Joe Wabsis found the left-front corner of his car sheared off last Friday. It occurred during the sport mod feature at Mohave Valley Raceway in Arizona.
“I was doing a slide job on the zero car [driven by Dakota Girard, of Moberly, Missouri,],” said Wabsis, of Pahrump, Nevada. “The track was slimy at the top and most of my car slid off the track on the backstretch, with just the front edge hanging over the edge at the top of the track. [Girard] nailed [the left-front corner] and the spindle broke off clean. It looked like it was cut by a knife.”
Wabsis has raced since 2013. He won the IMCA sport mod points championship last season at the Arizona oval.
“I never had anything like that happen before,” Wabsis said. “People started yelling for me to keep going. ‘You don’t need a left front to race,’ they said.”
He resisted following the crowd’s advice.
“I know the crate engine would bottom out,” said Wabsis. “I’d rip a hole in my pan and then I’d have to send it back to get fixed at an authorized repair shop. If I had the open engine in, I would have the power to keep the left front up all the way around the track.”
Wabsis parked the car for the night, made repairs, and raced on Saturday. He had a much better day then, finishing fourth in the feature.
Joe Wabsis travels far from his Pahrump home to race. It takes him three hours to haul to Mohave Valley Raceway. However, he enjoys competing with his sport mod at a variety of tracks in the West. That includes tracks as far as five hours away, such as Barona Speedway in California, or at dirt ovals that are closer to home.
“We’ll be at the Northern Nevada Modified Tour in July,” Wabsis said. “It’s great to race against the big hitters this season. We’ve gotten plenty of seconds — we’ll be looking for more wins this year.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
