Mod lite driver Shane McCarron just wanted to get one more race in before year’s end. Shane and his team knew it’d be a long ride from Delaware to Smoky Mountain Speedway in Tennessee, but they didn’t know exactly how long it would be.
On Thursday, they traveled 6 hours on in their toter home before sleeping overnight in Radford, Virginia. Soon after they resumed their journey, they encountered problem.
“About 5 miles down the road, in the hills of Virginia on I-81, we started losing power,” Shane’s father, Steve, says. “It was a horrible, sinking feeling not knowing if we could make it up the next hill.”
Steve pulled off the highway to search for the issue.
“We picked up water — a lot of water — in the fuel,” Steve says. “We drained the fuel water separator. It was so full of water we drained it twice. The Cat diesel was running so rough, we had to pull the plug on the bottom of the fuel water separator tank. I took an Uber to the nearest NAPA and they had a fuel filter, but no fuel water separator. We put the filter in and limped to the next exit.”
The McCarrons made it to I-81 Service Center in Max Meadows, Virginia.
“The mechanic at I-81 Service Center said he did not repair Cats, so I got an Uber and went to the next nearest NAPA to see if they had a fuel water separator and a fuel filter,” Steve says. “I got a fuel water separator, but it didn’t help the engine run any better.”
The service center’s mechanic called a friend at Ray’s Towing who worked on Cats. Meanwhile, time continued to tick and the McCarrons had to come up with a plan. Steve rented a 28-foot U-Haul truck. One problem.
“Fitting five people into a cab built for two,” Steve says. “Two volunteers had to ride inside the box.”
They eventually rented a car at Tri-Cities Airport in Blountville, Tennessee, and they finally they arrived at Smoky Mountain Speedway on Saturday.
“Out-of-staters showing up in a U-Haul says they are die-hard racers that have seen some shit along the way,” Steve says. “The track officials — everyone in the pits —were great. They welcomed us and made us comfortable. It was a really good experience.”
The McCarrons missed the Friday practice night, but despite being unfamiliar with Smoky Mountain Speedway’s red clay, Shane McCarron finished second in the feature.
“You have to be able to overcome a terrible trip and adapt to different track conditions,” Shane says. “I loved it. We could have just turned around and went home, but we didn’t.”
At 1:15 a.m., Steve received a text saying his toter home was repaired and ready to go. For the McCarrons, the entire experience restored their faith in humanity.
“There are still first-class people in the world,” Steve says. “They didn’t have to mess with our truck on a Friday night, but they did. When one mechanic couldn’t help us, he called a friend who could. The guy worked on our truck outside in a parking lot until 1:15 in the morning, and then texted us, relieving our stress.”
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.
