The Vault
MICHIGAN’S BRUCE HONKALA – THE TIRED GENIUS
Posted on: Wednesday November 17, 2021
Here is an interesting bit of racing trivia:
La Crosse-area racing legend Steve Holzhausen traveled to Ishpeming, Michigan where Bruce Honkala helped construct the first ever Coleman Racing Chassis.
This excerpt is from a chapter titled ‘Bruce Honkala – Tired Genius’ from the 2019 release “Racing In The 906.” Enjoy!
Ishpeming, Michigan’s Bruce Honkala in action at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna, Wisconsin in the 1980’s. (Bob Bergeron photo)
Before he made left hand turns Ishpeming’s Bruce Honkala was heavy into drag racing.
“I had a dragster I raced at Nick’s 41 Speedway in Ishpeming,” Honkala recalled. “Back then the owner had plans to put a half-mile in and make it a big racing complex.”
Well for whatever reason in 1978 the dragstrip closed down. “The owner got mad and took a bulldozer and ripped up all the blacktop,” Honkala said.
Left with a dragster and nowhere really nearby to race it, Honkala’s options were limited. With Sands Speedway the closest option Honkala converted his dragster into a radical-looking, low slung stock car. “I switched that car into one for oval track racing in a week-and-a-half,” Honkala explained. “I borrowed a pipe bender from a neighbor. I got some pipe from the junkyard and away we went.”
Honkala’s first ever oval track race was in August of ’78 at Sands. “I remember it was real late in the year as they only had a couple of races left on their schedule,” Honkala said. “I almost won my first race. I was leading until somebody spun me. I liked the oval track racing because the race lasted a lot longer. You could make a couple of mistakes but you still had time to make it back up. I was real tired after that because I had to shift the entire race. I had the gear ratio all wrong. I was just happy to be racing!”
Honkala – low on funds but big on ideas – raced when he could. He labored in the mines of the U.P. and as such, worked different shifts that prevented him from running for a track championship anywhere. “I stuck with Sands early on but eventually we started running at Norway and later on even ventured out to some other tracks like WIR in Kaukauna,” Honkala said. “I didn’t have much money at all so I always built all my own race cars.”
Eventually Honkala would hook up with Menominee racing legend Gene Coleman. “I was racing and eventually I ended up helping Gene and working at Coleman Machine,” Honkala said. “Gene saw what I could do with regards to designing stuff and trying different things. After a while Gene decided he wanted to start building his own race cars.”
One of the first customers to be put in a Coleman race car was ARTGO standout Steve Holzhausen who lived in Bangor, near LaCrosse, Wisconsin. “Steve came up to my shop in Ishpeming and he asked if I’d build the first Coleman car,” Honkala said. “Things sort of took off from there.”
Burning the candle at both ends, Honkala kept forward with his own racing career. He also took a big step and enrolled in the engineering program at Michigan Tech in Houghton. In his early 30’s, Honkala was a non-traditional college student. It was 1988. “It’s sort of weird because it was actually through stock car racing that I was inspired to study to be an engineer,” Honkala said. “In fact Gene (Coleman) said it was a smart move. College educations don’t smash up or blow up.”
Honkala worked hard, building race cars on weekends and nights in between studying and doing his homework. “I had saved enough money from building race cars to pay for my first year of college,” said Honkala. “I still raced myself during the summer. I decided to switch my car number to 101. The reason is sort of funny. 101 was sort of the basics in life. I figured out in college that if you just do the basics right in life without any mistakes you are ahead of 80 percent of everyone else. So the “101” – the college term for “the basics” essentially became my car number.”
Eventually both Gene Coleman and his son Dickie began racing the Coleman chassis. Locals began purchasing the Coleman car and they also sold in Wisconsin and other states as well.
“I remember racing against Gene one night at Norway,” Honkala recalled. “I had started in the back and Gene was in the lead. I caught him at the end. It was such an exciting race somebody dropped the ball and we wound up going one extra lap. I passed Gene and ended up winning because of that extra lap!”
As the years marched on the Ishpeming Ace would venture to other tracks, including Marshfield Motor Speedway. “They had just paved it not that long prior so this had to be sometimes in the mid to late ‘90’s,” said Honkala. “I had never been there before. They had a couple of practice sessions. It was really, really cold. I was cold. The tires were cold.
“I was the first one to qualify. I drew the number 2 but no one else drew a 1 so in the order to time trial I went first. I got out of the car and ran over the bathroom. Mark Eswein was the big dog there at the time. He came running up to me congratulating me on fast time. I told him “there are 50 late models here – how do you know I’ll get fast time?” He said “I’m telling you – no one will touch that time today.” He was right. That was pretty cool.”
At WIR, it was always a big deal for the U.P. drivers to go let loose on the “big track.” With WIR I just remember how hard you really had to work to run well there,” Honkala said. “We always had fun down there. I never had top level motors but always felt like I held my own.”
The last year Honkala raced late models full time was in 2000. The last late model race he competed in was an invitational race at Sands in 2013. “Since then I’ve dabbled in snowmobiles and I even ran a couple of marathons so I’m using my feet too,” Honkala joked. “I’ve still got some competitive spirit in me. Plus, running marathons is a whole lot cheaper than buying race car parts.”
As this book goes to print, Honkala is 63 years old and moved to Ashland, Wisconsin where he works as a mechanical engineer at a firm there. “Looking back racing was great,” Honkala said. “I didn’t have a lot of money but racing spurred me to go to college. Building cars helped pay for school and I make a decent living now.”
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