“He said, ‘Abitz, why don’t you start writing the rules?’ Clem and I got
together and started to blend the rules with CWRA,” said Abitz. “I even got
Slinger to go with it sort of. Lake Geneva was also interested in what we were
doing at the time.”
Different tracks ran different tires in 1977 and 1978. McCreary, Firestone
and Hoosiers were tire brands run by different ovals.
“By ’78, we had a uniform tire rule in Wisconsin,” Abitz proclaimed.
“You could go anyplace and run the same tire. Before that, I had to have a
three-tire rack to go race elsewhere because of all the different tire options
we had. It was crazy.”
The process of blending the rules with other tracks took some legwork.
“Chuck Ippolitto, Jim Salentine and I would make trips over to Adams-
Friendship in Central Wisconsin to go to those CWRA meetings,” said Abitz.
“We’d see what they were doing and then we’d have our meeting and decide
what we were going to do.”
Abitz was in Joe Van Daalwyk’s good graces, putting him in position
to suggest that Van Daalwyk start running a fall special. With the weekly
racing done at most Wisconsin tracks, he reasoned it would draw drivers
from several Wisconsin and Midwestern tracks.
“We started running those races after that,” said Abitz. “But those
bigger specials sometimes didn’t come without their problems as far as tech
inspecting.”
Meanwhile, Abitz was experiencing some sour luck with his own racing
program. “I raced on a budget and was doing engine rebuilds in the winter time for money,” said Abitz. “I had ‘x’ amount of money I spent on racing for the full season and we stopped when the money ran out.”
In 1982, Abitz was at seven blown motors with two different engine
builders by July 1. “I said that’s it, we’re done,” he said.
Bob Abitz’ racing career ended in 1982. After that Bob went on to serve in the role of technical inspector for many tracks and sanctioning bodies, including both ARTGO and NASCAR. (Don Beach photo)
Mike Lemke would assist Abitz in getting another motor together. When
the final checkered flag flew in 1982, Abitz’s race car had chewed up and spit
out a total of nine engines. Lemke would start assisting Abitz with inspecting
cars – “teching” is the term – and continues to do that to this day.
Abitz’s teching duties occasionally created awkward situations when he
was still racing the Red, White and Blue races, especially if there was an
issue with a car that finished in front of him.
“Bill Oas was a driver from Minnesota who was running the Red, White
and Blue series in 1982,” Abitz recalled. “One of the Bilstein shock absorbers
that he was running were only allowed in ARTGO. We said you couldn’t
run them for a weekly show to keep the cost down. I missed the feature and
I’m coming up to the semi-feature. He’s gliding through the corners. I’m
bouncing through the corners. I’m studying the car. When we got to tech
after the races, we discovered he had the silver Bilstein shocks. I went and
got Dick Trickle and told Dick, ‘You have to disqualify him because he’s got
illegal shocks.’ I couldn’t do it, obviously, because I finished one spot behind
him. He got the transfer spot until he was disqualified. So I wound up getting
the transfer spot instead of Oas. That’s why I had to call Trickle over to be
impartial.”
Oas learned an important lesson that when you travel to an unfamiliar
track, the first thing you should do is run your car over the track scales.
Always run across the scales and always know what the rules are.
“Truthfully, it was a very hard thing to do, both tech cars and race,” said
Abitz. “These front-running guys are running across the scales. I could see all
of their percentages they were running, which is really key to knowing what
their hot setups were. They had confidence in me so I could ride both sides
of the fence.”
Abitz hung up his racing helmet in 1983 and devoted his full attention
to becoming a tech inspector. It wasn’t long before he was handling the tech
chores at other venues as well as WIR.
“After I sold all of my own racing equipment, I got calls from John
McKarns from ARTGO and Donn Oliver, who was the president of Norway
(Michigan) Speedway,” said Abitz. “Both wanted me to work for them, and
I did.”
It didn’t take long and Wayne Erickson from Slinger Speedway was
calling, also soliciting Abitz and his skills. Abitz has his share of tales about
catching drivers trying to sneak one by the “Flying School Teacher.” (Abitz’s
nickname)
“I remember one night I saw Augie Derenne get his car towed off on the
hook after a bad wreck,” said Abitz. “I saw he had an aluminum block motor
in it. I told Augie, ‘You know when you get this thing fixed, you really should
get rid of that aluminum block motor.’ ”
Or the time a Red, White and Blue race was red-flagged because of a rain
delay.
“The cars are all parked on the track and no crew members are supposed to
be out there,” explained Abitz. “All of a sudden, I look toward Scott Hansen’s
car. It looks like the car is moving a bit. I look at his car and Richie Wauters
(NASCAR truck owner and Hansen crew chief at the time) is underneath the
car trying to adjust the coil over shocks. That was a big no-no.”
One night, Waupaca’s Tom Haen got caught not once, but twice in the
same night with an illegal carburetor.
“Tom looked exceptionally fast that night, much faster than he was
normally running, so I looked under the hood and we got him once,” said
Abitz. “Sure enough, he bolted another illegal carb the next time out. We got
him again.”
Carburetors were the place where crew chiefs like Wauters liked playing
the cat and mouse game most.
“Guys like Richie keep us on our toes,” admitted Abitz. “Richie and I are
still friends. The drivers said if we had a disagreement one day, the next day
it would be a clean slate. Every day is a new day. I still try to live by that.”
Abitz would later work for NASCAR in the ReMax Challenge series.
“Looking back over the years with things like the 9:1 compression rule
we implemented, to me it kept a level playing field,” said Abitz. “That was
my big thing. We tried to keep the rules in check so the little guy at Kaukauna
could compete with the Scott Hansens and the Terry Baldrys. So when they
rolled out, at least they knew they had a chance to win.”