Lucas Punkari
After being the man to beat at the Emo Speedway, local modified driver Brad Loveday was ready for a new challenge.
The 39-year-old, who has been racing for the last 20 years, made the switch last season from running regularly at the local 3/8th-mile oval to competing in the United States Modified Touring Series (USMTS), where he is racing again this year.
“Last year we came to a point where we had won quite a few races here the year before and we felt like it was time for a change,” noted Loveday, who works in logging and construction for a living.
“We had raced a few USMTS events in 2009 and 2010, and we had liked those shows, plus we got along with all of the guys that we met down there,” he added.
“So basically, my dad [Larry] and I decided to try and run there as much as we can as you can never do it full-time when you are living up where we are, as they travel all over the place.”
In 2011, Loveday ran in 25 shows during the course of the year. And while he didn’t make it into any features, he did learn a lot.
“It’s hard when you are competing against those guys that do this for a living,” he admitted.
“These guys that run the tour full-time have been doing it so long, and so well, that they have their stuff all together on a weekly basis.
“The biggest lessons that I learned over the course of the season was with the consistency in my driving and in our set-ups from track to track, and we have been fortunate enough to have some good friends that are on the tour that have helped us out,” he added.
This year sees Loveday with a brand new chassis on his yellow #1 machine as he switched to a GRT by T.C. Nole chassis after running a Skyrocket chassis for the last seven seasons—a move which seemed to produce immediate dividends during one of his first races of the year last month at the Deer Creek Speedway in Spring Valley, Mn.
“We knew that the chassis that we had was a stout one, but we really didn’t know what we would be going up against,” recalled Loveday, who was competing against 64 other drivers that night.
“I started in 10th place in our heat races. And once I got on the gas, I was able to move up a couple of spots and I finished in fifth, which was just behind Rodney Sanders, who finished in second place in the USMTS points last year.
“We just missed out on a spot in the feature there, but we worked our way into the main event through the ‘B’-main,” Loveday added.
“And while we had some troubles in the feature, all in all it was a good night.”
Unfortunately, Mother Nature has wreaked a little bit of havoc on Loveday’s schedule so far this season as he’s had to deal with his share of rain-outs and postponements.
“So far this year, we’ve run four shows and we’ve had eight that have been rained out, so the odds have been stacked against us,” Loveday remarked.
“The worst thing about all that is the expenses that you burn from that, especially with the cost of fuel these days, but we’re okay with it.”
One of the biggest challenges Loveday has been facing since running on the USMTS circuit is the adjustments he and his team have to make from show to show, especially since it’s always on a different track than the one that previously was raced on.
“When you are a driver that is used to racing at one track during the course of a year, you are used to racing at a place like Emo, where you have one set-up in your car that works well there,” he explained.
“But, say, you are going to a place like Deer Creek, which is a big 3/8th-mile track, to somewhere like Mason City [Iowa], which is a big half-mile, the similarities between the two tracks are not even close.
“You need to adjust your tires, your chassis set-up, and your driving style so you have to take a lot of things into consideration,” he stressed.
“It’s not something that you can just go out there to try and do as a lot of people have tried do it over the years and have failed at it.”
Although the checkered flags aren’t coming at the frequency they were in the past, Loveday is enjoying the challenge.
“You can race at the local track and be the hero, but after a while you start to become a big fish in a small pond,” he reasoned.
“It was time to move on and experiment, and so far I’m happy with how things are going.”
