Even with his reserves depleted, Jake was still committed to building his racing career. After a solid 2014 with USAC-CRA, he would finish fourth in the standings the following two seasons, and in 2016 broke through with his first series win at Arizona‘s Canyon Speedway.
2017 was even better. He improved one spot in the final standings in the 410‘s, but he also pieced together enough work in 360‘s to claim USAC‘s West Coast championship. It was an outcome Swanson says was “won by stubbornness.”
The Sertichs had a 360, and that was available for some dates, but Swanson was also racing for Matt Dale. “Matt was a good owner,” Jake says. “And I won quite a few shows with him at Ventura. He wanted to run with USAC West Coast Series, but he couldn‘t run the whole points championship. We started out and we ran really well and I was leading the points. So, since Matt couldn‘t run the whole deal, I asked Tom and Laurie if we could put the 360 in their car and run the rest of the way.
“It was the same thing; they said they couldn‘t do it either. At one point I actually had to miss a race. So I worked a deal to borrow an engine from John Springstead, and put it in Larry Henry‘s car. That was pretty cool, because even though I missed a race I won the championship in three different race cars. I really wanted to win that damn championship. I did whatever I had to do to put race cars together when I had to, and we made it happen.”
While Swanson was excited to make a trip to the Midwest to race during the 2018 Indiana Sprint Week, things were starting to unravel a bit with the Moose Racing team.
“We had our differences at the end,” Jake admits. “But that happens; that‘s the way things go sometimes. We‘re all good now.”
Running a streak of four straight years in USAC-CRA points, plus success in the 360 ranks, all but assured Swanson that other doors would open. They did.
Swanson had already been racing for Team AZ Racing. In fact, he had captured the 360 portion of the Western World with the squad. So when the parting with his former team became official, it wasn‘t long before his telephone was ringing.
“They called me and said, ‘You need to come race with us,‘” he says. “They told me the Southwest Series was switching over to 410 and we will go run everything we can. We can‘t do a full season, but we want to run California Sprintweek, all the Perris shows, and stuff like that. I was all in. That lightened up my load a little bit.”
The two team principals are Arizona businessmen. Mike Burkhardt, who also serves as the crew chief, is a key figure at Stratus Construction. While John Grau owns a successful flooring business. The two men have been at the game for years, but the 2008 financial crisis hampered their participation in their favorite hobby. Given the demands on their time, and resources, forming a partnership allowed them to keep the team afloat.
The early part of the 2019 season was fraught with growing pains, but it did nothing to diminish the team‘s enthusiasm. After a trip to Shaver Racing Engines got the team squared away, from that point on it has been left up to Craig Burkhardt to keep the powerplants in good running order.
Other family members, like Dustin Burkhardt and Justin Grau, who Swanson says “busts his ass in the shop,” all pitch in to make this work.
Jake notes that Mike Burkhardt‘s years as a coach help him communicate effectively and, while all face a tight schedule, “Everyone knows their roles, so they can designate the handful of hours they have to focus on their specific job.”
In spite of their early struggles, the final tally shows the team notched a fourth-place finish in the standings, while Swanson took the checkered flag at Perris and Calistoga.
At first, the plans for 2020 were simple. The team was prepared to compete for the USAC-CRA championship. One possible complication was the emergence of another opportunity. Swanson was set to compete in select Silver Crown races for Mickey Meyer and DMW Motorsports.
The sprint car team got off to a swift start by sweeping the first two rounds of the USAC Southwest Series at Canyon Speedway.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic and, in short order, most racing activities came to a screeching halt.
As the action in the Midwest began to open with shaky steps, Swanson and his team decided it was time to head east. From Jake‘s perspective, this was a bit of a blessing in disguise.
“I felt this was the level of competition we needed to run with anyway,” he said. “We run up front with CRA and have won some races, but we needed to run with the National guys.”
The group began to map out a schedule that was healthy but was also cognizant of everyone‘s outside commitments. After a strong fourth-place run at The Terre Haute Action Track, Swanson said he “decided to try and ride the high.”
Chatting with his team in the afterglow of a fine performance, he casually remarked, “You know, we could just move everything back here.” Then an astonishing thing happened.
“They didn‘t even laugh,” Swanson says incredulously. “They said, ‘Yeah, we really should.‘ So at that point I said, ‘If you want to do that, I‘m all in. I‘ll talk to my boss. I‘ll get a house out here with a shop and I‘ll take care of the car. Obviously, I will need some help, but if you are willing, I‘m 100 percent in.‘
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