“The dynamic has been good among all the drivers,” he said. “The hope is that Mitchel is more of a mentor to the younger drivers. He has sprint car experience. He has won 410 sprint car races with NARC and he has raced other cars. Our other drivers haven‘t run sprint cars and are just getting in midgets. He‘s been a good teammate.”
As for the long-term outlook for Moles, Boat is realistic.
“I think the one thing that is nice is that we are going to get better each race,” Boat said. “I think the hardest part of the whole thing is that he is going to so many new tracks. It‘s different because last year we went to tracks where Chris (Windom) had a lot of laps and he knew what to expect. Now Mitchel is racing against a guy like Justin Grant who has that experience. I would say Justin and Buddy (Kofoid) are the title favorites.
“They are the guys that should win it but it comes down to execution,” Boat continued. “I think Mitchel can surprise people and I think we can surprise people as a team. Everything is new. We have new crew members and new drivers. There are going to be growing pains, but I do think on the nights when we excel it will be a little more rewarding.”
Boat, like his father longtime racer Billy Boat, has real business acumen and he has a vision for where this all can lead. Veteran crew chief Grant Penn has been hired to be hands-on with the race cars, which will allow Boat to concentrate on building the CB Industries brand.
As a part of the total blueprint, the team will move heavily in the world of micro racing, becoming a presence at North Carolina‘s Millbridge Speedway. Boat is also contemplating adding sprint cars to the inventory. In typical Boat fashion, this all will unfold incrementally and rationally.
The bottom line is that Mitchel Moles has a chance to forward his career and be a part of building a comprehensive and first-rate racing program.
“It‘s crazy,” Moles said. “I have had opportunities with Matt Wood and the Roths. But now I have a chance to really run with it. It‘s all on the table if I do well. I just have to go out there and do what I know I can do.”
What makes this situation even more delectable for Moles is the fact that he has fallen in love with midget racing. “I would love to keep racing midgets,” he said. “I think I have an edge with my micro background. With winged sprint cars I‘m really on and off. There are times when I am really fast, but there are times when I‘m there but not racing anybody. It‘s a tough deal in California.”
Wood believes the time is right for Moles, but he recalls the way his veteran driver Shane Golobic mentored Moles, helping mold him into a professional.
Moles notes that he loves watching how Sheldon Haudenschild races and how much heart he shows. What he says he has learned from Golobic is the mental aspect of the game. One specific thing he picked up from Shane was to be more even-tempered when things went wrong. Matt Wood imparted a similar lesson he claims he first learned from the late Bryan Clauson.
“Bryan told me once you just can‘t let the highs be too high and the lows be too low,” Wood remembered. “You have to learn to level it out.”
He may not have the experience to vie for a USAC title just yet. After all, when the season was launched Moles had less than 20 midget races under his belt. Still Wood believes this young driver is ready to blossom.
“He has grown up a lot and matured since we started this,” he said. “He‘s smart and he has a great feel for his car.”
Then Wood added, “Mitchel Moles, if everything plays out right and he keeps his head on straight, will be one of USAC‘s biggest stars.”