Actually, others were paying attention, and as a reward Hopkins won the prestigious Hoosier Auto Racing Fans (HARF) Driver of the Year award and finished 10th in the annual Non-Wing Driver of the Year poll sponsored by the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum. The latter endorsement was a noteworthy accomplishment for a driver who does not compete on a national tour full time.
So, while Hopkins says, “Nobody really sees how big it is,” he does acknowledge that a Chief Operating Officer of a major Indiana bank sent a text to the owner of Banning Engineering to congratulate A.J. on his HARF award.
If you ask Burton and Hopkins what made the difference, both proclaim there was no magic elixir.
When asked if he did anything different during the 2020 season, Hopkins said, “I don‘t think so. I think everything just came together. Jerry and all of the guys had the car good every weekend and we didn‘t have any mechanical failures. We finished races. Even when we had issues in a heat race we battled back and got into the feature. We got upside-down one night at Paragon and tagged the back of the B-Feature and won that, and then fought back and finished fourth. I just think the heart of the team is everything and Jerry doesn‘t put any pressure on me. It just seems to happen and we mesh really well.”
If you ask Burton, he is very clear that the one element that turned his team around was the man he put behind the wheel.
“We were getting a little down and we were very streaky,” he noted. “And we aren‘t doing anything different. Then A.J. came along. A.J. says 90 percent of it is done in the garage, but what I‘m seeing is that it doesn‘t get done that way. Things have to be done in the garage but there is still a lot on the driver. We aren‘t doing anything different. We didn‘t buy better parts or any of that. He turned us into a winner. I put a lot of praise on him. He doesn‘t want to take the credit but I don‘t have any problem giving it to him.”
While A.J. may not be able to walk away from his job and become a professional racer, it doesn‘t mean he lacks goals. He would love to get a chance in a Silver Crown car and, perhaps more than anything, he wants to win a USAC sprint car race.
It turns out he may want that just a bit too much. If you ask him, he has no trouble deciphering what stands in his way. He knows exactly what it is.
“We are fine when we are racing, but qualifying gets in my head,” he said. “And that is the name of the game with USAC. If you can‘t qualify then you are pretty much done. I put too much pressure on myself. Going into it I know how big a deal it is to qualify and I amp myself up too much, and then I make a bad lap. I have not been able to get past it. In MSCS, where we do group qualifying, we are the quickest in our group every night or in the top two.
“There I am out there with other cars and not on the track by myself. I dumped all by myself twice qualifying, so it is always in the back of my mind. I have to get past the mind game.”
Jerry Burton agrees with his driver.
“A.J. can race with USAC but he just needs to quit trying so hard,” he said. “It is so tight anymore. One little lift gets you and one too much will get you the other way. He blames himself, but I remind him that it is a full meal deal when you run with USAC. They are the best in the business, all the way down to the crew chief who figures the track out. There‘s no screwing around. That‘s what feeds their families, and another spot means a lot. It just seems like they can put it on the edge a step farther without going too far, but I think once A.J. does it he will understand they aren‘t superior to him.”
There was no denying that the flip during qualifying at Lincoln Park was disappointing. In part, because it seemed like a golden opportunity to strike. He was a hot driver, he was in his backyard, and he seemed primed to upset the USAC field.
It was there that his owner had to buoy his spirits.
“He flips at Putnamville,” Jerry said, “and he is apologizing and saying he is sorry. I was just happy he wasn‘t hurt. He was sitting there and I said, ‘You know what my problem is? I‘m afraid you are going to be too much of a sissy to push the throttle down because you will be too worried about flipping my car. It goes with the territory.‘”
There is little question that winning becomes contagious, and once you get in the habit you really don‘t want to give it up. Burton remembers a night where everyone was disconsolate after a podium run. It seemed the team had won the previous two nights and now his group was sitting there acting as if all the air had been let out of the balloon.
In his own homespun way, the affable owner reminded all that if the order of finish had been reversed — thus, if two wins had followed a third-place finish — the team would have been ecstatic.
Still, the moment spoke to how high the bar had risen.
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