All or Nothing

           This week’s racing was wild, to say the least.  Denny Hamlin had his charity race down in Richmond, Thursday night.  Denny wrecked on the first lap, but Tony Stewart went on to win the race.  On a side note to that race, Jeff Burton built a brand new late-model to compete in Denny’s race, it will become his oldest son’s car- who is only 14; must be nice- thanks Dad!  Saturday night saw a pretty subdued race until Carl Edwards was black flagged for jumping a restart.  Stewart was the leader but spun his tires big time on the restart, which made Carl’s superb restart look like a jump.  Stewart can thank NASCAR for saving his butt, instead berated his team pretty bad after the race for a less than stellar final pit stop.  Kyle Busch went on to claim the victory for his fourth in a row in the Richmond spring race.  In the Grand-Am Series, Max Angelelli and Ricky Taylor claimed a race that was shortened by rain.  It was actually raining pretty hard the whole race, and give the Series credit for trying to get the race in, Mother Nature had the final word though.

            Last week I kind of went off about an article I read about Josef Newgarden.  While I am still somewhat upset about his remarks about a rather brazen first lap move, I have better things to spend my time on- like preparing our cars for our first race.  On the bright side, at least his team has some job security. 

            I have been told that I am an “All or Nothing” kind of guy.  No, not the “All or Nothing” bail it in to turn one on the first lap of a race and end up taking myself out kind of guy (sorry, I couldn’t resist the Newgarden reference); I’m very intense about what I do.  You could say I have Tunnel Vision when it comes to my racing career.  For the most part, the people in my life- I think- have come to terms with that and try to deal with it.  It certainly makes me a difficult person to live with some times.  I’m not particularly proud of this, for it usually causes more problems than it is worth.  However, if you look at history, some of the most successful people in the world have 3 divorces to their credit with children and family that can’t stand them and live alone in a giant house.  I certainly do not want this for myself, but I can understand where these folks come from.

            Coming down to the later part of 2004, I was second in points, winless for the year, pretty much out of racing budget, getting married in a couple of weeks, and had a fiancé that wasn’t happy with me at all.  First you have to know, I have excellent “Hind” sight, but my “Fore” sight (at that time) was pretty fuzzy.  Here I was, able to go racing, getting married to a pretty girl who could put up with, and at times enjoy the sport of racing, and I was second in points.  I should have been more thankful for what I had.  Like I said before, All or Nothing.  I wasn’t satisfied with what I had, and started to sacrifice other parts of my life to try and obtain more from my racing life.

            Whether you are religious, or not, a Marriage is a sacred bond.  It is little more than a promise, but a promise of your trust, love and life - one that should be made with your head in the right place- clear and screwed on straight.  Not as an afterthought to the racing season, and not one you aren’t properly prepared for.

            Now this isn’t about Marriage, but is about life, and how you go about living your life.  I pretty much had second place locked up for the year, and I wanted a win real bad.  I tried everything I knew to change on the car, and in the last race of my season, I led every lap of our feature and won the race.  For what it’s worth, I did do a pretty awesome burnout down the front stretch before I went to

Victory Lane

.  For me, I was on top of the World.  I had finally won a race that season.

            My fiancé, whose name is Michelle, was happy too, but looking back- she was happy for a different reason.  She was happy the season was over.  The wedding was the next week, and after a cruise for a honeymoon it was back to normal- and back in the shop.  Racing doesn’t have an off season, and I was starting to prepare for my next big step.  I had bought an ARCA short track car from Bobby Gerhart.

            Next week we will dive into the ARCA car and all that I had on my plate during that time.  Special thanks to Larry and Big Ed from “Michigan Race Talk” WFNT 1470 AM, for having me on the show last week.  It was fun to talk racing with them, and filling them in on the NASA series and our division “Performance Touring”.  Thanks for stopping by again this week to check the blog out, and follow me on twitter @justinonderko.  Check out our “peerbackers.com” site as well, log on and search “Onderko Motorsports” to find out more info.  Our car is headed to the Dyno next week to declare our horsepower for the year, and the first race countdown has begun. Till next week. . .