For Tea race car drivers Brad Kopecky and Nick Wranek, the sport just isn’t a hobby, it’s a lifestyle.
Both grew up on the track, rooting for their fathers and working in pit crews. Now they both race super stock at the I-90 Speedway in Hartford and State Fair Speedway Huron.
When Kopecky was 12 he became part of Miller racer Lorin Johnson’s pit crew. He changed tires and had other mechanical upkeep duties for the crew.
Six years ago, Kopecky’s dad Terry bought a super stock racecar. One night he couldn’t race and asked his son to take the wheel.
“From the second I sat in the car I was hooked,” Brad Kopecky said. “I was ready for my dad to retire that night.”
Driving a racecar was a lot more difficult than driving his regular vehicle.
“You go fast down the interstate, but it’s different taking corners sideways,” Brad Kopecky said.
He averages 50-70 mph on the half mile track, but he had to guess. There are no speedometers in the car.
Wranek took the wheel at the age of 15 after his dad retired.
“I was always in the pits and it looked so easy,” Wranek said. “But I couldn’t turn and it was like I forgot how to drive a car.”
Since then the two have had practice.
“It takes a lot of mechanical skills,” Brad Kopecky said. We go to a lot of schools in the winter.”
Wranek said reading books and talking with veteran drives turns up a lot of good advice, too.s
Wranek spent five years racing hobby stock, what is called a bomber class. He did one year each in street stock and grand nationals, but in 2000, switched to the super stock class.
This season has gone well for Kopecky and Wranek. Kopecky said he finishes in the top 10 each night. Last year he finished seventh in the season in Hartford. In 2007 he finished fourth.
This is the first year he’s run in Hartford full time. Three weeks ago he was ranked sixth, but engine difficulties eliminated him from the races two weeks ago.
Wranek has similar success. Since the May start date, Wranek is fourth in points and finishes primarily in the top five each race, he said.
Of the tracks the duo have raced on, both said they feel most comfortable on the Huron track.
“A lot of it is the camaraderie,” Wranek said.
The two even met their wives on the race track. While pitting for Johnson at a Watertown race 13 years ago, he met his wife Heather. Her cousin, Chris Johnson, was a racer in Rapid City.
Wranek grew up knowing his wife Stephanie (Kopecky) Wranek. He raced against her dad for years before they went out on their first date – a racing banquet.
“I told him racing is not an old man’s sport and now he’s my father-in-law and he gives me a hard time,” Nick Wranek said.
Stephanie Wranek grew up on the track, too, attending her first race at four months old. Although an avid race fan, she said she wasn’t set on marrying a racecar driver.
“It’s just a nice added bonus,” she said.
Now she must cheer on her brother and husband, which is nerve-wracking.
“Oh my gosh yes. I’m a nervous wreck when they’re out there,” Stephanie Wranek said. It’s hard to know whom to root for, but she mostly just hopes there’s no wreck.
Kopecky’s rookie year, he was part of 12-car pile up. He was the third running car and the racer in fourth place bumped his rear, ripping off the fuel cell. Kopecky’s car spinned and the pile up blocked the other racers from maneuvering around the accident.
“Ever since then we’ve used top of the line equipment,” he said. “Fire resistant suits, shoes, helmets – just for the simple fact I’ve seen what happens when a fuel cell explodes.”
Kopecky watched Johnson’s receive third degree burns over 30 percent of his body when his car’s fuel cell exploded.
“The more we race, the more we buy,” he said.
A week later he won a second feature race in Miller.
Kopecky works four 10-hour days as a truck driver for Farner-Bocken Company and Wranek works full time for Soukup Construction, but their second full-time job is racing.
Thursday night the cars are prepared for the weekend races. Friday and Saturday are on the track. Sunday the two unload the equipment and spend the rest of the week washing and making repairs to the cars.
“We put in a minimum of two hours a night,” he said.
Kopecky and Wranek plan to continue the racing traditions with their daughters.
Kopecky has two – four-year-old Mackenzie and eight month old Madison. Nick and Stephanie Wranek have a 2-year-old daughter Cassidy.
“She’s out there every night, saying Daddy, Daddy,” Nick Wranek said.