The most successful people in life tend to be highly focused and goal driven. It also seems true that those who truly break away from the pack possess an extra measure of these essential traits.
Racers are no different. Early in his motorsports career Tracy Hines knew exactly what he wanted. In his direct and always unvarnished style, Hines said, “My dream was to be a rich race car driver.”
It is a sentiment that some, particularly the romantically inclined, can find easy to criticize. For this set, sport is about glory and the pursuit of intrinsic rewards. Thus, winning is an end to itself with the residuals that follow only a secondary consideration.
However, if you think Hines lacked the motivation and desire to win you did not follow this man’s career. When Hines pulled on his helmet it was the only thing that mattered. Dig deeper and you learn he turned his back on an easy paycheck as his NASCAR career was winding down. What was asked of him in the end was simply out of character and made his decision to return to his short-track roots an easy one.
Yet, the very assets that made him one of the greatest open-wheel drivers of his time proved to be transferable skills as he returned to NASCAR where his organizational ability and intellect were valued.
Tracy Lee Hines was born on May 1, 1972, in New Castle, Ind. His father, Jim, was a native Hoosier although the family was a bit restless and moved often. While living in Muncie, he contracted polio and was subjected to all the traditional treatments of the time including the so-called iron lung. Given the circumstances, Jim Hines considered himself lucky. For a time, his right leg and foot were paralyzed, but with treatment his mobility improved. One lingering problem was a lack of flexibility in his right foot. It was a problem that was addressed later in his life.
Jim’s father loved racing, and he began hauling a car to the egg-shaped Mt. Lawn Speedway near his home for others to drive. In weak moments, he allowed his son to warm up the car but there were no plans for his offspring to race. That changed in 1957 when Jim Hines strapped in a midget for the first time at a track in Richmond, Ind. As for the hampering impact of polio, all that was required was to put a block behind his right foot and he was ready to go.
Hines thrived in stock cars and open-wheel competition. A stock car title came at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in 1964, but his greatest success came in midget racing. During the late 1960s, Hines claimed championships with the Central States Racing Ass’n, the Car Owners Racing Ass’n and Midget Auto Racing. His final title came with CORA in 1984. He raced until 1994.
Jim and Faye Hines had two sons. Ted Hines is 10 years older than Tracy and was the first of the boys to hit the race track. In 1990, Ted Hines earned his first of three consecutive titles at the Indianapolis Speedrome. A signature victory came in the Night Before the 500 midget race at Indianapolis Raceway Park in 1994.
Tracy Hines arrived 10 years later and few were surprised when he showed an interest in racing. In 1978, Jim Hines acquired a quarter midget that had been used by future open-wheel star Jimmy Vasser. Not long after Tracy turned his first laps a problem arose. Jim Hines was still actively involved in the sport and at 16 years old Ted was equally occupied. Getting Tracy to the track and providing support was a problem. Jim Hines reached out to family friend Fay Gordon to help.
“I was about 8 or 9 years old and my dad gave Fay my two cars and motors,” Tracy Hines recalled. “I don’t know if he paid him or worked out a deal for supplies. After that I traveled with the Gordons to all the races.”
To outsiders Fay Gordon appeared to be a no-nonsense character who did not suffer fools lightly. It turned out that he was the least of Tracy’s problems.
“Fay was fine,” Tracy Hines said with a laugh, “but when people say I’m a badass or a jerk I’ll tell you why that is. Eric Gordon, Stevie Reeves, Robbie Stanley and Jamie Matthews tormented me as a kid. I was just little Tracy and those were the elder statesmen of the club. It was a pretty stout group.”
Stout is an understatement. Matthews raced sprint cars and the other three men forged Hall of Fame careers. Hines drifted away and turned his attention to bicycle motocross racing. He was good on two wheels, too. However, after watching his brother win indoors at the Hoosier Dome in 1991, Tracy Hines decided it was time to try midget racing.
“I came to my dad and said I had a plan,” he recalled. “Me and my buddies will do all the work on the car. You don’t have to do anything but pay for it, but I will take no earnings.”
From there it made all the sense in the world to join his brother and often his dad at the Indianapolis Speedrome. He raced his car for nearly a dozen nights and turned enough heads to secure a ride with owner Ted Slinkard. At the end of the 1992 season, Ted Hines was the Speedrome champion once more and Tracy Hines was named rookie of the year.
Anxious for more, Hines found a ride with Texan car owner Corky Wheeler to run the USAC national midget tour. In 12 starts in 1993, Hines ended up just outside the top 20 in the standings.
He improved steadily and finally found victory lane at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway in 1996. A week before his first USAC national triumph he was involved in a scary crash at Richmond (Va.) Raceway. At Winchester flash burns were still visible on his face but his resolve was strong. Hines carried Dan Leary’s car to the memorable win. At the end of the year, Hines was named USAC’s most improved driver and the Hines family was recognized with the Jim Blunk Award for their dedication to midget racing.
“Even as a kid I loved Winchester and that is probably because I looked up to Rich Vogler. Everything about Rich was me,” Hines said. “He was scaling his cars and when he got out, he didn’t interact with anyone. I mean he was a nice guy to everybody that knew him. I never knew him well because I was so young, but I watched him all the time. He was all business. Always trying to win the race. That’s all he cared about, nothing else. I watched him get out and he was the only driver working on his car sometimes. It was like this guy is a freaking genius.”
Hines knew the time had come to chart a course for his life. Ted Hines was as talented as anyone, but because he was holding down a full-time job it reduced his racing options. Tracy didn’t want to become trapped.
“I ran out of choices,” he said. “I had worked at my parent’s machine shop and I didn’t want to do that forever, and they couldn’t afford to pay me. I dabbled in engine shops for three or four years before I could get full time in racing. Then, when it took off, I knew there was potential here. I just had to figure out how to be the best. I never thought my driving ability, or my braveness would make me the best. I actually thought I had to buckle down and learn how to make my cars faster.”
Using Vogler as his guide, he knew it was essential that he became more mechanically savvy. One thing played into his favor. In Silver Crown racing, he had a chance to work with Jim McQueen. Then, when he demonstrated the ability to get to the front, he earned a seat in some of the top rides in USAC. The best teams also had the best minds in the sport and Hines had no interest in being a passive observer of what transpired in the shop or at the track.
Hines considers the late 1990s to be the most crucial time in his career. It began with the sometime taciturn McQueen.
“Jim really taught me a lot about shocks and because he did Cory Fillip (Advance Racing Suspensions) got sick of dealing with me,” Hines said. “I always wanted my dyno sheets and I wanted my shocks to be a certain way. He would get so mad and tell me that I was driving him nuts. I understood that, but I also knew what I wanted.”
He also learned a great deal from Mike Streicher. Streicher won the 1991 USAC midget title and was an exceptionally talented mechanic and constructor. Streicher probably empathized with Cory Fillip. “I would wear him out,” Hines acknowledged. “I would ask him what something was and what did it do? I wanted to understand how things worked.”
When it came to pavement racing Hines wasn’t afraid to call Dan Drinan. Simply put, he was a veritable sponge for knowledge.
There was a definite method to his madness. Hines believed to get to the head of the class, he needed an edge.
“I knew I couldn’t learn by getting cars close,” he said. “I had to make them awesome.” He also had to learn to operate within a team framework. He thought back to those days when Vogler worked with Bob Lowe, and now he was collaborating with talented people like McQueen and Rob Hoffman
“Being able to do it on your own means you don’t have to rely on anybody, but that doesn’t make you faster,” Hines said.
The 1996 season was the springboard for a remarkable run in midget competition. Hines landed in the top five in USAC points for 16 seasons. He won 35 times and bagged many of the crown jewels of the discipline.
He also began to explore opportunities in sprint car racing. He got his first opportunity in 1996 at age 24. It was all about networking. Because he drove a Beast midget during his formative years, he spent a great deal of time in Gasoline Alley situated just south of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There was a reason he was a frequent visitor.
“I crashed a lot,” he said with a laugh, “so I was always down there begging Bob (East) to fix my car. When I was down there, I became friends with Claire Pattee. He took a liking to me and was just real kind. He let me drive his Silver Crown car. Jim McQueen was the mechanic and also in that group was Bryce Holt, who had a sprint car. Holt gave me a chance.”
In some circles it was believed that midget racers couldn’t transition to sprint cars. Hines does not believe this mindset was an impediment, but he agrees that it is more difficult to go from a lower horsepower car to one with more pop. Even so, he saw the issue as far more basic.
“It was more that midget people were midget people and sprint car people were sprint car people. You also have to remember that at that time in Indiana local sprint car racing was pretty tough,” Hines said. “It is like local winged sprint car racing was in Ohio and Pennsylvania. You weren’t just going to roll in and beat them at their track every night.”
When it came to his early days in sprint cars, it was the dirt bullrings that caused him the most trouble.
“I crashed a lot and Boyce got tired of me crashing. It was the same with (Dick) Newkirk. I crashed so much with him, he couldn’t handle it,” Hines said. “The other thing there was he had raced with Tony Elliott. You can’t go from one of the greatest to a kid who is crashing every week.”
While Holt and Hines eventually parted ways, they had already found victory lane scores of times.
“With Boyce I got better because I had a team behind me,” he said. “I was racing their pavement car and was running really well. So, for them it was a matter of deciding to just keep helping the kid. Then because I was also good on the half-mile dirt tracks that carried me for a while.”
Before long he was good everywhere and in every type of car. He developed a love for Silver Crown racing while driving for Claire Pattee and later formed a long relationship with owner Terry Riggs.
“I did love the Silver Crown cars because what they meant to me,” he said. “Claire Pattee was like my grandfather and treated me like a grandson. Then I was with Terry Riggs for 10 years and then Mark Lightfoot became a lifelong friend. Mark really wanted a Silver Crown car, so to get him a win at Belleville (Kan.) was an important accomplishment. That was sentimental.”
By 2000, Tracy Hines was the Silver Crown series champion and winning races on dirt and pavement.
Two years after his first USAC championship, he was behind the wheel of the famed Hoffman Dynamics sprint car and won a nip-and-tuck battle with J. J. Yeley for the USAC national sprint car title.
Given his prowess on pavement, it came as no surprise when he landed a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series ride.
“I always wanted to make it happen,” he said. “That was always my dream. I grew up in a 1,000-square-foot house and I wanted a big house. I knew what I wanted and I wanted to get it somehow.”
In 2003, he raced four events for owner Jim Smith. One year later he moved to Duke Thorson’s team when Matt Crafton vacated his seat. He raced for the team over the next two seasons.
At the end of the 2005 season, he landed a NASCAR Xfinity Series gig with owner Armando Fitz. After 13 races with this team, he was ready to return to his roots.
“You’ve got to try and then see what was happening, but I was smart enough to see that this was not going anywhere,” Hines said. “I could have stayed on. That was kind of when the start-and-park thing was coming around. I could have done that, but that just wasn’t me.”
In 2006, he had raced enough with USAC to snare victories in all three national series. Nothing beats winning, and more than that racing was fun again.
Then disaster struck on the last day of April 2007. Hines was on his property, having fun on a motorcycle with two friends. He crashed hard and was helicoptered to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis with a broken left femur, broken left pelvis and a right knee that required ligament replacement.
The road to recovery was long and dark. In an eerie similarity to the plight once suffered by his father, his ability to use his right foot was in serious question. He was also a changed man. The outpouring of support when he was injured was eye-opening.
Hines earned a sprint car victory at Eldora Speedway early in the 2008 campaign and for the next several seasons the beat went on. He participated in each of USAC’s touring series and was always up front.
Hines returned to the Truck Series to handle a ThorSport entry at Eldora Speedway in 2012, opening a line of communication with Thorson, and Hines continued to help the team when he could.
By 2015, Hines knew his time as a driver was running out. He had been hurt again and he failed to win a USAC feature for the first time since 1996. But all was not lost as he claimed the USAC midget title and joined the Triple Crown club of drivers who have won all three USAC national championships.
Having a place to land made Hines’ decision to step away easier and soon he was serving as the competition director for ThorSport Racing and the operations manager for ThorWorks Industries.
By any measure he had reached his goal. He had made it as a professional driver and moved smoothly into another phase of his life.
Tracy Hines was one of the greatest drivers in USAC history. His numbers are even more remarkable given his time in NASCAR and the year lost to injury. He has become a valuable adviser for those who strive to emulate his path. Whether helping them when they are injured or extolling the virtues of planning for the future, he has effectively served as a knowledgeable confidant.
Hines is a member of the USAC Hall of Fame, the National Midget Racing Hall of Fame and will be inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame on June
THIS ARTICLE IS REPOSTED FROM THE MAY 1 EDITION OF SPEED SPORT INSIDER
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