Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com
Published - Friday, May 02, 2008
Bean feels pressure after slow start for Team Glock
 Dexter Bean |
It’s crunch time for Dexter Bean. There is no steering, sliding, or spinning around this fact, as the 21-year-old stock car driver from Westby, Wis., needs to have a good, strong finish at Rockingham, N.C., this week. If he doesn’t, the screws, as they say, will continue to tighten on the ARCA RE/MAX Series driver.
Big Brother isn’t watching the former Westby Whiz, but Team Glock is.
Bean, in his first year driving for Team Glock, has not had the type of start that they — or he — expected. In the first four races of the 21-race ARCA schedule, finishes of 22nd, 22nd, 35th, and 19th are not what this partnership between Glock, Jeff Spraker Racing Enterprises, or Bean was supposed to be all about.
The time to finish well — or better yet, win — is now.
“There is definitely some more pressure there,” said Bean, who moved to Mooresville, N.C., last fall to be near the team’s racing headquarters. “Last year, you go to a race with a family-owned team and finish in the top 10 and you feel good and you are really happy all the way around.
“This year when you have a team that has put a lot of bucks in you, they expect you to be there competing for the win, and for the championship.”
Don’t get the idea Bean’s shaking in his race boots. He’s not. But he’s smart enough, savvy enough, and experienced enough in the racing world to know that if things don’t turn around soon, the ending likely won’t be a happy one.
So what has gone wrong?
Well, you name it, it’s happened to Team Glock. In the season-opening racing at Daytona on Feb. 9, one of the bolts in the transmission linkage was sheared off, leaving him without fourth gear. If you know anything about Daytona, and the fact that fourth gear is the highest gear in Bean’s race car, well, it’s like putting your passenger car shift lever in
No. 1, not drive, and listening to your engine rev as you attempt to keep up with Interstate traffic.
It’s not a good situation to be in. And before you ask, no, Bean was not shifting when this happened. He was coming out of Turn 2 at 180 mph when it broke.
“I was just riding along and all of a sudden, it went ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing,” Bean said. “I had an in-car camera, and when they put it on replay, you could hear what I was talking about.”
At the next race, Salem, Ind., on April 13, Bean was running in fourth place when he got caught up in lap traffic. That, in itself, wasn’t all that bad. What happened 10 laps later was. A big wreck happened in front of him, and when he slowed down, he was tagged from behind and pushed right into the mess.
“It was wrong place, wrong time,” Bean said.
Fast forward to April 19 at Newton, Iowa, and Bean was running in third place when his right-front tire blew. The key tire on a race car? Yes, it’s the right front. What happens when it blows?
“I went right into the wall,” Bean said. “It messed up the car, punctured the exhaust.”
Oh well, Bean’s been through all of this before, right? Yes, he’s dealt with his share of bad luck, and overcame nearly all of it last year when he finished third in the season points standings despite being a lower-budget team without a major sponsor.
So he’s ready to turn it around, right?
Well, not yet. His car simply wasn’t competitive April 25 at Kansas City, Kan., as it kept bottoming out on the track. Again, if you know racing, that’s not a good thing. What made matters worse is that Bean and his spotter (the guy who is on top of the race tower and tells the driver when its safe to zip in and out of traffic, when to pass, when to stay put, etc.) were not on the same wave length.
In fact, there were not even speaking during the second half of the last race as the spotter’s radio quit working.
“If you don’t have a spotter, and they (race officials) know about it, you get parked in a hurry until you get it fixed,” Bean said. “These cars, they have more tubes and more roll bars. You have an air hose that runs to your helmet, roof flap cables that are hanging down. It is tough to see out of them.”
In other words, a spotter is critical to a driver’s success. That, in part, is why the team’s crew chief, Jeff Spraker, will serve as Bean’s spotter this week at Rockingham. Cashton’s Tony Bagstad had served as Bean’s spotter that last several years, but Bagstad is now racing every weekend at the
La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway.
“We made some changes this week. Jeff is going to the top of the tower, but he will be the primary crew chief as well,” Bean said. “It’s not that we are having trouble. We are getting good race cars, it’s just that we are having bad luck. The morale around the shop is still really good.
“This week, we just need to be there at the end. If we can do that, I think we can come home with a top 10, or even a top five.”
Jeff Brown can be reached at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com
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