SHOP TALK with Joe Bush
Coors Light Late Model Points Leader

by Brian Nelson

     Hard as it may be to believe, Joe Bush never wanted to be a race car driver. Though his father (John Bush) had raced at tracks throughout Michigan before Joe's birth, the sport never really piqued this attention as a kid. That is, until the day Joe and his buddy Denny saw an old sportsman race car for sale in the newspaper.

   "Joe never went to the races," said his friend and Crew Chief Denny Pierce. "Then we saw this car in the paper.  It was cheap."

   "We thought it'd be a neat thing to try," said Joe.  "We weren't even that serious about it, but once we started, we couldn't stop. We were hooked."

   Little did Bush know that what started as a half-hearted idea would grow into a passion for speed that would drive him all the way to the sport's elite levels.
 
   "We got started in this 1974 Chevy Nova sportsman car - the one we bought in the paper," Joe said, "and wound up running it for three years."

   Joe's first green flag laps were run at Kalamazoo Speedway in 1984.

  "Back then, Kalamazoo ran on Friday night's and Berlin ran Saturdays," Joe said. "So we decided to run full seasons at both tracks."

  But despite pouring a lot of effort into set-ups for two completely different tracks, Joe and his team would be forced to wait more than three years for their first taste of victory.

   "We got our first win on Thanksgiving weekend in 1987," said Joe. "It was the Enduro race at Kalamazoo. We won a thousand dollars that night...a bigger paycheck than any of the usual races run there."

   Ever since, special races with high-dollar winnings have been a great attraction to the Bush team.  

   "Remember when we won the Main Event race in Columbus?,"  Denny asked Joe.

   "Yeah that was the night we won sixteen-thousand dollars," Joe replied.

  They had entered Columbus Speedway's Main Event Super Late Model Race for 1996.

   "We got the fifteen-thousand for winning, five-hundred for leading at the half-way point, and another five-hundred for leading the most laps," Joe said.

   "Yeah," Denny added, "they paid us in cash, so Joe got two McDonald's bags out of the trash and stuffed them full of money.  The money had cheese on it!"

   But while racing for cash might have helped pay bills, Joe's deep desire was to win track championships.  In 1991, he attempted something no driver had ever accomplished: winning track championships at both Berlin Raceway and Kalamazoo Speedway in the same season.  

   As both seasons drew to a close, Joe realized that the dual championships dream was a real possibility.

   "We won the Super Late Model title at Kalamazoo, and thought we had it won at Berlin too - until the track officials ruled our engine was illegal," Joe said.

   Berlin Raceway rules clearly specified the proper compression rate for Late Model engines could not exceed 9.5 to 1. So when officials discovered that Joe had been dominating races at both Kalamazoo Speedway and Berlin Raceway, they began to look more closely at his car.  

   Track officials opted to inspect Joe's engine and randomly selected one cylinder for the compression rate test.

   "It just happened that the one cylinder they checked had a compression rate of 9.6 to 1 - one tenth over the limit," Denny said.  "So they told us to have it fixed for the next race (next week). Then we read in the paper later that week that we had been disqualified."

  "Yeah, the funny thing was that we went and had the cylinders privately tested by a mechanic, and they found that the other cylinders were at a much lower compression rate," said Joe. "So on average, the compression rate was below the limit. They (the officials) just picked the wrong cylinder to test.  If they would have tested any other cylinder, we would have won the championship at both tracks."

   Despite the controversy, Joe exacted his revenge by winning Berlin Late Model championships in 1992 and 1993.  

   By the close of the 1994 season, Joe had risen to the status of perennial championship contender at Berlin Raceway, and began to think about how far his gifts for driving race cars would take him.  He spent the 1995 and 1996 seasons dabbling in the Iceman Series; and was able to notch four top-five finishes in eight events run.

  Then, in 1998, Joe got his big chance - NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series. Although he struggled to qualify for  races, he did successfully run test laps at Walt Disney World Speedway, Homestead-Miami Motorsports Complex, I-70 Speedway, the Milwaukee Mile, and Michigan International Speedway.  During his partial Truck Series schedule, Joe was able to compete at Bristol Motor Speedway and ran well before engine problems forced him to the garage. That year, Joe also made six Late Model appearances at Berlin Raceway, and notched five top-five finishes.

   After gaining some experience in NASCAR's truck series, Joe decided to try racing in the Busch Grand National division. Although the team continued to struggle with qualifying for races, Joe was able to race at three BGN events in 2001.   

   By the close of the 2002 racing season, Joe was ready to once again focus his racing talent on a Berlin Raceway championship.  

  "Terry Gentry contacted me," Joe said. "A lot of people had mentioned my name to him.  He said he wanted to race Berlin and win championships...and once he does that he said he'd move on to something else."

  During the 2003 season, Joe's Terry Gentry owned Late Model was nearly the class of the field.  But while Joe finished the year with two feature victories, track champion Tim DeVos earned eight, forcing Joe to a runner-up finish in points.  

   This year, however, has played right into the hands of Joe Bush. Already, Joe has earned two wins and sits on top of the Coors Light Late Model Points standings with his teammate Lee Anderson riding second.  

   Asked if he thinks he'll get another chance to run a NASCAR race, Joe said he hopes so.

   "I'd like to do more if I have the opportunity," said Joe.  "Terry (Gentry) said if he won a championship, he may be willing to look at other things...maybe Sunoco Super Series, maybe some of the high-dollar Late Model races around the Midwest...who knows. But for now, we're focused on Berlin and winning the championship."

   Whatever Joe Bush's future holds, he has already accomplished more than most race drivers ever will, and is well on his way to another career highlight: a third Berlin Raceway Late Model championship.

CREW:                          SPONSORS:
Denny Pierce                 Crown Motors
Al Lewis                        T.A. Gentry Supply
Eric Zettlemaier             Weller Truck Parts
John Bush                    Taylored Homes
                                    Paris Motors
                                    Waste Management