Southern Indiana family continues tradition at Bloomington Speedway

With butterflies in his stomach, Chris Babcock thinks about his strategy for tonight. He wants to go fast and finish first.

When Chris climbs into the seat of his yellow sprint car, number 35, his butterflies go away.

He revs the engine, and the smell of fuel looms in the air of the pit as all the other engines rumble as well.

His father, Bill Babcock, the owner of Bill’s Auto Repair Shop, hands him his black gloves and a neutral-colored face mask made of a fire-protective cloth. Then he puts a contraption similar to a neck brace, called a “hans,” around his neck.

While Chris straps on his seat belt, Bill walks around to all four corners of the car to check the tire pressure.

Chris then puts on his black helmet, which is already specked with red clay from his earlier practice runs on the Bloomington Speedway track. 

Since opening in 1923, many legends have left their mark on the unique red clay track, including Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Kasey Kane and Steve Kinser, as they made their way from dirt racing to NASCAR.

Every weekend, the track races sprint cars, modified cars and super stock cars.
Although Chris loves the sport and said he’s improving every weekend, racing is just a hobby for him.

He fastens the helmet straps under his chin, covering his face with the face shield.
With all his gear on, Chris is practically attached to the car to prevent him from falling out if it were to flip over, which is common in a sport where you have to keep a vehicle stable while reaching speeds up to 100 miles per hour and making sharp turns.

Bill then hooks up a four-wheeler to the back of Chris’ sprint car and pushes him to the bright red clay track.

“Momma has to have her eye on her little boy,” says Debbie Babcock as she walks across the gravel road in the pit area toward the stand where most of the drivers’ families sit.

Chris, a freshman at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis, might not be a little boy, but he is still pretty young at 19 years old.

“I get all of my gray hairs from this,” Debbie jokes as she arrives to the stands.
But Debbie has not had much of a choice when it comes to car racing. She met her own husband at the racetrack about 21 years ago.

From then on, she spent her weekends watching Bill race. Now she watches her two sons, Chris and Justin Porter, race.

“It’s a family thing,” Porter says.

Although this has become routine for Debbie, she doesn’t forget the dangers her husband and sons face while on the track.

“I always tell myself he could be doing a lot worse things and getting in trouble,” she says. “As a teenager, he could have gotten into drugs or drinking. So I figure this is the better of that.”

About five years ago, Chris flipped his sprint car and suffered a concussion and cracked vertebrae in his back.

Even though his doctors recommended that he take it easy for a while, Chris could not restrain himself and went back on the track the following weekend.

“As a racer, you really don’t want to miss out on any opportunity to compete,” Chris said.

As she walks up the steps into one of the top rows, Debbie looks for the yellow sprint car reading the number 35. She is looking for Chris.

Chris pulls his car up to his assigned position in second place.

“All I got to say is he better put the pedal to the metal and not give up,” Debbie says as she talks to her friends in the stands.

Suddenly the cars pass the white starting line, taking off at high speed. The engines roar louder than ever, almost to the point where you cannot hear the person cheering next to you.

For the first sprint, Chris follows in second place until he hits the second turn, and his car slides over the ridge.

Debbie strains and clasps her head. Chris has to keep his car moving or else he will lose his second place position and have to start from the back of the line.
He doesn’t stop.

Chris gets to keep his second position.

Debbie breathes a sigh of relief.

“This is a tougher track,” she says, comparing the Bloomington Speedway to other tracks that Chris has raced on throughout the state.

The cars realign and off they go again. As the sprint cars hit the curves, the back of the cars slide toward the left, kicking chunks of red clay into the stands and onto the audience members as far as about 50 feet away.

“GO! GO! GO! C’MON!” Debbie shouts and claps over the roars of all of the engines.
The checkered flag is pulled out. Now, it’s time to end the race. Chris’ sprint car seems to slide around the curve and follows in third place.

Debbie stands up and cheers loudly.

This is a good thing, considering he was facing some of the best racers here tonight, she says. Now Chris gets to compete in the feature race later tonight for a chance to win the entire race and a cash award.

When Chris comes back to the pit, he pulls off his helmet.

He’s breathing hard and sweating as though he just ran a marathon; his arms sore from trying to keep his 1,300- to 1,400-pound car steady at high speeds.

“I played basketball all through high school,” Chris says. “I’ll tell you what, it takes more energy to drive one of these things around out there than it ever did playing basketball.”

You have to keep yourself in shape in order to keep up in car racing, he says. Otherwise, you’re going to struggle.

Unfortunately, tonight the unpredictability of the sport did not end in Chris’ favor.
After pulling into the pit, Chris and his dad look over the muddy car. There’s a problem with the engine, and they have to remove the yellow shell to get a better look.

It turns out Chris will not be able to race in the feature tonight after all. With a broken engine, it’s not worth risking the car and having to pay even more for repairs than what is already needed.

“If you don’t tear anything up,” Bill says, “it costs about six to eight hundred dollars per night.”

Although he’s disappointed, Chris says he’s lucky that there were not any worse problems with the car.

This week he will do what he does most weeks — fix the car from the previous race and get ready to race again next weekend.

“Have you ever been addicted to anything?” Porter asks. “It’s worse than any drug addiction because you keep going for that adrenaline rush.”