Bryan resident racing toward a dream

By CRAIG KAPITAN
Eagle Staff Writer

There was a time when amateur racing enthusiasts could count on seeing Tommy Garcia on any given Saturday night at Hot Rod Hill - the back end of his beatup 1972 Chevelle sliding around corners as he maneuvered it past other cars at the now-defunct dirt racetrack.

It was a dream come true for the 37-year-old family man, who said he grew up poor on the west side of Bryan and discovered race car driving late in life.

click to zoom in Eagle Photo/Dave McDermand Tommy Garcia of Bryan is one of 50 finalists from a pool of 4,000 racers who tried out for the NASCAR-based reality series Racin' For a Livin'.

Now Garcia says he has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to push his dream even further, and he's asking fellow Brazos Valley residents to help him achieve it.

Earlier this spring, Garcia was one of 50 drivers nationwide selected as finalists for Racin' for a Livin', a new NASCAR-based reality television show that is expected to premiere on a major cable network early next year. More than 4,000 people tried out for the show.

If Garcia can now garner enough online votes to beat out most of the other finalists, he has a chance at starring on the show and possibly even turning his hobby into a full-time profession.

"If I can make it to the show and race 12 weeks, even if I don't win the show, it will be the best 12 weeks of my life - I guarantee you," he said on a recent afternoon, animated as he pondered the possibility.

Winning is certainly a longshot for the lifelong racing enthusiast, who supports his four children by driving trucks across Texas for an oilfield service company. Garcia openly admits he's never raced on asphalt and hasn't ever logged a championship win in the five years since he's made the leap from the spectator stands.

He's also one of the oldest contestants to make the cut and the only remaining Hispanic contestant in a sport not generally known for its racial diversity.

But that doesn't necessarily concern Garcia, who has adopted an image of '70s cartoon character Underdog as his logo when talking to fan's on the television show's Web site. For the past month he has been campaigning tirelessly - whether it be at racetracks, radio stations or truck stops during his lunch break - to win the popularity contest that could change his life forever.

"I'm 37 years old - this opportunity isn't going to happen again," he said. "[But] give me the right equipment and I'll push that car to the limit."

Racin' for a Livin' is the dream of Wyoming resident Jerry VanDenHul, whose own racing aspirations have somewhat mirrored Garcia's.

A former sprint car racer, VanDenHul decided to try his luck at NASCAR shortly after recovering from a broken neck in 1997. At 36, he enrolled in a racing school and felt pretty confident about his abilities, he said, but he was too old and couldn't attract a sponsor.

So instead, VanDenHul said he came up with the idea for Racin' for a Livin', which he describes as an intense training program that provides the exact sort of opportunity he wishes he had.

"It's kind of everything I ever wanted," he said. "Basically, I'm doing this whole thing to go racing."

Taping is expected to start in August, after all the fan votes have been tallied. An agreement already has been made to air the show on cable, VanDenHul said, but he declined to name the channel because he said negotiations still are being finalized.

Of the 50 finalists - who range from "Saturday night racers" such as Garcia to young semi-professionals who already have lucrative non-NASCAR sponsorships - the 15 with the most votes will be flown to North Carolina and put in full NASCAR vehicles to compete against themselves and five "wildcard" drivers.

Of that group, the 12 most promising drivers will gain a spot on the show, which has been described as American Idol goes NASCAR." Traveling to some of the country's most well-known tracks, contestants will train with professionals, get tutoring with a lifestyles coach and, of course, race.

By the final show, when only two drivers are left, viewers will be asked to cast votes once again - choosing who they want to be the winner. The grand prize is seven fully sponsored races in the NASCAR Busch Series.

VanDenHul, who has been developing the show for five years now, described it as the fast track to gaining the necessary experience to compete at the NASCAR level - cramming two years worth of racing into a 12-week period.

"It's different than your Saturday night races," he said. "This is a completely different realm."

VanDenHul's enthusiasm for the idea seems to have caught on. At its peak, he reported, the Racin' for a Livin' Web site has attracted up to 16 million hits in one week.

Even if Garcia loses, there's still a chance that the experience will be a positive one. Contestants will continue to race until the end, getting multiple chances to impress potential sponsors.

But first, Garcia said, he has to get on the show.

He's currently in 33rd place.

Garcia, the son of a single mother who primarily spoke Spanish, said he first discovered racing as a child in Lubbock. He and his six siblings would spend summers picking cotton, and he always looked forward to Saturday night, when the family headed out to the local races.

It wasn't until about 2001, when he heard Hot Rod Hill would be opening in Brazos County, that Garcia said his love for racing was reawakened. He bought a 1970 Pontiac LeMans for $500, and "it's been a whirlwind ever since," he said.

He has raced every Saturday night since then, despite setbacks from destroyed cars to his hometown track being shut down. Hot Rod Hill was ordered shuttered by a jury last year after the business was sued over noise complaints. Garcia has gone through two other cars - both old Chevys that have helped him win plenty of heats but never a featured race.

"I never had the money to put into a car that had a chance to win," he said, saying he's come a long way since his upbringing in west Bryan but that he's still not a wealthy man. "Over here at the track, I had a reputation as the guy that, if I could catch up to you, I'd get around you.

"I'm as fast as the car lets me be."

But in January 2005, his luck started to change.

That's when he got a call from Loyd Teakell, a fellow Hot Rod Hill patron who he recognized from the pews at Covenant Family Church. Although the two only knew each other in passing, Teakell had decided he wanted to give Garcia his sprint car, a trailer to haul it and all his repair tools - a package Teakell estimated as being worth about $50,000.

Teakell, who now lives in North Carolina, said Friday that he chose to do so after receiving a sign from God as he was reading a book by a popular evangelist.

A former road builder with millions of dollars in investments, he said he had received a similar sign three years ago when he was called upon to start a ministry focusing on NASCAR fans. After ignoring that first vision, Teakell said, his investments floundered and his life "went through hell." He wasn't going to ignore God this time, he said.

"I didn't even really know Tommy that well, but God told me to do it," he said. "Losing $50,000 worth of racing equipment to listen to God was nothing."

Garcia said he still isn't sure why Teakell gave him the equipment, which finally gave him an advantage on the track he never had before, but he certainly wasn't going to turn the offer down.

He cites the car as one of the reasons he might have been picked as a finalist for the television show. It showed the producers that even though he doesn't have a championship, he is a serious racer who has the skills necessary to adapt to different types of vehicles.

In a separate interview, VanDenHul agreed.

"He had driven multiple types of cars," he said of the decision to include Garcia among the finalists. "He'd been at it for a little while, and he'd done decent with very minimal equipment and money."

Since the donation, luck has changed for Teakell as well, he said recently. He has finally started his racetrack evangelism endeavor - jesuschristracingministries. com - which he said is thriving. And earlier this year Teakell raced his ministry's car in Daytona for the ARCA series, which is considered a minor league of sorts for NASCAR.

As for Garcia's NASCAR goals, he admits he's still at a disadvantage, having entered the sport late in life. Many of his competitors on the show come from racing families or have been racing since childhood, he said.

"I did grow up poor; I didn't come with a silver spoon in my mouth," he said. "If you take a look at where I came from as opposed to where I can be - I'm the George Mason [University] of this competition."

But now he has a chance, he said, and he intents to take it.

On a recent workday, Garcia parked his truck at a Dairy Queen in Cuero, a small town southwest of Houston, and spent his lunch hour approaching strangers with fliers.

"Excuse me, ma'am, you dropped something," he would sometimes say, flashing a smile when the customers realized he was attempting to hand them literature about a television show.

High schoolers seem to have been receptive to his pitch, he said, explaining that he even created a page on MySpace - a social Web site popular among teens - in an attempt to grab a few extra votes.

Garcia has taken his campaign as far as Rusk, Killeen, Bellmead, Madisonville, Waco and Goliad - whether it be handing out fliers, talking to fellow drivers at the racetrack or approaching people at the concession stand. He travels as far as he can each weekend given his limited budget.

"Everywhere I go, every store I stop at, I introduce myself," said Garcia, who describes himself as someone who was until recently an introvert. "I'm at the door of opportunity, but in order to get in I need people to help me."

The campaigning has helped him stay where he is in the rankings, he said, but so far it has felt like he has been treading water. While there's still two months of voting left, he admits his 33rd-place status is disappointing.

The only other Texan to make it to the finals, Adam Epperson of Onalaska, is all the way in ninth place, he pointed out. Epperson's hometown has a population of just under 1,200, but somehow he's been able to mobilize that small group, even getting an official proclamation of support from the city, Garcia said.

While Garcia has hoped that his unique status among the contestants as a Hispanic would help him in garnering votes, both he and VanDenHul now speculate his ethnicity may be working against him.

"I think with all of this stuff going on with the illegals and all that, I think it's making it a little tough for him," VanDenHul said last week. "With that the only thing in the news, I don't know if [him] being Hispanic is just a total turnoff to people or what. It's hard to say."

Both men admit that a reluctance to accept new people still can be pervasive among a portion of the sport's fans. In fact, Garcia said, campaigning for the show has created some of the only moments in his life when he's directly experienced racism.

However, both men said they suspect there's a large community out there of Hispanic race fans that has yet to be tapped. If he's able to find that group, which Garcia describes as "known for supporting their own," it might be the advantage that rockets him through the rankings, he said.

For Hispanics to have a larger presence in NASCAR, all it's going to take is economics, VanDenHul said, explaining that other forms of racing already have a strong following in Mexico.

"There is no blockade on whether you're a woman or a man or black or Hispanic or Chinese or whatever," he said. "It all comes around to what sponsors are willing to pay. I think it's more money-driven than anything else."

According to Garcia, the fact that there are few if any Hispanics on the NASCAR circuit has got to change.

"I mean it's got to [change], and I don't see why I can't be the first one out there doing it," he said. "I'm not the Tiger Woods of NASCAR, but I'd like to be."

He intends to keep on pushing until the end, he said, explaining that he's not ready to give up on such a golden opportunity. But even if he doesn't make it onto the show, Garcia said racing will always be an important part of his life.

Saturday nights at the track are "what I live for," he said.

"But if I could race to live, what more could I ask for?" he added. "That would be another dream come true."

• Craig Kapitan's e-mail address is craig.kapitan@theeagle.com.