The ground shakes and the engine roars, an angry machine begging to be set loose. The cars line up at the start, waiting for that green flag to signal the beginning of a fast-paced event.
This adrenalin fueled, heart-pounding sport could only be racing—a competition that sends cars flying around a dirt track at speeds of up to 90 miles per hour.
To veteran driver Danny Lauer, however, it’s just another day at the racetrack.
Racing since he was young, Lauer is no stranger to the world of the speedway.
“I was around it through my uncle, who was out there a lot,” Lauer explained.
For a racecar driver, practice isn’t a daily reality, mainly due to the difficulty and expense of acquiring time on the track. Driving almost exclusively happens during competitive races—and that certainly doesn’t make the sport any less challenging. The possibility of a crash is always present, and at such high speeds, the danger is only intensified.
Such threats don’t bother Lauer, though, who finds that the best part of the sport is the difficulty.
“It is really challenging; you have a chassis and, as a driver, you need to know what to do and how to do it,” he said.
As a racer, Lauer competes in the IMCA modifieds division. Racers control a hybrid of an open wheel car and a stock car, a car with body around the back wheels but none around the front.
Lauer’s standard race is anywhere between 20 to 30 laps, and the driver is currently ranked No. 1 in his division at the Santa Maria Speedway.
And for this Nipomo native, who wants nothing more than to just be a local circle track driver, racing is for the joy of the sport.
“It’s all for pleasure,” he said. “Every dollar the car makes is put straight back into it.”
The 24-year-old’s distinguished track record as the 2008 Santa Maria Speedway Championship Winner certainly caught the attention of competitors and car owners everywhere, perhaps most importantly that of Rance and Heather Minyard.
“We competed against him with other drivers,” Rance said, “and we really liked his clean, aggressive driving style.”
After seeing what Lauer could do, Rance rented the Ventura track and interviewed Lauer. The rest is history. The dynamic driver-owner combination has been a dominating force on the track for four years now.
The dream team will be putting their skills to use on the upcoming Ventura Fair Race, where Lauer hopes to achieve his third consecutive win.
This article appears in Aug 4-11, 2011.