Brit Fryer's Next Generation: Colorado Sprint-Car Driver Takes On Indy Pro Series
Thursday, March 23, 2006
By Brit Fryer, National Speed Sport News - Right in front of him, an Indy Pro Series ride was waiting with an empty cockpit. All it needed was a driver. Yet Geoff Dodge hardly noticed.
He had only a handful of 410-sprint-car starts under his belt, but the Colorado native packed up anyway and headed to Knoxville, Iowa, last August. Among the cornfields rested Knoxville Raceway, and for Dodge, Knoxville is his shrine, sort of like how Tony Stewart kneels before Indianapolis.
Long before sprint-car racing's premier event, Knoxville Raceway and the Indy Racing League formed a launching-pad program designed to take the highest-finishing rookie at the Knoxville Nationals and give him -- or her -- a seat in the Indy Pro Series. Hence the name Fast Track to Indy.
Indy, however, was the furthest thing from Dodge's mind.
"I was like, 'Sweet! This is my chance to go run the Knoxville Nationals,'" Dodge said. "Then it was like, 'Oh, by the way, there's this Fast Track to Indy thing.' It wasn't at the forefront of my mind. I was there to run the Nationals."
Lo and behold, after four nights of racing and rain, Indy came to Dodge.
"They came down and said, 'You know, you're fairly well in the lead of this thing. We think you've got it,'" Dodge said. "That's the first time I really considered it."
In fairness, it should be noted that Kaley Gharst was the highest-finishing rookie at the Nationals. But Gharst, then 17, fell just short of the 18-year-old age requirement. Dodge, now 22, was the first driver eligible.
Dodge doesn't think he was awarded anything he didn't deserve. Rules are rules.
"Kaley Gharst, who's a pretty good little racer, finished ahead of us. He did beat us. There's no question about it," Dodge said. "It's one of those deals that you hate to take it that way, but in racing, you've got to."
The six-race, ovals-only ride Dodge slipped into is with Brian Stewart Racing. It is no ordinary ride, nor is it some lame publicity stunt. Stewart won the Indy Pro championship last season with Wade Cunningham at the wheel. Cunningham will be Dodge's teammate, as the series kicks off Sunday afternoon in Homestead, Fla.
"I've already bounced more questions off of Wade than he cares to answer, but he's been really good about helping me along," Dodge said. "My goal for the whole thing is to finish every race and to learn every time I get on the race track. In the beginning, we just need a finish because the more laps in get the more comfortable and better I get."
Never mind that Dodge picked up and moved 1,170 miles from Colorado Springs to Indianapolis. He's now flying around the country for test sessions rather than laboring down the road at the wee hours of a frosty Midwestern morning.
Life has changed since that soggy night at Knoxville.
"Prior to this program," Dodge said. "I had probably been on an airplane like five times in my whole life. And now it seems I have to fly off somewhere every week."
Dodge is a sprint-car racer at heart. The Indy Pro Series is a chance at achieving something great, but Indy isn't everything.
If things don't work out and the Fast Track to Indy runs out of asphalt before it reaches the corner of West 16th Street and Georgetown Road, Dodge always has a wing and a sprinter.
"I don't see it as better than sprint-car racing. It's just a different form," Dodge said. "For me, rolling up to Knoxville was every bit as cool as the first time I saw the Speedway. Sprint-car racing is my passion in motorsports.
"But I definitely didn't see this one coming."
Only Geoff Dodge.
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