MichiganCircleTrack.com is the online home of the MARC Times Racing News & Michigan Racing Scene and MARCTimesTV.

What does a racer do in the off season? Well for Craig Curtis the answer is bowling and keeping his racer’s edge sharp by Sim-Racing on-line.

Coming off a win in the MCT-SRL at Kalamazoo where Craig led every lap, I teased him about the difficulties he had experienced at the Berlin race the following week. Cutris took the ribbing in stride with a chuckle.  “I like that place. We had a good run going and then I hit that one little glitch and lost it. That set me up for the rest of the night.  The pit sequence worked out that I was able to get new tires with twenty to go, and everybody was on older tires. I was able to drive it to third, so we managed to save a decent finish out of it.  If they can get that grip issue fixed, that Berlin track is very, very accurate.” The “glitch” Craig was referring to was sort of like an oil slick at one point in the corners. The good news is that the issue has now been corrected.

The twenty-three year old Curtis has been racing dwarf cars for nine years now in the Midwest Classic Racers, better known as the MCR Dwarf Cars. For the 2009 season this series consists of twenty or so venues, including  Owosso, Spartan, Flatrock, Kalamazoo, Dixie and  M-40 to name a few. “We run all over Michigan, Northern Indiana, Northern Ohio and out into Illinois even.  The season starts May 1st and runs through September. It is pretty busy”, said Curtis about the schedule.   “We’ve done pretty well there.”  Indeed, he has enjoyed good success in the series. In the 2008 season Curtis made seven of eleven events, racking up four wins, three second place finishes and had the fastest qualifying lap five times.   This year besides the dwarfs, Curtis plans to run six to ten Modified races as well. Owosso and Spartan are both within a half hour of his home in Dewitt, MI and are likely to see most of the action.

Craig’s racing roots go back to his youth. “Dad drove late models and then the dwarf cars after that.  I also crewed on some sprint cars when I could help out as well.” During the time Craig’s father was racing the dwarf cars, at some tracks Craig couldn’t get into the pits because he was too young. Not wanting to be left out of the action, he’d find a ride to a track where he could get into the pits instead.  Once there, he would just hang out in the pits until he could find someone that needed a hand.  Curtis was doing things like checking tire stagger, air pressures, breaking down tires, changing shocks and springs, the whole nine yards. He learned about set-ups at a very young age by doing whatever needed to be done.  Laughing about those days Curtis said, “There are some pictures of me at ten years old, pushing sprint cars in the pits with a quad.  I was at Angola once and there it is a pretty good uphill run to get to the track. I didn’t weigh enough for the quad to get any traction in the gravel to push the sprint cars up the hill, so someone else ended up having to do it.”

Curtis started racing dwarf cars at age 15.  He worked with Tom Hernly who was running in the CRA Late Model Series, serving as a spotter for him on occasion. When Gary Sherman was running in ASA, Craig was part of the over the wall crew, as a rear tire changer, a half dozen times or so.

On the Sim-Racing front, Curtis has only been racing on-line for about a year. He had plenty of experience “playing them as games”, clear back to the original NASCAR Racing by Papyrus, but had never done it on-line.  That was until a fellow short track driver got him hooked on it. Originally Craig raced on-line running DirtFactor, which is one of the modifications to another popular Racing Sim called rFactor (http://www.rfactor.net/ ) More recently, he has been running NR2003.

“I’m going to be running as many of the MCT-SRL events as I can on Thursday nights.” Curtis told me enthusiastically. “We’ve had a lot of yellows, but when we are running green it has been a blast. The racing has been spectacular when we’ve been able to do it. We have a few guys that are rookies, who are still getting their stripes and learning, but the guys that have been there every week are getting comfortable around each other and we can race hard!”    Craig cited the Motor Mile event as an example. “Now that was some good racing! We had a lot of passing and racing hard. I think that we can expect more of that as the series goes on.”

Besides the enjoyment he gets out of Sim-Racing, Curtis sees a much more practical benefit to taking part in it.  “Racing on-line really helps you keep that competitive edge during the off season. When you get out on the track that first time in the Spring, you don’t have all that rust you have to knock off. You are already used to paying attention to what other guys are doing and what is going on around you.  It isn’t like you are relearning the whole racing thing after being out of the car for months.   The other thing it helps with is when you are in traffic.”  He went on to explain that it is very different from how he had played it as a game before, where everything is relatively predictable. The very nature of racing other individuals instead of the computer, introduces a myriad of variables that drivers need to deal with every time they roll out onto the track.  “When you run on-line there are guys who might be a lot faster or slower, which causes you to make quicker decisions.  You are picking your way through traffic in a realistic fashion. That absolutely translates over to the track in real life. You are always driving ahead of you, looking for where someone is running, how you might pass this guy and such. “

One aspect of Sim-Racing that Curtis has really come to appreciate is the high level of skill he has encountered in some of the other drivers. “I’m amazed by the guys that don’t race in real life but understand how to handle a car really well. They are able to sense and correct a tight or loose car with only half the information or feedback you get in a real car.” He went on to explain that, “In real life”, a driver can pick up on very subtle handling differences simply because you can feel it in driver’s seat if your car is loose, or in your hands if it is a little tight. A driver can adjust or correct to an ill handling car simply by feel.  “Some of these guys on-line seem to have the same ability to sense what the car is doing.  Of course you can’t get that actual “feel” of how a car is handling on-line and I can’t believe how some guys can go as fast as they do without having that same on-track experience. It is really impressive.”

Craig Curtis isn’t sure what the 2009 racing season will hold in store for him, but what really matters is that race fans get out and support their local short tracks. “We all know that Michigan is struggling with the economy, but whether the economy is good or not, racers are still going to race and they are all going to put on a good show. “  He finished up the interview by telling me a story about a race last year at Shady Bowl, in DeGraff Ohio. He had won the event and was parked on the front stretch, doing the victory lane ceremony.  There all along the fence are kids smiling, waving and wanting autographs. “That is what really keeps guys going to the track. We all love the competition, but when you can put on a good show and put a smile on a kid’s face, that is what it is all about.”