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His work done, Ramsey turns spectator. He focuses on the team's car--and the tires, in particular--rather than the race.
The work is hard, the travel never-ending, but the smile is fixed on Tracy Ramsey's face whenever he's on pit row.
Working at Richmond International Raceway prior to the Dan Lowry 400, Tracy Ramsey (left) gets help from longtime friend Paul Stephenns, who's a Fredericksburg native.
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Hustling tires back and forth is one of Ramsey's chores, |
BY JIM McCONNELL
You'll never make it.
You're setting yourself up for disappointment.
Why can't you be happy with a normal job like everybody else?
Fredericksburg native Tracy Ramsey heard the naysayers nearly two decades ago, when he told anyone willing to listen how he was going to make it big in NASCAR.
Even now, in a rare quiet moment, he can still hear the stinging rebuke of their laughter bouncing around inside his brain.
He's not angry, though. He doesn't carry a chip on his shoulder. He doesn't live for the opportunity to go back home and deliver a heaping plate of crow to everyone who ever doubted him.
For Ramsey, living the dream is satisfaction enough.
"It's kind of like that song 'How Do You Like Me Now?'" Ramsey said last Saturday afternoon at Richmond International Raceway, as his Richard Childress Racing team prepared for that night's NASCAR Sprint Cup race.
"A lot of my friends thought I was crazy. Some people said it was a pipe dream. But I worked my butt off and I made it."
DON'T TREAD ON ME
Like the protagonist in Toby Keith's 1999 country hit, a successful singer who gets the last laugh at the expense of a former high school classmate, Ramsey has come a long way against even longer odds.
The 1988 Stafford High School graduate, who lives in Winston-Salem, N.C., with his wife, Tammy, and two children, is in his seventh year as tire specialist for Childress' No. 31 team.
As such, he's personally responsible for every tire that ever finds its way onto Jeff Burton's Chevy Impala. Burton is currently second behind Kurt Busch in the Sprint Cup points standings after leading for several weeks.
On a typical race weekend, Ramsey receives a load of racing tires when he arrives at the track Friday morning. He immediately examines the $400 hunks of rubber and steel, looking for four tires with similar characteristics that he can organize into sets.
After the tires are grouped and marked for easy reference, Ramsey consults with crew chief Scott Miller and sets the initial air pressure for Friday's practice sessions.
Every so often, Ramsey's team will hit on a favorable setup combination early in the weekend, minimizing the adjustments necessary to get the car into winning form.
Far more often, he's up to his neck in tires--constantly adjusting air pressure in an effort to help the car's handling, while monitoring tire wear and providing data that help the crew chief make his setup choices.
"If I don't give [the crew chief] the correct numbers, we could have too much camber [curvature] in the car and blow a right front [tire]. Not only is it going to hurt our evening, it's going to hurt our points, it's going to hurt all the way around," Ramsey said.
"For sure, it's one of those jobs nobody really knows about. You don't see it on TV, but it's one of the hardest jobs at the same time."
CHASING A DREAM
For most of her life, Lynda Ramsey was the furthest thing from a NASCAR fan. She simply couldn't understand why anyone would sit for hours and watch cars go in circles.
"I thought it was a total waste of time," she recalled.
Then her only son started working on stock cars for a living, and Lynda became a bona fide NASCAR addict.
Don't bother calling her on race day. Don't even think about stopping by for a visit. She's too busy watching television, hoping to catch even a fleeting glimpse of Tracy working in the No. 31 pit stall.
"Even if I see him and he's turned around, I see his name on the back of his shirt and it makes me feel so proud," Lynda added.
It also takes her back more than 30 years, to a time when young Tracy would sit for hours and pore over the parts of a take-apart car his parents had bought him. The car's pieces had to be put back together both in specific locations and in a specific order to function properly, but he never stopped working until it was perfect.
That work ethic didn't always manifest itself in the school environment. During his high school years, Tracy became a classic case of "doesn't apply himself," and there were even questions about his reading ability.
"I knew better," Lynda said. "You could give him a racing magazine and he'd be done with it in 20 minutes."
As a teenager, Tracy spent most of his spare time around cars. He was either working on them, racing with friends at Sumerduck Dragway in Fauquier County or watching races at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas.
After graduating from Stafford High, Tracy worked as a mechanic and set his sights on a career in NASCAR.
It didn't happen overnight. In 1997, a friend who worked for Junie Donlavey's Richmond-based NASCAR operation mentioned to Tracy that they were looking for volunteers to help around the shop.
For the next three years, he worked all day, then commuted from Fredericksburg to Richmond. He swept floors, fetched parts and paid his dues while waiting for the opportunity to get his hands dirty under the hood of Donlavey's cars.
"The young ones came in and tried to learn as much as they could," said Donlavey, who remembered Tracy as "one of the nicest guys we ever had on the team."
Hired full-time by Donlavey in 2000, Tracy traveled the country with the No. 90 team while receiving valuable on-the-job training in the skills he'd need to move up the ladder in NASCAR.
"I'm very grateful to Junie Donlavey," Tracy said. "He was gracious enough to give me the opportunity to learn, and it made me better all the way around. To be honest, we don't have that any more in this sport."
Tracy's big break came in 2002, when he was offered the tire-specialist position at Richard Childress Racing.
By that point, he had other things to consider--namely his wife, Tammy, their young daughter, Brooke, and the home they owned in Spotsylvania County. But there was no way he could turn down a chance to work for one of the most respected teams in NASCAR.
While Tammy stayed behind to take care of Brooke and prepare their house for sale, Tracy moved to North Carolina and went right to work.
At the time, Tammy had only the vaguest idea what she was getting herself into.
"I didn't know it would be as hard as it is," she said. "He has a very demanding job."
FAMILY FRICTION
For all of NASCAR's efforts at promoting a family-friendly atmosphere at the track, juggling family and work can be difficult at best for race-team employees who spend so much time on the road.
During the Sprint Cup season, which stretches from February to November, Tracy almost always works six days a week. In a typical week, the team flies out of Charlotte on Thursday afternoon and returns Sunday night. He also has responsibilities in the race shop Monday and Wednesday.
Most of the time, Tuesday is Tracy's day off--except, like last week, when NASCAR schedules testing sessions for its Cup teams on tracks where they'll race in the coming weeks.
Tracy's presence is especially important during testing because it offers him the chance to get feedback from Burton and learn how air-pressure adjustments affect the car's handling in a variety of situations.
Because the teams are still trying to figure out NASCAR's new stock car in its first season of full-time racing, the sanctioning body has authorized more testing than normal this year. Tracy and the No. 31 team already have participated in tests in Daytona, California, Las Vegas and Phoenix, with another scheduled later this month at Pocono Raceway.
"It's hard on the spouse that's home, because it's 24/7 with the kids. I'm pretty much a single parent during the season," Tammy said. "Then when he's home, he's drained because he's been working 12- to 14-hour days and he'd like to relax, but I'd like to have a break, too."
Tammy keeps going because she loves her husband and knows he could never be happy working banker's hours.
"Have I gotten to the point where it's not working? No. I hope we never do," she added. "I can't wait for the day he says, 'I don't have to be on the road anymore.' For now, we're just trying to do the best we can."
Lynda Ramsey noted that without her daughter-in-law's unconditional love and support, Tracy probably would've had to choose between his job and his family.
"Everybody told Tammy a marriage can't work this way and she said, 'Yes, it can,'" Lynda said. "The kind of person I am, I probably would've said, 'You go your way and I'll go mine, and I'm taking the kids with me.' She's obviously willing to work at it, trying to do her best with the situation she has.
"She's doing an exceptional job. In her own way, she has just as much dedication as Tracy does."
STAYING GROUNDED
Tracy understands as well as anyone what he's sacrificed to the pursuit of his dream.
Standing behind his team's high-tech pit box as fellow crew members finalized their race preparations in Richmond last weekend, he reflected on all of the birthdays and anniversaries and weddings he's missed over the last 10 years.
He also thinks about the loss of two good friends--one to cancer, the other to a heart attack--and how he wasn't able to make it back to Fredericksburg for their funerals.
"Everybody says, 'I want to go work in NASCAR,' but it's very difficult. It's not easy at all," he said.
Occasionally, however, the grind subsides long enough for Tracy to reconnect with family and friends. Knowing he'd be in Myrtle Beach today with Tammy and the kids, he made a special trip to Fredericksburg two days before the race at RIR and gave Lynda an early Mother's Day present.
He also spent time at the track with his father, Ellis, and sister Heather, and lined up VIP hospitality passes so several friends from back home could visit with him in the pits.
"I don't think what Tracy's accomplished has ever gone to his head," longtime friend Rick Hood said. "He remembers his roots, where he came from. If you talk to him on the street, you'd never know he's any different than anybody else."
Added Tammy: "He's still a regular guy. He just has a cool job."
How do you like him now?
Jim McConnell: 540/374-5444
Email: jmcconnell@freelancestar.com
