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THURSDAY. MAY 20. 2004 PICKENS COUNTY PROGRESS PAGE 3B
Shooting the Breeze
with Mark Roland
Mark Roland is the owner of
Roland Tire on South Main Street.
During the racing season, he is kept
busy working on his Super Late
Model dirt car.
Where are you from originally,
and how did you arrive in Pick
ens?
I was born in Pickens County,
and that's where I've lived all my
life. I went to school here, and I
graduated in 1987.
What do you like about Pickens
County?
Just the down home feeling. You
know everybody, which is chang
ing, it's getting to where you don't
know everybody. It's the only place
I've ever lived, so I'm not going to
say there isn't a better place out
there [laughs], but I enjoy it.
How long have you been working
on cars?
I've been here six years. I've
never held a public job, I've never
worked for anybody, and I've never
drawn a paycheck from anywhere
else. I started when I was about 14
years old, with my brother over at
Discount Tire. He had just graduat
ed high school and he started that
business. I kind of grew into that,
and became a partner. We split up in
1998 and opened up here, and I've
been here ever since.
I started out with two employees
six years ago, and I've added a lot of
improvements since then. From the
first year I was in business to now,
our business has grown probably
100 percent in sales. Now I've got
ten employees.
You also race dirt cars.
Yeah, I've got a Super Late
Model dirt car that I race. My broth
er introduced me to that also. Of
course, being an older brother they
introduce you to a lot of stuff.
I started racing a little bit in 1991
for a couple of years, then I got
married and quit, and had children.
I kind of tinkered with it a little bit
here and there. Last year I got pretty
serious about it and bought another
car, and started in Super Late
Model, which is the highest class
you can race locally or nationally in
dirt racing. The next step up from
dirt would be Busch or ARCA.
Actually there's a lot of profession
als that race NASCAR like Tony
Stewart and Bill Elliot that are com
ing back to this type of racing, and
doing it because that's where the fun
is at.
It's an oval track, generally a
quarter to a half mile around. Our
average speed at North Georgia
Speedway — which is what they call
a small three-eighths, bigger than a
quarter, not hardly a three-eighths —
is about 110 miles an hour. There's a
track in Ohio that they race, I'd say
they're probably running 150 down
the straightaway. That's pretty fast
on dirt, [laughs]
You can do it for a living if
you've got the sponsors and you win
a lot. But you've got to be really
good. At an average race — when
you're racing for a living and doing
it for money. This past weekend at
North Georgia Speedway, they had
a race, the World Outlaw Late
Model Series, and sponsors came
up there and paid $10,000 to win.
65 cars showed up trying to make a
24 car field. That's how competitive
it is.
I've been down for three weeks. I
blew up an engine at Sugar Creek
Raceway in Blue Ridge on Friday
night a couple of weeks ago. I'm
down repairing it right now. I am in
the process of seeking a major
sponsor, and if I had some I'd have
extra engines laying around. But
right now I'm racing out of pocket
so I'm on a limited budget. A new
engine is $25,000. The car's about
$22,000, so there's about $50,000
worth of car and motor sitting there.
Why is the engine so expensive?
It's actually a more precious
piece than a NASCAR motor except
they don't have the research and
development. That's what makes a
Winston Cup motor so expensive,
they might go through four sets of
cylinder heads trying to get one
motor because they need every
quarter percent of horse power they
can get.
Our engine that we run is an all
aluminum block, with aluminum
heads, naturally aspirated which
means you don't run fuel injection.
It's got just as much technology or
more in our type of car as there is in
NASCAR, except for the research
and all the testing. Of course their
sponsorship is way up in the mil
lions and it's highly televised.
Our motors have 700 to 850
horsepower. There's a lot of tech
nology in the chassis too. On
NASCAR they use the old truck
arm suspension. It's the same kind
of rear suspension that came on a
'66 model pickup. Our type of rear
end is what they call a four-link sus
pension, which consists of four bars
that hold the rear end square in the
chassis, plus another bar they call a
panhard bar that holds it in the chas
sis to keep it from going from side
to side. It's pretty technologically
advanced.
What has been your biggest
accomplishment so far in racing?
Getting to go race against the big
guys and the professionals. I didn't
make the feature race but neither
did Donnie Moran or Freddie
Smith, some of the bigger guys that
do it for a living I got to race side
by side with. In a sense that's the
same as an asphalt guy getting to
race side by side with Bill Elliott.
I've never won a race. Back even
when I was racing Sportsman in '91
and '92,1 won several heat races but
never a feature event, and then I
quit.
Right now I'm trying to get seri
ous about it. It's coming soon, I just
don't know when. I'm getting very
competitive if I could quit having
some bad luck. I've blown up two
engines in six months and crashed
my car last October, and had to
pretty much rebuild it over the win
ter time. When you're racing out of
pocket that's kind of hard. The pro
fessional guys show up with a rig
that's as big as Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s,
and they'll have two cars, three
engines, and a whole crew, where
I'll show up with just one car and
limited funds.
The other weekend I was run
ning fifth with three laps to go when
my motor broke. The weekend
before I finished ninth in an 18-car
field, and some of the guys that fin
ished behind me have been doing it
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for 12 to 15 years. And here I am a
new guy and doing that.
I'm racing kind of beyond my
capabilities. I could probably do
better. It's just a dream that I want to
go out and run with those guys and
be part of it. It makes you better
racing against the big guys.
I've got good equipment, my
driving ability is there. I just need
more seat time and lap traffic, and a
couple of good breaks. It's just like
Michael Waltrip in NASCAR, he
raced 475 NASCAR starts before he
ever won a race, and he had spon
sors every year before he finally
started winning.
When is the next race?
I'll have my motor back together
in about three weeks and I hope to
go run Charlotte Motor Speedway
the weekend of the 30th. They're
having the Coca-Cola 600 there,
and outside of Charlotte there's a
big dirt track. And we're racing my
car up there two nights that week
end, on Friday and Saturday night.
Each night is paying $10,000 to
win.
How did you first get involved in
racing?
My brother started racing in
1982. I was 15 or 16 years old and
went with them to the races. I found
an old car sitting in a field for a
thousand bucks and put a motor in it
that I had sitting in the basement
that my dad gave, and I went racing
with that. It started from there and
escalated. That was in the sports
man class. I did that for '92 and '93.
It's just been a desire of mine all my
life to want to do it.
To be able to do it professionally
would be nice. I would be comfort
able staying in dirt racing rather
than going on to NASCAR. A lot of
those guys start at the local Satur
day night dirt track.
What other hobbies or interests
do you have?
I do like working outside. I've
got a small farm in Hinton. I've got
horses. I've had horses since I was
in seventh grade. It's always been a
passion of mine, I like having them
around.
I like being outdoors. We go
camping, and motor homing a lot. I
like being with the kids. Racing,
kids, and family life, and working,
that's about all I do.
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