ARCA RE/MAX Series

Photos and story © 2005 Dwight Drum
Web work by Gary Larsen

Driver NO. 5 Lucas Oil Chevrolet

Place: Daytona International Speedway
Event: 2006 ARCA RE/MAX Series Daytona practice

Bobby Gerhart is a four-time ARCA Daytona 200 winner and the only driver to accomplish back-to-back wins, 2005 and 2006. His team seems to find the precision to make his wins appear like magic on a very tough and fast track. Gerhart is not only a winner but also fields development drivers, like GR Smith in the No. 94 BGR Research Chevrolet. His work ethic appears to provide all the magic his team needs at Daytona and more. Zoomster.com was in Daytona to bring you a few good words from a winning driver.

"It's maybe an accumulation of many little things. We consistently work on the little things all the time."

Dwight asked Bobby Gerhart:

"Certainly the success is not any one thing. It's not a good engine. It's not a good car. It's not a good team. It's not a good driver. It's maybe an accumulation of many little things. We consistently work on the little things all the time. Those are where we get the gains. We get the gains not by big things we get gains by little things. Big things are what everybody else is working on. They think they're maybe going to reinvent the wheel on an engine or reinvent the wheel on a particular body. Well, it usually doesn't work that way. We spend a lot of time. I've been very fortunate where I've had the sponsorships enough where I've been able to have an in-ground dyno at my shop. We spend a tremendous amount of time on it. It has really paid us a lot of dividends."

"I have a lot of competitors in this garage area. I'm very competitive by nature. Everybody likes to win. Everybody likes to be the best at what they do. I don't think there is a race car driver that's ever got into a car anywhere and didn't think he was the best, or didn't think he wanted to win, or didn't think he was in a position to win. As far as my nature I guess I'm to some degree I'm very intense about what I do. There isn't a day goes by in 365 days where I don't think about this place or our overall restrictor plate effort. I guess character, I work extremely hard, spend a lot of hours and weeks on what I do and some places it just shows."

"I don't know for someone who has done it a lot, I don't know that really describe it because it's kind of second nature. I do work on a lot of comfort issues. We got fast by not by maybe only making my car fast, I have gotten fast by working on making me comfortable. Once we make the car comfortable, we try to keep it comfortable and then look at the speed after that."

"That's a good question and yeah, there is one point. We were here and ran here for almost a decade and had no success. It's just that we were another competitor. I spent the night over at Halifax Hospital in an awful wreck. That was the turning point. I got extremely serious about what we were doing and what we come here to do, because I understand the consequences are not always what you think they could be. I never lose thought of that. I know this is a very dangerous thing. If you're going to increase the odds about being successful, you need to be realistic about it and work at it. I do that."

"The ARCA races have proven to be from my perspective some of the best racing we'll see in Speedweeks. I know the tickets to our race are are maybe as cost-effective as any ticket in the Daytona area for Speedweeks. Come on out and enjoy a great race."