Pressure. It is a constant companion when you‘re a professional racer. It‘s something the average fan spends little time thinking about when they sit in the grandstand unwinding after a tough week of work. For some time now, Peck has had a lot on his plate. He graduated from high school with honors, he played baseball for the school team, and now he was trying to make it in a ruthless, bottom line business. His suspension came at a time of changing social mores, and involved behavior that hardly put him at odds with many his age. That didn‘t matter, and he knew it. There were rules and codes to follow, and your peers must trust your judgement. This wasn‘t a time to cut corners, it was time to dust himself off and get going.
Father and son hit the road again in 2019, and in early April he was already back in victory lane at Ohio‘s Atomic Speedway. He still needed a break. There was a limit to how long the family could sustain a robust racing schedule on their own. Justin had even flirted with following in his father‘s footsteps and becoming a firefighter. Yet, when that opportunity presented itself, he told his dad he still wanted to try to make racing his career.
It was a decision the family supported, but the hope was he could latch on to another team. It wasn‘t just the money, although that wasn‘t a minor consideration, but as his father recently noted, “I feel like I took Justin as far as I could take him with my limited means and knowledge.”
Before the 2019 season was over, Peck joined forces with Pete Grove‘s Premiere Motorsports team. This was a break he needed, and heading into the 2020 campaign they had struck a deal to run with the All Stars fulltime. “Pete had two teams going, with Brock Zearfoss and Spencer Bayston,” Justin says. “But Spencer and him parted ways after Ohio Speedweek. Bob Williams from All Pro Aluminum Cylinder Heads and I had become good friends that year, so he told me the ride was open and thought I would be a good fit. I called Pete and he put me in his car. We had some good runs and a couple of podiums that year. We didn‘t win a race together but we were up front a lot. That gave me a real shot.”
Peck and Grove stayed together through the All Stars‘ swing through Oklahoma and Texas, but once they ended the partnership Justin was back running the family car in Ohio. Then he got a chance to race for Tom Buch in two All Star dates in August when Paul McMahan was sidelined due to COVID-19.
It turned out to be an audition.
Peck‘s first run with Buch‘s operation came at Wisconsin‘s Wilmot Raceway, where he was instantly comfortable, but he really shined with a fifth-place run the following night at Plymouth Speedway in Indiana. Regardless of how Buch‘s team judged the performance of their substitute driver, Steve and Justin Peck came away impressed. “When Justin got a chance to sub last year we thought, ‘Wow, we underestimated this team,‘” Steve says. “I‘m not saying that in a bad way. You have to realize, we never raced winged sprint cars until 2017, so we didn‘t know the history of all the people involved.”
Peck had temporarily landed in a well-organized team led by crew chief Sean Strausbaugh and supported by the talented Kurt Williamson. However, they were momentarily running on empty, and losing their driver to COVID-19 just seemed par for the course.
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