On his 15th try, Andy Jankowiak was able to finally win the Allentown Indoor Auto Race. After that, he went from racing a small TQ midget within the tight confines of the PPL Center to a big ARCA car at the massive Daytona International Speedway for testing.
“You’re talking two opposite ends of the universe,” said Jankowiak, of Tonawanda, New York. “It’s small and light opposed to big and heavy. It’s a small, flat track opposed to a big superspeedway with high banking. The TQ midgets have an incredible horsepower-to-weight ratio, with lots of torque. Superspeedway racing is all about momentum.”
Despite those huge differences, there’s some commonality between the two, besides having an engine and four wheels.
“Both forms of racing have G-forces, but they work in opposite ways,” Jankowiak said. “The banking of the superspeedway creates a body sensation that you are being pushed down into the seat. In the TQ midget, your body feels like it is being pushed to the right.”
Both disciplines also demand similar things from drivers.
“Either in a TQ or an ARCA car, you have to be smooth on the wheel to make fast laps,” said Jankowiak. “On the superspeedway, you strive for the perfect line, lap after lap. In the TQ midget, you try to stay an inch away from the tires, lap after lap. Even though one is banked, the other is flat, you still strive for a perfect line.”
Jankowiak added that his time behind the wheel of a TQ midget helps him in a large pack of cars at Daytona.
“TQ racing improves a driver’s reflexes and timing because you have to make quick decisions,” Jankowiak said. “This helps a driver be better, faster, even in a different car, on a bigger track.”
In victory lane after winning the Ironton Global Allentown Indoor Auto Race, Andy Jankowiak hammed it up with the trophy in the form of a phone and with Ms. Motorsports Megan Williams.
“I was pretty emotional after the win,” said Jankowiak. “The race was intense, fast paced—the kind of high reflex form of racing that offers a challenge that I enjoy. But when it was over, it was time to exhale, and that phone trophy is unique and super cool, so we showed our love for it.”
Intense. Fast-paced. High reflex. Sounds a lot like how racers describe Daytona. Jankowiak’s best finish at the Florida speedplant was a sixth in 2022. Will his fifth time at Daytona be the moment he breaks in another victory lane? Time will tell, but if Jankowiak does, he might not ever let go of that trophy.
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.
Photographers
The Outside Groove contributor from Macungie, Pennsylvania, has covered the sport since 2012. Sabo serves as the official track photographer of Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Photography is a family ordeal for Sabo. He shoots with his daughter, Abby, at Shellhammer Dirt Track in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. At Grandview and other venues Sabo travels to, he and his father, Stephen “Poppa Pepper” Sabo Sr., capture the night’s action with their cameras.
