“A Passion for Racing”

Story by Larry Henry

Tom Hughs can’t afford to drive crazy.
 ”He doesn’t go out and wreck his way around the track,” said Evergreen Speedway race director Eric Mehrer.  ”He’s one of these guys who’s always level-headed.”
 He’s got to be.
 ”Everything on the car I paid for,” Hughs said.  ”I can’t go out driving crazy and start wrecking stuff.”
 Not that wrecks don’t happen. It’s part of racing, no matter how careful you are.
 It happened to him early this season in a race at Evergreen Speedway. After leading most of the way, he got tangled up with another car and finished ninth.
 One look at his car told him all he needed to know. “If the insurance guy had walked in, he wouldn’t even have pulled out his note pad,” Hughs said.  ”He would have said, ‘Total it.’ ”
 His first thought: How much is it going to cost to rebuild it?
 When you don’t have any sponsorship money and you’re footing your own bills, cost matters.
 But rebuild it he did, with the help of driver Jeff Knight and his crew. They had it ready to go the following race.
 That’s life on the small tracks of America. Demolish your car and some guy who was trying to put you into the wall the week before volunteers to come and help put your car back together.
 There’s not much money, if any, to be made in small-time racing. Even the top drivers are lucky to cover costs, Hughs said.
 So why does he do it? It’s not as if he’s filthy rich, though he makes a good living as a laser engraver at the Boeing plant in Renton after years of working as a mechanic at the Everett plant.
 He does it for one simple reason. “I just love stock car racing,” the 42-year-old Arlington resident said.
 For some drivers, it’s the speed that causes the adrenalin rush. For Hughs, it’s the competition. To be running next to someone on the “edge of control and make it around the track 40 times” is a rush in itself.
 Some drivers aspire to run the big-time NASCAR circuit back East. All Hughs ever wanted to do was run the super stocks at Monroe. “This is my big time,” he said with a grin.
 And one of the races he looks forward to is run at the Evergreen State Fair on Sept.5. This is his Talladega. “The stands are packed, there’s a lot of excitement, you can feel the energy,” he said.  ”It’s a popular night. A lot of people who have never been here will come to the fair race.”
 Hughs, a native of  Missouri, got acquainted with Evergreen Speedway as a high school student working on safety crews on Saturday nights. Soon he was racing there, in the mini-stocks, with his eyes longingly focused on the super stocks. “That was my goal.”
 Not that he ever thought he would reach that goal. If he could just drive a late model, he mused, that would be the ultimate. “At that time, no way did I think it would happen.”
 In the late 80s, after three years in mini-stocks, he quit racing. Went to work at Boeing. Got married.
 Fifteen years later, he got back into racing. In a super stock.  Driving Tom Matthew’s back-up car.
 Goal attained.
 Three years later, he built his own car with help from his friend and ever-reliable mechanic Mike Walker. “If there’s work to do on the car, he’s here to do it,” Hughs said.  ”Mike loves this.”
 As does Hughs. They do most of the work on the car themselves, spending two days a week throughout the year at Matthews’ shop near Lake Stevens. “We enjoy our guy time,” Hughs said.
 Boys and their toys.
 Since resuming racing on a regular basis in 2006, Hughs said he has improved his points standing every year. And as of mid-July, when he was interviewed for this story, he was headed for his best season ever. He was showing consistency, with three consecutive top-five performances, and stood fourth in the point standings.
 As he notes in his blog, a well-written and informative recounting of the previous week’s action, he has three goals each time he gets in the car: Finish the race, finish on the lead lap and finish in the top 5.
 ”If you don’t achieve the first one, the next two are out the window,” he writes.”If we achieve all three, we consider the race a success.”
 To try and ensure that he does finish, he doesn’t attempt to win the race in the first few laps. None of that crazy driving he talks about. “I don’t need to be in the lead during the race,” he said.  ”I play it a little more on the safe side, try to take them at the end, like ‘Where did he come from?’ ”
 If cars go around him early, he doesn’t panic. “If a guy is beating on my back, I’ll let him around. It doesn’t pay to be banging with someone in the first 20 laps.”
 Whatever happens, though, be it spinouts, crashes, drivers getting upset over being punched into the wall, Hughs relishes it all. “I understand it. It’s all part of racing.”
 He’s in his element. The place he always wanted to be.
 ”Every guy has a thing,” he said.  ”Whether it’s golf, model trains or racing.”
 Does this guy and his thing have a core of fans? “I’m told I do. I don’t know who they are. I get a smattering of applause. No roars.”
 Maybe they’ll come fair week.
 They say Tom Hughs is a good ambassador for the sport. Signs autographs. Doesn’t come unglued if things don’t go his way.
 As race director Mehrer said, “He’s level-headed.”
 There’s a lot to be said for that.