Profile on: Alan Zoutte!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Profile on: Alan Zoutte
(Joanne Cram) When you are raised in Knoxville and you grow up with a racer as a father, you virtually have no chance of making it out of life without becoming the inevitable- a sprint car driver. Welcome to Alan Zoutte's life.
Alan is also the husband of 16 years to his wife Amy, and father of two boys, Anthony age 11, and Aidan, age 7. With two young boys, Alan is quite busy as their coach. Zoutte says he coaches everything the boys are in- including baseball, soccer, football, and basketball. Down the road, Alan sees the writing on the wall; his two boys will inevitably want to do the same as their father, and their father's father- race sprint cars. Alan says he's not sure if that will happen for the boys, but he is a supportive father and will do his best to involve them in whichever adventures they choose to pursue.
Alan and Amy Zoutte also volunteer their time and hard work every February to participate on a mission trip to Haiti, assisting in projects around the villages and helping support eye surgeries. Amy is a surgical nurse and her expertise is utilized in these surgeries for Haitians in need of eye health. While Alan admits, he's no eye surgeon, he does say that there is always a need for help in Haiti, and he is able to offer many of his skills to the mission trip. Last year in fact, Alan took his love of painting and was able to paint murals on the walls of the eye clinic. In addition to painting, there are many construction projects, as well as children in need of attention. Alan has a soft spot for kids, and enjoys teaching the Haitian orphanage children how to play American football.
Growing up as a child, Alan watched his father, Adrian drive sprints at Knoxville. The number 11 car ran from 1970 to 1982 at Knoxville and all around the Midwest, with his dad's race team hitting up to 90 races a year. Alan remembers growing up around Doug Wolfgang as well. Doug and Adrian got to be good friends, and Alan has many memories of Doug making time for he and his sister. Wolfgang has always been a very influential driver to Alan, he loved watching him race, running up through traffic was always an edge of your seat experience- waiting to see what Wolfgang did.
At the age of 36, Alan has now been racing for the past ten seasons. Zoutte admits his team is one of the lower budget teams, he works a full time job, and is a full time father and husband as well. To get to where he is now, Zoutte saved up for 5 years to be able to buy what he says was "one of everything-used". The car ran his father's old Mopar motor from his racing days. Zoutte was happy to have made a couple shows in those first two to three years of racing. Choosing a number for his sprint car adventure was a little tricky. In sports, Alan was always wearing the number 34, but that was taken. Alan didn't want to run his father's number, his Dad wanted him to make a number for himself. So, he went one number less than his sports number, the number 33 was available, and became Alan Zoutte's number. The colors were much easier to choose, blue has always been a favorite color, and the orange was a bright contrast.
In 2001, Alan bought a motor from Chuck Graves of Chariton, who used to run the 2G at Knoxville in the 90's. Chuck also began to help Alan and his crew out a bit and the team picked up momentum. One of Alan's most eventful racing moment happened Memorial Day weekend in 2002, when he was racing into turn one and the steering broke. Alan went for a horrific ride and emerged from the crash with hairline fractures in his T4 and T5 vertebrae. After ten weeks of sitting out, Zoutte was given the all clear to race again by the doctor, and back in the seat he went. Due to a bad fuel pump, Alan didn't get to hot lap his newly put together car, so went right out for the heat race where he was subjected to dejavu when Mike Waddel flipped right in front of him going into turn 1. To this day he still has some pain associated with that wreck. The end of that season, he ran an end of the year race with the Sprint Invaders at Memphis, Missouri, and finished 13th in the feature that night.
Over the past ten years, Zoutte says he's steadily gotten better and hopes 2008 will lead to a top 15 in overall points standings with Knoxville, as well as finding his #33 in 75% of the features. He says he's never had great equipment, but runs as hard as he can every night. Down the road, Alan would like to travel more (money permitting) and run more races. He'd like to take his car to the East Bay Nationals, and run some of the end of the season races at tracks like I-30 and Devil's Bowl. His dream is to run a 410 before he finishes racing, as well as to compete in the Nationals. Zoutte says that racing is so much more fun knowing that he is making a difference with kids. After every race, Zoutte's car is sought far and wide by youngsters that know their favorite driver will let them scramble up into the seat of the 360 sprint. Seeing the smiles on the kids' faces is so rewarding.
Sponsoring this year's Maxim car are Atlantic Coast Window and Doors, FYI Eye Care with Dr. Chris DenOuden, Simpson Racing Products, Fester's Custom Painting, Luber-Finder Filters, Haunted Forest of Ames, Roger Heern, and Grawmondbeck's Racing Engines. Crew include Alan's dad, Adrian, his uncle, John Zoutte, John Potter, and Danielle (Alan's sister) and Darrell Huffine.
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