Race is on at Steel Valley Super Nats in Salem
By Bob Jackson
SALEM
Bob Stowe knows his teenage daughter, Katie, has a lead foot when she gets behind the wheel, and he’s OK with it. In fact, he encourages it. The faster, the better.
But only when she’s on the drag strip.
Katie, 16, drives a junior dragster and has been racing since she was 8.
Her current car, called the Viperizer, was among 1,000 or so cars, motorcycles and even snowmobiles that tore up the strip over the weekend during the Steel Valley Super Nationals at Quaker City Motorsports Park on West South Range Road just north of Salem.
Bob Stowe, 59, has been racing dragsters for years, and drives a modified 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. He was a little surprised when young Katie decided she wanted to take a turn behind the wheel.
“When we first brought her out here eight years ago, I didn’t think she’d be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said, laughing. “But on her first day, she won everything.”
Katie said the car she’s driving now was a Christmas gift three years ago from one of her sponsors, Ron Sigle of Ellwood City, Pa.
“That was a huge surprise,” she said, noting that the car was built by Mike Bos Chassis of Bluff City, Tenn., which is well-known in drag-racing circles.
Katie said that although drag racing is often perceived as a male-dominated sport, there actually are more girls than guys who drive the junior dragsters. She laughed when asked how being a racecar driver fits into the life of a typical teenager.
“I still do all the usual stuff,” she said. “Last year, I had a race on the same day as homecoming at school, so I came to the race and then got dressed for homecoming at the track.”
Her father smiled as he watched Katie give a thumbs-up before heading up the hill to make her first run of the day Saturday and said he hopes one day to be able to line up and race against her in a full-sized dragster.
“Until then, I told her she’d better find a rich boyfriend” to help finance her hobby, he said.
The Super Nats kicked off Friday and continue through today. Promoter Corey Ward said some 50,000 people from 14 states were expected to visit the event over its three-day run. More than 1,000 drivers had registered to race their cars this weekend.
This is the ninth year the event has been in Salem.
Ward said nearly 4,200 people turned out Friday night for a concert by Vince Neil, frontman for the band Motley Crue. A similar crowd was expected for a concert Saturday night by former Poison lead singer Bret Michaels.
Mike Poinski, 57, of Austintown, said he took Saturday off from both of his full-time jobs so he could come out and watch some of his colleagues from Exal Corp. race. He brought his 8-year-old grandson, Michael Dorris, with him.
“They put on a nice event here,” Poinski said, noting that he’s been to several similar shows in other cities. “These people here are very customer-oriented, and that’s important for families. That’s what I look for when I go to an event.”
Larry Shephard, 62, and his son, Cody, 22, are from Akron and had come to Salem to race the 1970 Plymouth GTX dragster they’d built together. Across the rear window, they’d written, “RIP Otie S.,” as a tribute to Otie Smith, who operated a speed shop near Akron for years before his death about two weeks ago.
“We loved the guy,” said Larry. “We just wanted to honor him that way.”
Larry said he’s been active in drag racing for years, including a stretch during which he built clutches for cars driven by legendary drag racer “Big Daddy” Don Garlits. He and Cody now operate their own business building engines and transmissions for all sorts of race cars.
“We like coming here [to the Super Nats] because we love this track,” Larry said, explaining that the car Cody was driving had a brand- new engine and transmission that hadn’t yet had a full pass down a racetrack. “We’re just testing and tuning today. We’re only doing soft runs.”
Chris Reder, 26, said he drives down to Salem every year for the Super Nats.
“I’ve always had a love for cars,” he said. “That’s what brings me out here.”
Reder said he used to build racecars himself but had to sell them to pay for school to become an automotive technician.
“It happens,” he said, smiling. “I’ll just have to start over again.”