Gaerte talked about how he and Macedo got together in the first place.
“It was the end of 2016 and he was trying to get a ride to go to Granite City when he was running a midget for Keith Kunz and he got my number through Bernie (Stuebgen) at Indy Race Parts and called me. I had just torn down all of our stuff. James McFadden was running for me and had just gone back to Australia. We were done for the year. I couldn’t get him in there at Granite City.
“I put a car back together and we went to Charlotte at the end of the year,” Gaerte continued. “I liked what I saw. He needed a ride and he wasn’t doing the Kunz midget anymore, so we started to just pick and choose the next year.”
Gaerte claims his young driver is easy to work with.
“He’s OK when you criticize or try to help him, or explain where he’s messed up,” he said. “He’s always wanting to learn and gives it all he’s got when he can. That’s the biggest thing.”
The deal with Larson ended Gaerte’s long tenure as a car owner.
“I’ve had a car off and on since I quit running the Outlaws back in ’95-’96, I still had a car and ran myself and then a friend of mine ran a car that was mine for several years and then Shane (Stewart) drove it and then James and then Carson,” Gaerte said. “We sold all of that and now we’re out here with this deal. I don’t have a car anymore.”
Driving was Gaerte’s favorite part of sprint car racing.
“I would say back when I was younger, it was the driving part,” he said. “That was the coolest part. There was a time when I didn’t race and concentrated on engines quite a bit. My dad was wanting to retire. I did a lot of that. I really enjoy working on the cars, too. A person like Carson, I can relate to what’s happening because I drove before. I would say the driving was best part of it all.”
The 53-year-old Rochester, Ind., native, and son of legendary engine builder Earl Gaerte no longer builds engines.
“They bought the company (Gaerte Engines) about two years ago and just last week had an auction there and sold everything,” Gaerte explained. “I still have the property and the buildings. They sold the actual company. I worked there about a year and a few months and they fired me. Shortly after that, they basically started dismantling it. It’s sad in a way, but I wanted to do this and I’m glad this opportunity came up.”
During his racing career, he only raced one time with an engine that wasn’t built by his dad.
Gaerte shared his opinion on the state of the sport.
“I think it’s better than it has been,” he said. “They’re trying with safety. There’s some things I agree with and some things I don’t. I think it’s either the Outlaws guys or the weekend guys. I think the middle guys kind of got lost because of the cost. It’s a combination of everything, with the engine being the most expensive part of the process. Just running with the Outlaws, the travel we put in so far this year for no racing (because of rain). In California, we sat out there for a month and hardly raced. It cost the owners all that money.”
Larson has built a new facility in North Carolina.
“That was part of our getting started late this year,” Gaerte said. “It was right before the trade show in Indianapolis we finally moved everything into the new shop. We didn’t work on race cars until after Christmas. We have some stuff in my shop in Indiana and if we’re in that area, we stop in there. It will be a while until we get back to North Carolina.”
Gaerte was asked if anything in today’s sprint car racing world surprises him.
“I guess I’m going to pick on the tracks a little bit,” he said. “You’d think some of the track prep would get improved over 30 years. It’s almost worse in some cases. Everybody has a job and that’s not mine. I’m a quick guy to pick on them about it.”
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