Book Review: Gotta Race! Posted April 26, 2006, www.stockcarpitpass.com Gotta Read Gotta Race! By Dennis Michelsen Quite often autobiographies of racecar drivers are not that interesting. The magnifying glass is on just about everything they do so there are not many surprises left for the book. Or perhaps the thing reads as one of those "Gee look how great I am" books or is so smoothed over by the ghostwriter that it doesn't sound like the driver had anything to do with the project. Ken Schrader along with longtime friend and author Joyce Standridge have set a new standard for racecar driver autobiographies with "Gotta Race!" Kenny Schrader is one of those old-time racers that is still racing as often as he can. While NASCAR fans that have just discovered the sport the past few years think of him as that mid-pack racer with the clever comments on Inside Nextel Cup on SPEED TV, there was a time that Kenny was racing for the win every Sunday. But his Winston/Nextel Cup career is just the tip of the iceberg with Schrader and perhaps that's why his story was more interesting than others. This guy will literally race anywhere at any time on any surface! Last season alone he campaigned in over 100 races at over 50 different racetracks, for the record he won five features. "Gotta Race" will introduce you to many of the characters that Kenny calls family and friends as well as his journey up the racing ladder. "Rain hard enough and fast enough, there'd be spare tires floating. You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody who'd heard of Lake Hill Speedway but to those of us who called it our home track it was the best. Anybody who's had their own home track knows what I mean," says Schrader. After only twenty laps of practice on the track the day he turned sixteen, Kenny went on to win his first three feature races on this tight little bullring. Like so many short tracks it is only a memory now. How did this second generation racer from Valley Park, Missouri end up racing against the best in the business? Read "Gotta Race" because it is a tale that just defies logic in trying to explain! Whether racing in front of 200,000 screaming NASCAR nuts at Daytona or in front of a cozier crowd at some dirt track in the Midwest, Kenny works just as hard for the win. Being there for the first "NASCAR Night" of the season at Paducah International Speedway, I saw Kenny hop out of his car to hurry to the fence to watch the next heat race. Now THAT is a racing junky! Why did Kenny Schrader choose racing for a career? "Racing was more than a way to avoid getting a real job. You can be a junkie on drugs or a junkie on racing," says Schrader. He also jokes that he wasn't exactly Harvard material either, but racing was all he cared about anyway. "Who had time for geometry or geography? Rolla was an oval-how's that for geometry? And it was 86 miles southwest of home-that's all the geography I needed that week," quipped Schrader about his first trip to another track to race. His urge to drive anything and everything started as a way to pay the bills. Now it is done just to feed the racing habit! "Everything in Ken's life was racing, " said his mother June Cox. "If he was going up the street, he would run and call it laps!" One of the events that brought some national attention to Kenny Schrader on his way up the racing ladder was the 1982 USAC Silver Crown Championship. Kenny explains how this happened purely by accident and might have never happened at all without the help of sprint car legend Sheldon Kinser. Schrader backed up his championship with a USAC Sprint Car Championship in 1983, while finishing second in Silver Crown and third in the Midget division that same year! If not for a wicked crash when he lost a tire during his rookie test at Indianapolis, Kenny would have added a start in the Indianapolis 500 to his resume in 1983 too! "Gotta Race" is chock-full of such great stories. You can tell a lot about a person by the company they keep and if they remember their roots. Kenny Schrader is one of those guys that made the big time but always knew that so many talented local racers are just as good…but never got the break. Kenny has raced with some of the legendary teams in NASCAR from characters like Junie Donlavey (Who Kenny still refers to as Mr. Donlavey) to championship owner Rick Hendricks. He has rubbed fenders with some of the greats on the track too, from NASCAR legends Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt to Midwest short track legends Don Klein and Dick Trickle. But Kenny's viewpoint about fame and fortune is best summed up by this quote from the book. "The winner in life is not the guy who dies with the most toys. You can't take them with you anyway. I'm not opposed to having a lot of toys, I do believe you can have them as long as you didn't earn them off the backs of other good people." "If he'd had just a little bit more luck, I believe he would have been a legend on the order of Earnhardt," said veteran St. Louis racer Don Klein. Many that raced against Schrader over the years echo that same theme. "I don't look backwards," said Schrader. "Life as you know isn't about the maybes!" You just don't win the championships he has including the NASCAR Rookie of the Year in 1985 without making an impression on your fellow competitors. But Kenny might be just as famous (Or is it infamous) for his post-race partying. "Our little group consists of Tom the Lawyer, Walter the Tile Man, and me, but it always expands to include anyone else brave enough to come along" said Tim Crist, better known as Tim the Banker. "Only requirement is that you have to revert to irresponsible childhood until you come home. You know you're going to be the last people to leave (the track). I've seen security give him the keys and tell him to lock up!" In case you think life is just fun and games with Kenny Schrader think again. He understands that racing has its dark side too…he has lived it. One night after winning his heat race, his co-owner and good friend Hank Green had a massive stroke as the team began to celebrate. "I got a lesson that we don't come into the world with any guarantees," said Schrader. On another occasion Kenny was racing at the Indianapolis Speedrome when USAC Midget racer Johnny Gall's throttle stuck sending him into the wall and clipping a light pole. "It was a wake up call, a reminder that we're not playing tiddly-winks here." Maybe the most well known encounter Schrader had with the Grim Reaper though was at Daytona in 2001 when NASCAR legend and close friend Dale Earnhardt died on the final lap. Fans knew the instant Kenny was waving wildly for help that something awful had occurred. When asked by Richard Childress about the Intimidator's condition all Kenny could say was, "I mean hurt. Like, maybe no good at all." Schrader adds, "I've never talked about those few minutes with anybody in detail and I never will. I figure this is one thing that needs to be between Dale and me." Any life is full of laughs and tears and Kenny Schrader has had his share of both! As the tales unfold you will hear it in "Kenny's Voice," expertly organized and crafted into a fascinating tale by Joyce Standridge. Even if you think you know everything there is to know about Kenny Schrader think again. But this is not a sign that the end is near in his racing career. "I don't feel like stopping, so you can just put away your checkered flags," says Schrader. "I didn't write this because I was ready to quit. I just thought maybe you would like to catch up," jokes Kenny. Thirty -five years of racing has gone by like the snap of a finger to Kenny Schrader. Race fans can only hope they have at least another thirty-five years before he hangs up his race gloves! Just what will it take to get him out of the car? He already dodged a bullet with a bout with a rare disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome a few years ago. The disease can cause altered sensations, numbness, and even paralysis. Kenny outraced it and got lucky…not even missing a race because of it! "It would take a serious disease or such advanced old age that I put my helmet on backwards and don't realize it for five minutes," jokes Schrader. Race fans hope that day is a long way off. Trust me folks, you gotta read "Gotta Race!"