“The man who does his work, any work, conscientiously, must always be in one sense a great man.” Dinah Maria Mulock

Mystic Missle Racing On the Verge of Their First Championship;
An Interview With Car-Owner Bob Garbarino and His New Driver, Donny Lia

By

Deane Mercier

Editors Note: With his 7^th place finish in the CarQuest 150 at Stafford Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 30, Donny Lia clinched the 2007 NASCAR Whelen Modified Series Championship. 

October 1, Norwalk, CT--- Prior to the start of the 2007 NASCAR Whelen Modified Season, longtime car-owner Bob Garbarino decided to put Donny Lia behind the whell of his yellow #4 Mystic Missle Dodge. Lia' taking over the driving duties of the #r4 car meant a merging of Garbarino's and Lia's two-team personnel, and the pairing has been absolutely on fire this season, wining 6 of the 15 races held thus far during the 2007 season.

Garbarino and Lia enter this weekend's CarQuest Fall Final event with a 155-point lead over Todd Szegedy in the chase for he 2007 championship. Should Lia have another solid run at Stafford, where he's already won 2 of 3 events this season, Lia could deliver to Garbarino his first Whelen Modified Tour championship.

Pitstopper's Deane Mercier sat down with Garbarino and Lia this past weekend at Thompson Speedway to collect their thoughts on seasons past, the 2007 season, and the future of the Tour.

DM:  Bob, the origin, the genesis of Mystic Missile Racing, I know it goes back a lot of years. 

BG:  I had my first modified in 1961. For some reason we had two cars and we needed to distinguish between the two cars, the Missile was one and the Rattler was the other. 

DM:  Who were your drivers back then? 

BG:  At that point it was Dick Watson and Teddy Stack. They drove those two cars; Dick drove the #4 and Teddy drove the #41. We had a V-41 and a V-4.  The V has kind of gone off with time, gone away. 

DM:  Along with those two drivers you’ve had a host of great drivers sit behind the wheel of you cars; Bugsy Stevens, Ed Flemke Sr., Ken Schrader, Geoff Bodine and Tim Connolly. 

BG:  I’ve been blessed when it comes to drivers. It just seemed like whenever we needed somebody there was a quality guy out there. I think a lot of it is good luck. Most of those guys are good friends of mine. 

 We had a good experience with all of them. They were all different, completely different 

DM:  How did you get involved with the Modified Tour? 

BG:  Well I was obviously a modified owner and when the tour came along and the weekly racing thing was something we wanted to get away from, running the same race track every week, week in and week out, so we got on the Tour from day one and we’re still here. 

DM:  How did the teaming of you and Donny Lia come about? 

BG:  Last fall we about decided that we were probably not going to continue racing because things weren’t where they needed to be and the guys were busy. The crew situations nowadays are so critical. Its so tough to find a half dozen guys who can tell their wives, girlfriends or boss that they’re not going to be where they want them to be so we decided that we’d probably pack it in. 

 Then Donny called me in February, somewhere around then, and he was trying to get out, you know, he was trying to be a one-man band. It seemed like an unlikely pairing I guess to some people but I had a good feeling about it. It seems to be working out. 

DM:  So that changed your mind about retirement?

BG:  It gave me a way to accomplish something or try to accomplish something with people. Donny brought some people with him, he brought some youth and that always helDM in this game. 

DM:  What attributes, as a driver, does Donny Lia have that you like and respect as an owner? 

BG:  He is quietly confident. Most people probably wouldn’t think that he is a quiet person but he is. He is very focused and he is confident. He has confidence in himself and he makes other people confident about what they’re doing for him. 

DM: Other than being the driver he is a good member of the team. 

BG:  Absolutely.  He is like an elephant when it comes to remembering things. He remembers things that happened on lap three of a 150-lap race. He is very tuned in to holding onto thoughts that are important.    

DM:  You’ve come close over the years to winning a championship, with s good run here today at Thompson you could clinch the title. What’s going through your mind on that? 

BG:  I’m trying to keep it out of my mind frankly. I don’t think that, there’s a lot of competitors out there that justifiably want to be were we are and we just have to do our thing. Wherever it falls it falls.  I told the guys on a number of occasions here late in the season ‘guys work on today’s race, don’t be looking down the road.’ I’ve been here, maybe not this close, but I’ve been what I consider close in the closing stages of the year and it didn’t happen for one reason or another. This is a tough game; it can bite you real fast. 

DM:  What’s the toughest part about the “game” as far as an owner is concerned? 

BG:  Getting the right people with the right chemistry together. I think that’s really the owner’s job. People think the owner is the guy that’s buying parts and it’s really not that. It’s about aligning people. 

There are a lot of people who can do a lot of these jobs but if you put them all together they have to have chemistry to work together. I think that’s the toughest job. 

DM:  How do you view the future of the Modified Tour? 

BG:  The death knell of this tour was written the day it started by a lot of people and that hasn’t happened and I don’t think it’s going to happen, I don’t see it happening. Whelen is putting in a tremendous amount of effort. Phil Kurze takes long strides but I think he’s moving this thing along in those strides also. 

DM:  So you see a bright future for the tour. 

BG:  I think so. I think there are places that it needs to be that it isn’t and I know there’s a lot of work in those areas. I think that they tried some things this year and I think it opened eyes, the eyes of the competitors a little bit, and maybe opened some of the sanctioning body’s eyes also as to what you can and can’t do with this kind of a touring series. 

  If you look at the guys that are in it and the teams that have supported it and continue to support it I think that’s what tells you what the future is. 

DM:  Would you like to see the schedule increase? I know when it started out it ran something like 29 races and over the course of the years it is somewhere between 16 and 20 on an annual basis. Is that a good schedule? Would you like to see a few more races? 

BG:  Quantity isn’t always the answer. I think it’s the quality that you want to be looking for. I think you could stand two or three more races but I think they’ve got to be real high-end events. Not in effect flash racing type racing. If you’re going to add to the schedule it really needs to be at venues where these cars can run good and can look good.   I think 20 is a good number but it isn’t the quantity it’s the quality that they have to add. 

DM:  Flash races. You’re take on them. 

BG:  Obviously nobody was happy about it because of the format of the races themselves and lets say the purse structures and some of those issues. I think unfortunately they started in the wrong place. It started in a place that is very, very difficult to compete in and also it has it’s own class of tour style cars that run there. I think there was just a lot of animosity on both sides when the event got there. 

  I think there are some places you could pull that event off that didn’t have a flash race but in my opinion should have and it would have gotten the competitors into it with a little better taste in their mouth rather than have an upheaval the first day out. 

DM:  What was your first gut reaction when you found out about the flash races? 

BG:  I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t happy because we didn’t get, what we found out was that there was going to be some non traditional events, we didn’t know where, we didn’t know how they were going to run. The information was kind of metered out on a very slow rate. We were kind of right up against the wall before we really knew what we were up against. 

DM:  Would you like to see them (flash races) continue in 2008 season? 

BG:  I think there is a need for us to go to places we’re not at and show case this tour. But I think you have to be careful of where you send us.  

DM:  What would be some of the places you would like to see the tour go to? 

BG:   Well, without question we belong at Richmond Speedway. I don’t think there is any question in my mind about that. There are some other events a little further away from here. Raceway Park in Indianapolis. It’s kind of a long haul but it’s a nice place to race. If you’re there at the right time I think you could do the tour a lot of good at a place like that. 

DM: This year and in past years the bulk of the Modified Tour races have been held and split between Thompson and Stafford Motor Speedway, nine races on those two tracks this year. Would you like to see some of those races moved to other tracks or are you happy with running five and four at these two state tracks? 

BG:  I think you have to look at those places and they’ve supported this series from day one. I think you have to be careful and not do something that’s going to hurt them because they’ve stood behind this thing when other people walked away from it. I think that that’s ok. I just think we need to add a few races but they’ve got to be at quality places and be a quality race. 

 I think two or three flash race type of things to get a new small track involved. I think Beech Ridge is a perfect place to have a flash race. You don’t get in much trouble at Beech Ridge so you can go up there and say ‘I’m going to go and probably put my car in the truck without to many dents in it and come home.’ 

That’s how I feel about it.

                                                     ****************

DM:  Donny, for those who don’t know, when and where did your racing career begin? 

DL:  It began in the middle of ’99 at Riverhead Raceway driving a Legends car. 

DM:  When did you decide to make the jump to the Modified Tour? 

DL:  We started dabbling with it in 2002. We ran half a season at Riverhead weekly and then half the season trying to qualify for tour races. We didn’t make many tour races, I think we made maybe five or six. 

  I ran a couple of tour races in ’01 but really running more than a couple of races was in ’02 and then I ran the full season in ’03. 

DM:  You’re having, arguably, one of the best seasons any driver on the Modified Tour has had, what do you attribute that to? 

DL:  Chemistry. It sounds redundant; it’s the answer you expect. But that’s really what it is. Everybody works together extremely well on my team. My crew chief and my car chief work together well and they both know what I need. We have great baseline set-ups.

 Another thing I attribute it to is some real good fortune and luck out there on the racetrack.  We’ve had our fair share of luck out there. Some luck we made for ourselves and other luck we just kind of stepped into. 

 Overall just hard work. These guys work on this racecar in the shop day and night. They are way ahead of themselves, we’ll be ready to go to a race, leave on Friday, and the car is done and on the ground ready to go usually on a Tuesday night. Then they’re working on the other car for the following week. 

 Just really hard work put in by Bob and Greg and Jimmy and Skip and Richard at the shop.  

 Those are probably the three or four main ingredients but at the end of the day it’s really everything. Those are the ones that stick out. 

DM:  Bob Garbarino has had some legendary drivers the wheel of his cars, Bugsy Stevens, Tim Connolly, Ken Schrader, Geoff Bodine, Ed Flemke Sr. How does it feel to be in that kind of company? 

DL:  It’s a really special deal for me. I’m still new in this game and Bob gave me the shot to drive this car this year and up until this year we’ve had some good success but sometimes I wonder if it warranted a seat in the Mystic Missile. He gave me the shot and for that I thank him. For him to have that faith in me to drive the car is a special deal even before we ever did anything this year, just for him to say ‘you’re in the car’ was a real special deal. 

 Like you said he has had some of the best drivers to ever come around and drive a modified so for me to be on that list of names is pretty special. I don’t really consider myself as one of those guys, maybe one day down the road but definitely not now. 

  It boosts your confidence as a driver when you know that you have a guy like Bob behind you and wants you to drive his cars and that means he believes in you and he ranks you up there with the top guys. 

DM:  As a driver, having the relationship with the owner, in this case Bob Garbarino, that has to be a big help. 

DL:  WE get a long good. We see eye to eye on most everything and you need that otherwise it’s just not going to work. I’ve learned a lot from him and his crew, the guys that have been with him for a long time. I brought a few guys with me for pit stops and stuff.

  As far as he is concerned the guys that have been with him for a long time, just the experience there that they have, the years of knowledge outweighs anything that I could have ever brought to the table. Combine that with some youthful exuberance and we’ve been able to put a package together, that in my mind, in my eyes, from the top down is unbeatable. We’ve proven that many times this year.  

DM:  Speaking of youthful and exuberance, you’re a completely different driver this year than you’ve been in past years. Maturity has come about. 

DL:  A lot of people say that. For me, personally, I feel like I’m always doing the same thing behind the wheel. There were times a couple of years ago where I got a little worked up now I try to keep that all leveled out. I’ve been doing a pretty good job of it I think. 

  There are a time when I say ‘wow’; I’ll watch a race on video and say ‘that was a pretty smart move’ but I’m not really thinking that way when I’m in the car. It comes with time. Like I said, I’m fairly new, this is my fifth season and I still have a lot to learn but I’ve learned quite a bit the last couple of years and I’ve been applying that and I think that shows in what you’re saying about the maturity level and just being smart out there. 

  The biggest thing I’ve learned is that you can’t win a race if you’re not finishing the race. For me when I get in that racecar I’m thinking about finishing that race before I’m thinking about winning. If that means I have to take my time, be a little more patient than the next guy, that’s what I’m going to do. We’ll race it out in the end but I want to be there for the last 20-25 laps. That’s what I focus on and we’ve been able to do a really good job of that this year. 

  There’s a lot more to that than just my mindset behind the wheel. There’s a lot of things involved, luck, pit stops, just performance, running well. There’s a lot more to it that needs to be credited than just me driving. 

DM:  What is the mindset as you’re on the verge of clinching the Whelen Modified Tour championship?

DL:  I try not to think about that. Every week we do the same thing, which is to concentrate on what we need to do to put ourselves in position to win this race, this week, and that’s it.  The points take care of themselves at that stage. I don’t think about the points. I just don’t think about it. I just get into the racecar and do what we do every single week and I’ll think about the points when we clinch the championship but until we clinch it I’m just going to get in the car and race like we do every week. 

Deane Mercier worked in radio for 35 years as a DJ and talk show host. He is currently the Host Broadcaster for Stafford Motor Speedway and is a Motorsports correspondent for the Hour Newspaper (CT).  Deane may be contacted at DeaneMercier@aol.com.

Long Island Motorsports News encourages you to patronize our fine sponsors---

Disclaimer:  Views expressed by columnists and all others on this website are strictly their own, and may not necessarily reflect the views and/or opinions of the management of Long Island Motorsports News.