For the love of racing

Joey Galloway knows only one way of doing things—and that’s full out.
The local 20-year-old stock car driver took a liking to the sport ever since his friend, Steve Arpin, introduced him to it in his early teens.
Now he has his own garage where he fine-tunes his craft.
“I started racing go-karts and met the Arpins and eventually got my own car and did my own thing, but I still helped them out quite a bit,” noted Galloway, who started racing Modifieds at age 16.
“It’s kind of just a hobby. I’m doing it for fun more than anything.”
He and Chuck Lambert started a garage where members of the racing community could work on their cars in a supportive and social environment.
“It’s just a shop out here by Lowe’s Furniture. Myself and Chucky Lambert wanted to get some people together and put our cars in here,” Galloway remarked.
“It’s just somewhere to work on our cars and get together, and it’s a lot of fun,” he added. “You don’t have to work on your car by yourself, and there’s always someone here to help one another out.”
Lambert, 39, currently third in the Midwest Modifieds standings at the Emo Speedway, has been racing since he was a kid. Both he and Galloway felt there was a need for the local shop and set out to put one together.
Galloway got to tour the racing circuit in the United States last summer, riding around with Arpin as they hit different speedways.
“It was the opportunity of a lifetime,” he enthused. “I just went down to Florida at the beginning of the year just to help him out, and he asked me if I’d stay with him for the summer and give him a hand, and he said it’d be OK if I brought my car along, too.
“Whenever I wasn’t too busy working on his car, I raced myself.
“I was gone the whole summer and we raced everywhere—Florida, Arkansas, Phoenix, Oklahoma, Ohio, Kentucky, all over,” added Galloway. “We hit all the high-paying money shows to try to earn some while we were at it.
“The racing community down in the States is unbelievable.”
Galloway’s summer this year has been a bit scaled down compared to last, but he’s still travelling south to race when the opportunity presents itself.
“The last month has been crazy,” he said. “I was down to race at Proctor [Speedway] on Sunday in Duluth and I’m heading to Hibbing [Mn.] or Ashland [Wis.] this weekend for two or three days, so we’ll see how the week goes.”
Escalating gas prices also make it harder for Galloway to pursue his hobby.
“The closest tracks down there are two hours away, and if you want to go elsewhere after it’s another three hours,” he noted. “With the price of fuel, it’s getting pretty ridiculous.”
Galloway also has competed at the Emo Speedway but has had mixed results at best so far.
“I’ve only been there three times this year, and the one time I got a flat the first lap and had to come from the back to third, which was pretty good,” Galloway recalled.
“But I was leading the other two times and ended up breaking something,” he added. “I’ve been running into some bad luck this year, but I guess it comes with the sport.”