Johnny
Heydenreich
|
Johnny
Heydenreich
|
|
|
John Heydenreich Handles Tony Stewart’s TQ at Rumble in the Dome By Dino Oberto....."Keeping Track", Bloomsburg Press-Enterprise Bloomsburg native John Heydenreich, through his association in USAC racing, got to become good friends with NASCAR star Tony Stewart when he was a regular with that series. By gaining a mutual association between them, it led to the pair doing some indoor racing together a few years ago. Stewart got to pilot one of Heydenreich’s midgets while the favor was repaid with a Stewart owned TQ-Midget ride. This past weekend Heydenreich again got the chance to race the Stewart car in the annual Rumble in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. Tony (Stewart) and I have been friends for several years now and I started helping his dad Nelson with this TQ and I went to the race track with him a couple times. “Then a few years ago Tony was going to run my VW Midget at the indoor show at Indy after I had a conflict with the Silver Crown car which was running at Walt Disney World. As it turned out things didn’t quite work out with the Silver Crown car so Tony asked if I would like to run his dad’s TQ that same weekend,” recalled Heydenreich. “When we got there Tony was already there and we basically just flip-flopped. He ran my midget and I ran his TQ. We both looked like we were going to win that night but each of us wound up getting crashed out. But that’s indoor racing. Heydenreich can always be counted on as odds on favorite. A past winner of the Chili Bowl Nationals and always a top finisher on the indoor scene, he has earned the respect of many of the best open-wheel racers in the country. The deal for this year’s race actually came about while Heydenreich bumped into Stewart during the million-dollar to win Sprint car race at Eldora Speedway last September. “I talked to him last year at Eldora during the Mopar Million. It just happened to transpire then. I walked up to him and said ‘Tony what are you up to?’ “He said Heydenreich what are you doing for the indoor stuff? Do you want to run that TQ of mine and I said hell yeah.” With that Heydenreich was set. And not only would he be driving the TQ but he also brought along his midget car that is owned by Allentown’s Joe Gander. That car and Heydenreich got a lot of hype as they were being used in an advertising poster to promote the event. Its paint scheme was done as a replica of Parnelli Jones’ 1963 #98 Indy 500 wining roadster. The Rumble in the RCA Dome is the third in a series of indoor events that runs during the off-season. The first one took place in late December in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Then it was on to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals which is the premier indoor event. That affair attracts upwards of 150-plus cars. “It’s not quite at the level of what Tulsa is,” said Heydenreich on the Indy event. “But they did a really good job of advertising and promoting and a lot of good drivers and cars were there.” Although his weekend did not fare so well, 19th in the TQ feature while engine woes and a bad set of tires kept him out of the midget main, Heydenreich was still keeping a positive outlook. “We had motor problems all day with the TQ. We were up in the transfer spot in our heat race and the engine gave us problems. Then in the semi we had to start dead last and we were going for the win with three (laps) to go and the motor laid down again. “The promoters gave Stewart an option because we were just so fast. We had the fastest car all during practice. We were fast, we just had motor problems.” |
|
Send mail to
webmaster@johnnyheydenreich.com with questions or comments about this web
site.
|