This is the 32nd season for the famed pavement sprint car affectionately known as “Seabiscuit.” The Rob Hoffman-built car is owned by Dick Myers and competes in Must See Racing winged pavement sprint car events with Ohio’s Mike McVetta behind the wheel.
It is currently the winningest pavement sprint car in competition.
The car began life in hurried fashion. The Hoffman Auto Racing Dynamics Inc. team was competing in a USAC National Sprint Car Series event at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway on July 28, 1991, when its car, handled by Steve Butler, was destroyed in a crash.
With less than two weeks until the next race, a new car would have to be constructed as the team was in the thick of the championship hunt.
Hoffman went to work building a new pavement sprint car. It would be the third such car in three years that Hoffman had built. It was the second car built in what he calls the second generation.
The car was fast right out of the box and won in its maiden voyage at Salem (Ind.) Speedway on Aug. 11, 1991, when Butler drove it to victory in the Joe James/Pat O’Connor Memorial.
“The car before it was its twin sister and it was destroyed at Winchester,” explained Rob Hoffman. “The new car was a completely different design. I moved the torsion tubes. That became what we referred to as the ‘Mule Car’ and we kept it around for a while. In 1993, I hung another set of torsion tubes on it in the back that were two inches lower and that went pretty well, so then I put another set that was two inches lower and that worked extremely well.”
While owned by the Hoffmans, the car was driven b Butler, Robbie Stanley, Kenny Irwin Jr. and Andy Michner.
Hoffman built a third-generation car in time for the 1994 season. The previous car was retained as a backup. By 1996, the old car was still around and Michner was in love with it.
“I brought out the new car three races into the 1996 season. We went and tested. Michner asked if we could go back to the old car,” Hoffman recalled. “I told him, ‘No, let’s concentrate and develop the new car.’ It became fast as well.
“I’m very proud of the success Dick Myers has had with the car,” Hoffman added. “Anytime one of my chassis wins I’m proud. Dick Myers is a very smart cookie. There are a lot of things I’ve built into my cars that the BEAST cars don’t have. They have a lot of torsional rigidity. Dick ran the numbers and told me about it. It reacts a lot faster than most cars. Small changes on that car make a big, big difference.”
Hoffman sold the car to Glenn Hepfner following the 1996 season, and it eventually found its way into the hands of a guy in Michigan, who put a wing on it.
Myers saw an ad for the car in National Speed Sport News prior to the 2005 racing season.
“I saw a picture and the ad,” Myers recalled. “It said, ‘1991 ex-Hoffman pavement car for sale.’ I thought, ‘This is pretty intriguing because I always liked their cars.’ I was running midgets at the time and had no use for a sprint car. After seeing the ad for a few weeks, I said, ‘I outa go and see it,’ but I don’t know why.”
After biting the bullet and buying the car, Myers wasn’t initially sure what he would do with it.
“I had been helping guys down at Sandusky, who were running 305s,” Myers said. “I said, ‘I’ll just put a wing on it and run it myself.’ My wife looked at me as I said that and said, ‘The hell you will, you’re putting a 410 in it.’ I said, ‘Well, I guess that’s what we’re doing then.’”
Soon Myers was ready to race.
“The first guy I put in the car was Lee Boss,” Myers remembered. “He was a young man from Ohio who was doing pretty good in supermodifieds who had come out of the 305s. We were just average. It was a top-10 car. At one point Lee did break the track record at Springport, Mich., that still stands today.”