Driver Profile - Joe Beaver
Joe Beaver
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
Interview with Joe Beaver
by Eric Arnold
Joe Beaver is off to a good start this season, winning three of the four races so far in the 360 class. Joe is a hometown hero in Knoxville, and a three time winner of the Junior Fan Club most popular driver award. He started racing as a ten year old in go-karts, but now in his 16th season in a sprint car at Knoxville Raceway, things are coming together for the Beaver Motorsports team. Beaver started the season with 3 career feature wins before this season began, so to double his career wins total within the past month, that is impressive. He finished a close second in 360 points in 2013, and was fifth in 2012. This season his team has their sights set on winning the Lucas oil 360 Knoxville Championship Cup Series title. Let's get to know Joe Beaver!
EA: Knoxville has been tough over the years for you, but it’s all coming together now. How have you done it?
Joe: Just a lot of hard work and having the right combination. We’ve been fortunate with qualifying working out like it has and being able to start toward the front in the feature, so it’s all just amazing and I’m thankful. Wins are so hard to come by here.
EA: Can you believe you have won two in a row and three out of four weeks?
Joe: A win at Knoxville is always hard to come by, so three in the first four weeks of the season is pretty cool. With our sponsors, crew, motor program, and all the hard work we put into our program, I think we have the capability to finish up front each week, but it still takes a lot of luck to finish on top. There are so many other drivers who could have just as easily been there too.
EA: Does it seem easier all of a sudden when you start to win races?
Joe: I don’t know. I look back at some of the first years when we started racing and it was just as tough to finish seventh or fifth with such great competition here. It’s tough at Knoxville to finish consistently in the top ten and it seems like we are working just as hard now, but we are having more fun for sure!
EA: Were you surprised to break the track record last year?
Joe: We had had a consistent package with qualifying in the past but last year we put a new package together with a car and engine that helped us. Don Long supplied us with a Moyle engine about halfway through the year and that thing was a rocket ship! It’s a high end engine like we are racing against with most everyone else and it felt good to be on the same level. The night we broke the track record last year it was an Outlaw night and when we hot lapped, I jumped on it for a lap or so and I thought wow, so I pulled it in. I didn’t want to blow it up! So I let off, pulled in early, and everyone came running over to see what was wrong and if everything is alright. I’m like, yeah, nothing is wrong, this thing is going to be good! And so we went out and set the track record that night and it just felt easy because it had a lot of smoke behind it.
EA: What’s your goals for this season and what keeps you driven to perform after being at this for 15 years now in the 360 class?
Joe: Ultimately our goal is to win the 360 points championship. I think after having a solid run last year it’s hard not to look at that and make that our goal. But the pressure that mounts throughout the season with the points is tough. We are just looking for wins. Wins are so hard to come by here. I don’t know how many times I’ve given away wins, leading the thing and hitting the fence, hitting a lapped car, spinning out by myself... I gave away one last year on the last corner. One night I passed Nate Van Haaften going into turn three and going into four the yellow comes out and I lose the position. Wins are so hard to come by, so winning races is what I’m after and then hopefully the points take care of themselves. But it sure feels good to be winning like this early in the season.
EA: You have raced a 410 at times, ever think about moving up?
Joe: I think everyone would love to race a 410. It makes way more sense to run a 410 in the sense that it pays better. Most of those 410 guys have come through the 360 ranks and I’ve raced against them. I’ve raced a 410 a handful of times and to me it seems like these cars are built for a 410. They seem to handle better with more horsepower and to me they seem easier to drive, the competition is tougher, but they seem easier to drive to me. The cost of the motors are the same, but in the 410 class here you need 2 motors to make it through the season, or one motor knowing you have to get it freshened up once or twice during the season. You look at an Outlaws night here where you see several teams change motors at will, that is hard to compete with. With the 360 engines you can get 20-24 nights on them and still be competitive, so that is a significant price break compared to the 410. But I think I could be competitive if given the opportunity or if I win the Mega-Millions!
EA: You started racing in go-karts correct?
Joe: In 1988 for my birthday my Dad loaded me up in the Suburban and we headed to Newton to pick up an old go-kart. Dad said we’re gunna go racin, and I said yeah, let’s do it! We started racing in 1989 at the Newton Kart Klub and ran there pretty much every week and things progressed from there. I crashed a lot at first, (laughing) kind of like racing at Knoxville! But by the end of the year we won our last two features and then we stepped it up and started racing a lot more the next year. We traveled a lot and had some national success. We could never win the big ones, but we got second a lot and a few top five’s at national events. I raced karts for four or five years until I got to high school and sports started up there that I liked, so we parked it then
EA: Your Dad was inducted into the Knoxville Raceway Hall of Fame a couple of years ago, tell me a little about him.
Joe: Most notably my Dad helped Mike Brooks throughout the Mickow team years when they were so dominant from 1977-1985. They won the track championship in 80’ and had the first perfect score at the Nationals, which was a pretty awesome deal. They raced together until about 1989, the year of the WoO/USA split. Dad also helped Mike Proffit, who is a track official here now, "Breezy" Scott Whitworth, Steve Breazeale, and he helped start them off from young pups I guess. And then that led to where I started racing again and forming our own family team. But guys like Mike Brooks were big influences on me. I spent a lot of time in the shop, sleeping in a right rear tire at times because you put a lot of hours in on these cars, that hasn’t changed over the years. But that whole Mickow team gang is who I looked up to growing up.
EA: Was it a tough decision to keep racing after your Dad passed away?
Joe: After my dad died, it was very surreal. It happened so quickly, we all thought he could fight his cancer diagnosis, so when we lost him, it was devastating. Joanne and I didn’t know what to do next; the three of us had been a pretty solid team for so long, and having my dad not be part of it was hard to wrap our heads around. We were thinking at first that we might not race anymore, just not knowing how the logistics would work. Then friends, fans, people from my dad’s past came to us and expressed how much they really wanted to see us continue. I think we got some strength from that too. After talking about it, Joanne and I decided that racing is exactly what my dad would want us to do, keep the Beaver Motorsports yellow #53 going for him. The rest of 2010 was pretty much a wash, we went to the races a few weeks after dad died and it just didn’t feel right. It was hard to get my bearings without his constant presence at the track. It honestly took a good two years to feel like we could do this on our own. The support from our racing community means a lot.
EA: Who were some of your favorite drivers growing up?
Joe: Doug Wolfgang was my favorite driver. I used to love the Return of the Wolf night! That was probably my favorite race ever when they would start him at the rear of everything and he would win. He was a phenom, that’s for sure. Of course Mike Brooks was, and still is. It means a lot when Mike comes to congratulate me at the end of the night. I don’t think I raced a go-kart too often without wearing my “Scruffy” Bobby Allen shirt so he was someone I liked. In 1990 when he won the Nationals I was sitting on the backstretch cheering for him. That was the perfect Nationals ya know, right after the backstretch stands opened up and my cousin and I were sitting together that night. That is a night I will never forget. It’s cool to see Scruffy still racing with Jacob and Logan.
EA: Where did the number 53 come from?
Joe: It’s a funny story. 53 didn’t really mean anything. I always wanted to have a cool number like 77 or 7, but it seemed like all of those numbers were taken. Mike Brooks was 77 at the time then, but I always liked odd numbers. When Dad and I were driving to get that first go-kart we were driving up highway 14 ya know and I couldn’t decide between 5 and 3. Well we passed mile marker 53 and that was it, that’s where the number came from. So next time you’re on highway 14 think of me at mile marker 53!
EA: I would say that at one time you were a checkers or wreckers kind of driver, but now you seem to have gained some of that finesse you need. Would you agree?
Joe: Yeah, I used to live and die by the high side ya know, throwing sliders every corner. But Knoxville is one of those places where the bottom is the premier line to run when it’s there. So you need to be good down there and it took me while to figure out I could go faster without knocking down the cushion or the fences.
EA: Joe Beaver has a real job I hear, where do you work?
Joe: I am a power lineman for International Transmission Company (ITC), they bought all the high voltage power lines a few years back, 34,000 volts and above. I’ve been doing that for about 14 years now.
EA: Isn’t that kind of dangerous?
Joe: Oh it can be, climbing up the bigger poles and dealing with that much power. It’s only as dangerous as you make it out to be.
EA: No more dangerous than driving a sprint car right?
Joe: Racing might be safer, we have a roll cage and helmets in racing!
EA: What is the furthest you have been away from Knoxville?
Joe: Hawaii. Boy that would have been nice this past winter!
EA: You and your wife Joanne have two kids now, are you going to let them race?
Joe: We want to support our kids in whatever their dreams are, within reason. Racing is an expensive hobby, so we are definitely not out bating them with race dreams! If they want to race, we will try our best to help them get started. Right now, they are into typical sports, although our daughter Jolyn has recently given up dance class to race a go kart for fun… we will see where that takes her!
EA: Do you coach any of your kid’s ball teams?
Joe: During the spring and summer it’s nearly impossible to coach. With a small crew, most nights and spare moments, I’m in the shop working on the car. Good for the kids that spring and summer sports are soccer and baseball, two sports I wasn’t too big on growing up! I do coach football and wrestling. Both kids play both sports, so that’s fun to be hands on and help them learn to play sports I love.
EA: Do you read books?
Joe: Not very often, but when I do it’s about racing usually and I enjoy them. I’ve read your book about the Knoxville Nationals. That was pretty good.
EA: Have you ever bungee jumped?
Joe: No, but I was going to parachute jump one time in Brooklyn, Iowa. I was all trained and ready and we went to load up and they told us it was too windy, so we didn’t get to go up. I never ended up going back to do it, so that’s my parachuting story.
EA: What’s your favorite kind of pizza?
Joe: I’m cheap, I’m just a plain old pepperoni guy. But if someone else is buying I’m having meat lovers!
EA: You’ve raced against a lot of good competitors over the years. Give me some thoughts on some of these names.
EA: David Hesmer.
Joe: Great driver, good person and family around the race track. I think he had better equipment than everyone else when he started and that might have made it easier for him, but once he got the laps of experience and confidence, there was no one better, and you couldn’t beat the guy. He was unstoppable here at Knoxville.
EA: John Kearney.
Joe: Good guy, what a character, but he gave me some great advice one time. We used to pit next to him and he was so animated when he was frustrated, throwing his steering wheel, yelling and screaming. I remember one night I put a slider for life on him, I mean almost took his bumper off, and in the next corner I spun out in front of him! I thought I was a wildcat ya know, making my way to the front and passing cars, then I spin out in the next corner! Well we had a track rental the next Thursday night and he tells me to come down to his trailer to talk. So I thought oh great, here we go, John Kearney is gunna beat me up on a practice night! But he was great to me. He said, “What were you doing? You almost took me out!” But he gave me some great advice and I wish I would have listened to him sooner. Kearney said “If you ever learn to slow down, you will be fast,” and now I understand where he was coming from. But I sure wish I would have listed better back then.
EA: Brian Brown.
Joe: The best there is at Knoxville right now. When he wins the Knoxville Nationals finally, he will probably win six more in a row. I hate to see him come down to the 360 class any night. He has a phenomenal team and they have their act together. He is so good with getting sponsors, and I think he has helped our sport and Knoxville Raceway along the way. He is a good ambassador for us all.
EA: Billy Alley.
Joe: He is a lot of fun. I remember going to Eagle Raceway to race against him and he just came out of nowhere and was so good right away. His crew chief and team was good, they used to help Ray Lipsey and he just never stopped racing at a high level. It’s great to see him back here more often.
EA: Jake Peters.
Joe: If Jake would have stuck around he never would have stopped winning and just kept kicking our butts. He could have set some records that recent drivers wouldn’t have touched. I don’t know what they put in the water in South Dakota but those guys can race. If you could pass Jake in his prime, it was a big accomplishment. He was so dominant. But he was so smooth, what a driver.
EA: Josh Higday.
Joe: I love racing with Josh! In the winter I run on the treadmill and I watch race videos and I happened to watch one recently where I crashed him. I’ve crashed my fair share you know (laughing). We would slide each other back and forth all the time, between me and him we have had some good races over the years. One night in turn three he slid me and he tagged me in the left front wheel. I got mad and went up behind him on the next lap and I put him in the fence. He wasn’t too happy with me, I gave him the number one when I rolled by him later, but we were younger, dumber, and more aggressive.
EA: Matt Moro.
Joe: Matt and I have had our battles from go-karts to Knoxville, he is a lot of fun to race with. The first time I ever got upside-down was in a go-kart in Columbus Junction, Iowa thanks to Matt. He is a great guy to race with.
EA: Clint Garner:
Joe: Class act all the way, good driver. I would like to think that if he were racing the 360 this season we would have something for him. We were on his heals last year, along with Nate Van Haaften. But they are a good team and I think he will do well in the 410. It might take him a little while, maybe a year to get back to racing with them close and get confident ya know, but I think he can win 410 races for sure.
EA: Have you ever raced against your brother in-law, Travis Cram?
Joe: I’m actually undefeated against Travis! I think every time I have raced a 410 against him, he crashed, so I’ve always beat him! Travis is a win it or wear it guy.
EA: Do you find it strange when some of the younger drivers are coming to you for advice now that you are one of the veterans of the 360 class?
Joe: Yeah I do because I’m not sure what advice I can give them. I feel like I’m still learning too at times. But you see a lot of young guys come and go and I’m proud that our team is still here.
As of now Joe Beaver is second in points behind Jon Agan, and in owners points Beaver Motorsports is behind the Sundby #1 as well, so the track championship won’t come easy. Best of luck to Joe and his team the rest of the season!
Beaver Motorsports would like to thank all of their marketing partners: Searsboro Telephone Company, Renes Greenhouse, Studio 92 Photography, Ramaeker Screenprinting, Area 41 Engineering, Bradham Auto, Town Crier, Coffee Connection, Design Speedshop, Bertrand Monument, Versatile Telecom, Eye Health Solutions, Hube’s Garage, Fishburn Military Academy, Up ‘N Stitchz. We also have a community partner, Marion County Humane Society, which we are happy to extend full sponsorship benefits at no cost to them. Thanks to my crew: my wife, Joanne, Phil Sage, Dave Saffell, Brandon Hoch, and Greg Lanc when he can tear himself away from those green tractors in Nebraska.
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