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It's Been Quite A Ride

As summer comes to end, so has the stock car racing season. Recently honored during a tribute race at the Stuart Raceway was the family of the late Danny Nekolite Sr. who had raced almost 30 years.

Both his son Dan Jr. of O'Neill and grandson Daniel of Emmet have followed in his footsteps when it comes to having a passion for racing sprint cars.

"It's been quite a ride," said Dan Jr. who also has raced across Iowa, South Dakota and Nebraska, among other places, for almost 30 years.

Starting out when he was a teenager, Dan Jr.'s uncles Paul and the late Lyle Irwin, whose dad use to own the Irwin Pontiac Buick dealership in Ainsworth, built some of the first race cars in the area.

"They would build cars from scratch. They would take the bodies and just put them together and then get people to drive them," he said.

Danny Sr. drove cars for the Irwins for many years.

"When I was a little kid, I remember my dad racing when Springview, Clearwater and Ainsworth use to have tracks. And of course he raced in Stuart every Sunday night," he said. "I remember him winning races at Springview and Clearwater and thinking as I was a little kid, someday I'm going to be like that."

When he was around 15 years old, Dan Jr.'s dad put him in a stock car for the first time at the Stuart Raceway.

"It was an old coupe style car. He set me behind his seat and I wasn't strapped in or nothing, but he wanted to show me how it was done. I remember he just scared the heck out of me. He came around the corner and he was just a screamin'," he said.

Growing up as a kid around racing, Dan Jr. said he always knew he wanted to race.

"I was probably around 16 the first time they put me in a car to drive. It was one of Lyle's cars and on the first corner I spun it out. They called them modifieds back then. They weren't anything close to what they are now. It was the style of what sprint cars evolved into today," he said. "That's one of the cool things of my lifetime is I have gotten to see how the sprint cars evolved."

Before starting his family, Dan Jr. trucked out to the west coast and back for many years. During that time, his Uncle Paul would get his car ready for him to race each weekend.

"I got to see how the sprint cars have evolved to what they are today. We went from street tires all the way around and a springer front end to when they started putting torsion bars like we have now in the back," Dan Jr. said. "Then they went to four torsion bar cars in the front and back. Then the wings came along. I remember I bought a car that had torsion bars in the back and front. That is kind of what the sprint cars evolved from. I actually won a lot of races with that car. It had a front wing on it and I thought it was just so cool."

Stuart Raceway

Winning his first championship at Stuart Raceway in the early 1980s, Dan Jr. said there were a handful of times he raced at Stuart that he lost the championship by three points or less.

"It wasn't because I wasn't competitive, it was because something happened each night. For instance the night Jim Kubart of Atkinson won, I had Scott Shelhammer of O'Neill driving another car of mine. I was already three points ahead of him so all I had to do was finish behind him. I'm following Jim and all of a sudden Scott comes out of nowhere. He hit me and he took my front end out. The rules back then were if you were not blocking the traffic they didn't stop the race. I was just on the inside of the track. It had broke my tire rod anyways, so it didn't matter. But I had to just sit there and watch Jim Kubart win the race, get six points and beat me by three points. It was heartbreaking. One of my own cars took me out," he said.

Reminiscing about racing at Stuart Raceway, Dan Jr. said if he could mention anyone he absolutely loved to race against, it was Kubart.

"When you passed Jim Kubart all you did was make him mad and he was coming right back at you. He always raced you clean. It was so fun to race against him because he never gave up. He was such a competitor. I just loved racing against Jim. He had the blue 57 car," he said.

One of his favorite memories at Stuart Raceway was during one of the special Fourth of July races.

"Jim and I started on the back row. We both got around everybody. It was just a dog fight. It was probably the most exciting race I had ever been in. We were wheel to wheel, side by side all the way around the track. He got a little lead on me and then I'd get a little lead on him. I wound up winning the race, but he was right beside me," he said. "I will never forget it. When I looked up everyone in the grandstands were on their feet and cheering. The place was packed. We really put on a show. A lot of people came up to us and told us what a great race it was to watch."

Dan Jr. said he also enjoyed racing against Danny Brown, formerly of Stuart, and Dennis Hansen of Meadow Grove.

"Dennis Hansen was another one I always enjoyed racing against too. He put up a pretty good fight," he said.

After he was married and had kids at home, Dan Jr. began to start trucking locally and was able to work on his sprint cars himself.

"I have to give a lot of credit to my wife Deb and the kids because racing just consumed my life. I was probably the biggest sprint car fanatic in Holt County back then. That's what we did every weekend," he said.

Raceway Accident

Expanding his horizons, Dan Jr. moved on from Stuart Raceway and began racing in the 1990s at I-80 Speedway in Greenwood on Fridays, Eagle Raceway on Saturdays and State Fair Speedway in Lincoln on Sunday afternoons.

In the early 2000s, Dan Jr. was in a severe accident at Eagle Raceway and he did not get behind the wheel again for around five years.

"I was racing at Eagle one night. What happened was the car was lightning fast that night. And Daniel can tell you this, every once in awhile you get it right. You get it perfect. The car just goes where you want. It is the most awesome feeling in the world. It is one of those things that only happens once in awhile.

"It was one of those nights I started in like 18th. After six or seven laps, I was up to like 10th. A red flag was thrown because someone had landed upside down. When the race restarted, I broke out of the pack. There were three cars right in front of me. One was on the top and one was bottom. The car was so good, it was so fast, I knew I could cut up on those guys. I went into the corner and a guy went up on the top at the cushion. When he came down I had to get on the brakes. I just bumped him. There was a rut there and it broke the center part of my wheel. Previously I had been running above it if the cushion was high enough or straddled it. That right rear wheel hit that rut and it busted the center out of the wheel and it turned me right into the wall.

"I went straight, head on into the wall at 130 mph. My helmet came out and hit the cement wall and it tore up my shoulder. It just totally destroyed the car. There was nothing left of the car. It was just one of them deals.

"The thing of it is, with sprint car racing, when you have a bad wreck like that it plays with your mind. Anytime you get upside down in a sprint car, it's such a wild ride, it takes you a little while to get over that. That's when I put Mark Finnell of Rockport, MO, in the car. That's when we started F&N Racing. We won a lot of races together. I think we were pretty well respected at all the races. We owe Mark a lot," he said.

Racing The Big Dogs

After about five years and when F&N Racing bought a new Stewart, Dan Jr. said, "I knew it was fast and I really wanted to drive it."

Continuing to race for several more years before handing the reins over to his son Daniel, Dan Jr. got to race against a lot of racers who later made it into the national spotlight.

"I didn't get to see the kids a lot until they were old enough to go along. We started going to Knoxville, Iowa, for a week for nationals as our family vacation. They got to watch all the big boys race such as Doug Wolfgang, Danny Lasoski, James "Fireball" Jenkins and Danny Young,

"I used to race a lot with Doug Wolfgang and Danny Lasoski because they would run the 360s with us before they got big time in the 410s. I raced against those two many times. I would see them either every Saturday night at Eagle or on Friday nights at I-80.

With a somber voice, Dan Jr. remembers befriending Young of Des Moines, Iowa. In 1994, Young finished 11th at the Knoxville Nationals running his "privateer" equipment. He was later killed during a race at Knoxville, Iowa on July 19, 1995.

"You didn't beat him very often. He was lightning fast," he said.

Dan Jr. remembers the year he bought the "Jenkins" and that racing had hit a different era in sprint cars.

"No one else around here had one. They were nice looking cars. Jenkins had designed the K car which is the type of car Daniel has now. It was one of those things where it was either lightning fast or it was a piece of crap. You couldn't tell from one minute to the next what it was going to do," he said.

Racing several times against Young, the two became close friends staying at the same motel every Friday night before racing on Saturdays at Eagle Raceway.

"He was always looking at that Jenkins. I kept telling him you don't want one, don't get one. I don't like it. He went and bought one and got a 410 in it. That is what he was killed in at Knoxville the very next year. I always felt bad about that. I wish he had listened to me. I have always blamed it on that car. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't," he said. "Danny was very good. He was tough. You didn't beat Danny Young very often. He was probably one of the best drivers I ever drove against. That guy was fast, lightning fast."

"That is one of those moments in my racing career that always bothered me, but like I said before, it has been quite a ride," he said.

Now sitting in the pit area watching his son Daniel drive sprint cars at the Stuart Raceway, Dan Jr. said he is glad to see his son have the same passion as him and his father for sprint cars.

"I would like to see Daniel win a championship there someday," he said.

Also growing up watching his dad racing and helping him with the sprint car on weekends, Daniel finished fourth this season in the Limited Sprint Division at Stuart Raceway.

"I am very excited to be back in the driver's seat," Daniel said. "I would like to thank Shane Isom for being there from the start of my career and my wife Rose for her unconditional support.

"We would like to send a special thanks to Bill Hamik, Scott Shelhammer and Mark Finnell for all their support and hard work over the years," he added.

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