By Dick Mittman
allstate400atthebrickyard.com
Friday, August 6, 2004
First, Stevie Reeves wants it known: “I’d love to race again.”
That said, he also wants it known: “As far as working with Dale (Earnhardt Jr.), I’ve had a good time with him because second’s not good to him.”
Reeves, who grew up in a house two blocks from the third turn of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, is Earnhardt’s spotter this year. It can be a touchy and sometimes controversial job with one of the most high-profile drivers in all of motorsports.
On Sunday, Aug. 8, Reeves will be on the radio with Earnhardt, driver of the Budweiser Chevrolet, as he tries to go the full 160 laps and win his first Brickyard 400.
Earnhardt is still recovering from burns he received three weeks ago in a road-racing crash at Sonoma, Calif. The past two races he has been relieved in the race by Martin Truex Jr. and John Andretti, respectively, but still holds third place in the NEXTEL Cup Series standings as only six races remain until the top-10 cutoff point for the 10-race Chase for the NEXTEL Cup.
Earnhardt’s commercials dominate television. He has a huge following in NASCAR as a replacement for his late father. Everything that happens to him in racing is magnified.
“Everybody’s got their good days and their bad days,” Reeves said. “When something happens to the Budweiser car, it makes it sound like it’s something that has gone back weeks and weeks.
“I mean, everybody’s going to make mistakes. With the Budweiser team you can say something, it gets blown way out of proportion. For instance, like in Atlanta he was running with Tony Stewart and I was saying, ‘Outside; outside.’ He came up and got into Tony’s fender. After the race he said, ‘Man, when you’re passing somebody and you know how fast you’re going, you just kind of know when you’re clear. I wasn’t.’”
Immediately, some media placed blame on Reeves because he was a new spotter, and the contention was that the communication wasn’t clear between him and Earnhardt.
“It had nothing to do with it,” Reeves said. “It kind of gets blown out of proportion with a high-profile driver like that.”
Reeves said the fierce desire to win that Earnhardt has matches his own. When Reeves finished second during his USAC National Midget championship seasons of 1992-93, he felt terrible, he said.
He drove in the Busch series for a number of seasons, but this year has not made a start. He works as a machinist on Michael Waltrip’s Dale Earnhardt Inc. car during the week and spots for Earnhardt on weekends.
Spotting at the Speedway is particularly important, he said, because there are blind spots where the driver needs to be forewarned about traffic or other problems.
“Basically, what the spotter does is provide another set of eyes for the driver letting him know if there is a crash,” Reeves said. “Also, you can tell them if there’s another lane of the racetrack that somebody’s found that’s a little faster, just let him know that if he wants to try it.”
Reeves said the team plans for Earnhardt to go the full 400 miles this Sunday. He noted that had Earnhardt’s car had been running well last week, his driver would have toughed it out. Instead, he pulled in, and Andretti took over.
“The way the new points are at the end of the year, they’re taking all our points from us,” Reeves said. “It doesn’t make sense to take the chance of getting him hurt for the last 10 races when we’re only going to lose five points maybe by losing a spot in the points.
“As far as NASCAR goes, it kind of played into our hands with a hurt driver. Really, in previous years it would have killed us if something like that happened. It gave us time to get our driver healed for the last 10 races.”
Reeves began spotting for Ernie Irvan in 1999. He spotted for Truex last season, and he drove Andretti’s Busch car and spotted for him in the Brickyard 400 last year.
But spotting isn’t what he wants to do. He wants to drive, especially at the Speedway, particularly in the Indy 500.
“To me, Indianapolis is the only place,” he said. “This is the only place I want to make a start. The Indianapolis 500, in my opinion, is the ultimate.”
Reeves lived with grandparents Don and Betty Weaver within shouting distance of the track. He attended grade school across from the back gate, often detouring into the track in May instead of heading home. He followed John Andretti to Ritter High School a few blocks from the track and, like John, married his high-school sweetheart. Stevie and Melissa will be married 16 years in October and have two daughters, Whitney and Fayth, and a son, Hayden. The grandparents mortgaged their house to buy him his first sprint car.
Four days in Indy this week have been a real homecoming for him.
On Thursday night, he went motorcycle riding with his father, Steve, who has television and radio shows in Indianapolis featuring cycles. On Friday night, he went with the rest of the family to celebrate his grandfather’s 81st birthday. And he got to see for the first time his sister Jody Craney’s baby, Jenna, born three weeks ago.
But for the racer Stevie Reeves, no homecoming will be complete until he sees the green flag in the Indianapolis 500.
“If that chance would come,” he said, “I’d take it in a heartbeat, because that’s my ultimate dream, to run Indy.”
Brickyard 400 tickets: Tickets for the 11th annual Brickyard 400 on Aug. 8 are on sale.
Tickets can be purchased online at www.indianapolismotorspeedway.com or by calling the IMS ticket office at (317) 492-6700 or (800) 822-INDY outside the Indianapolis area. Parking and camping information also can be obtained through the ticket office.
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