STICKING TOGETHER

Lifelong friends keep racing in their lives

Story & photos by Shawn Wood

It is a little more than an hour’s drive from Williamsport to Beaver Springs Dragway in western Snyder County, but it’s become second nature for a group of racers from Billtown.

Since they were kids, Nate Clark, Matt Lantz, and Harvey Smith have been attending the drag races at the facility with their dads. Now they are making their own passes on the 1/8th-mile drag strip.

All three men are part of a group of 20 guys who either race, work on cars, build engines, fabricate parts, or help in the pits so that they can compete in heads-up racing where it’s win or go home.

“It’s the first to the end who wins,” said Clark. “You can’t get any more basic than that. It’s more fun for the spectators, I believe. Drag racing is cool. It is more fun to do than to watch once you learn how it works.”

The group also gets together on the first Saturday of the month during the summertime in Williamsport where they can take a couple of laps around downtown and then put their cars on display while spending time with family and friends.

“We’re trying to get the younger kids into the car culture, rather than having them sit at home and playing on their Xboxes,” Smith said of the Saturday night downtown scene. All three have full-time jobs.

Clark works for the city of Williamsport; Smith is a driller and blasts holes at quarries while doing some side work for local racers and Lantz is a partner at RMJ, a car restoration company. The latter is one of the main sponsors of the racing at Beaver Springs.

Clark married into racing. His wife Lindsay’s dad is Dave Shirn, a pro stock driver who raced at Clinton County Speedway.

Clark races a 1998 Ford GT Mustang while Smith races a 1981 Chevy Camaro and Lantz races a 2002 Chevy Camaro. All three men have worked on each other’s car at various times.

In high school, Clark hated the Ford Mustang, as he grew up a Chevy guy. Now he races one, but with a twist.

HARVEY SMITH, LEFT, HELPS NATE CLARK, RIGHT, TAKE THE MUFFLER OFF HIS 1998 FORD GT MUSTANG DRAG CAR AT CLARK’S RACE SHOP IN WILLIAMSPORT. CLARK IS WAITING ON HIS ENGINE TO RETURN FROM THE BUILDERS.

“It has a 5.3 LS Chevrolet engine in it and the guy who builds it is a Ford guy,” Clark said. “We had another friend who is also into racing, and he is a Ford guy. I was in a spot and needed a place to live. So, I stayed with him, and he always had Ford-related magazines laying around the apartment.

“I was an import guy when I started getting into cars and in reading the Mustang magazines, I found out that I could buy headers for $300 for a Ford and I was paying $800 for a Chevy 4-cylinder, and that was for one header, and that’s what got me into the Ford,” he said.

“My brother Jeremy was a Chevy guy, but he too runs a blue 1998 Ford Mustang GT with a Chevy LS engine.”

Clark’s dad Randy raced at Beaver Springs back in the day and so did Lantz’s dad whose car was known as the ‘Quarter Pounder.’

All three men ran their personal bests at the track last year in the 1/8th-mile distance with Smith going 5.70 seconds; while Lantz went 5.40 seconds and Nate made a pass at 5.26 seconds, or 134 miles per hour.

“I got into using the LS engine as well,” Smith said. “If it wasn’t for these guys (Matt and Nate) helping me out, I would have gotten out of the sport. The LS engine is like the old-school, small-block Chevy engines, they’re everywhere.”

Each agreed that Beaver Springs Dragway owner Mike McCracken, of Altoona, has kept the family atmosphere going that previous owner and founder ‘Beaver’ Bob McCardle started many years ago.

“Mike’s a racer but he understands the family aspect of the sport,” Lantz said.

“One time, I had an issue with a fender and was going through the pits to see if someone had one that I could use. I wasn’t having any luck finding one when Mike approached me and asked what was going on. So, I told him the situation and he said he would be right back. He came back to my pit stall a few minutes later with the fender off of his car so that I could race. He wouldn’t take any money for it.”

Clark’s two kids, Maddison, 11, and Ben, 6, are into the drag racing scene as well, not only supporting their dad at the track, but Maddison takes video with a cell phone from the spectator fence of Nate at the starting line so he can see how the suspension is working off the line.

Both kids have the racing bug and agree that they don’t want to see their dad sell the car for them to get a junior dragster; they want to watch him race.

Lantz’s daughter, Olivia, 7, also has the racing bug.

Whether it is straight liners, oval track, or road courses, family is still at the forefront of motorsports.

And that’s the beauty that these friends have been able to pass on to their children and it’s the atmosphere that remains present today at Beaver Springs where they can race, help each other, and know their kids are having a good time as well.

DYLAN CISNEY, LEFT, BENCH RACES WITH LATE MODEL DRIVER RICK ECKERT, RIGHT, WHILE CISNEY’S CREW CHIEF JIM SHREINER, MIDDLE, LOOKS ON, IN THE PITS AT PORT ROYAL SPEEDWAY ON OPENING DAY. CISNEY WENT ON TO WIN THE SEASON OPENER FOR THE 410 SPRINT CARS.

Shawn Wood/Inside PA