Going to 800, and beyond

Shawn McCoy has rolled in 802 consecutive races at the Petaluma Speedway.|

Before his 802nd straight race at the Petaluma Speedway, Shawn McCoy had to saw off part of his car.

McCoy wrecked during qualifying for the June 17 Super-Stock final, his second race since his streak of consecutive races at the speedway hit 800. That’s when he had to take a saw to his front bumper.

“We took the sawzall and cut the front off,” said McCoy, who is a large man - stocky but not short - with easy excitement. “It was dragging on the ground.”

McCoy and his crew also replaced two parts of the car’s suspension and finished fifth on a night when many of the Super-Stocks didn’t finish at all. The streak was still alive. For McCoy, number 802 was never in doubt.

“You’ve got to have all the right parts,” he said.

McCoy’s streak spans 37 years, and remains unbroken despite long hours at his family’s poultry farm. McCoy’s father took him to the speedway when he was just 2 years old, and he was hooked.

Going to the speedway is still a family affair. His father is a former push truck driver and a fixture at the track - push trucks help sprint cars get started by giving them a push - and his sister and nephew are track photographers. McCoy, 56, is from Petaluma, and even met his wife at the speedway. He is also a friend and an inspiration to his fellow drivers, some of whom have seen McCoy race since they were boys themselves.

Super-Stock driver Erick Veeninga said he used to watch McCoy race when he was a kid in the grandstands. He calls McCoy a friend.

“Shawn has got a big heart, big as his body,” said Veeninga, also a Petaluma native.

As a competitor, Veeninga still sees McCoy as the one to beat. And the number 800 inspires him.

“It just shows you can do it, every week, after week,” Veeninga said.

Roger Miller was about to tow McCoy’s car off the race track when the two met for the first time.

“We hooked it up and I’m getting ready to tow him,” said Miller, who explained that McCoy’s bumper was stuck on his wheel. “And Shawn just throws it in reverse, rips his bumper off and went out and finished the race.”

The two became friends, and now Miller races Super-Stock also.

“If I need something, he’ll be right there to help me,” Miller said.

McCoy’s life at the track is thriving even though he devotes most of his time to his family’s poultry farm. He often works until 4 a.m., according to his father, Bob McCoy. And there is more to racing than just showing up at the speedway on Saturday.

“If I get home at 3 a.m., I work on the car until 5,” McCoy said. “If I get home at 4, I work until it’s daylight out.”

McCoy has been working on engines about as long as he can remember, and he learned to weld when he was young.

“He was taking apart motors and putting them together, probably when he was 5 years old,” his father said.

Shawn McCoy said he couldn’t have learned to build and drive race cars without the support from his father, his mother, Marye McCoy, and the rest of his family.

Other people got stuff for Christmas, I got tools, he said. “They were very supportive.”

“When I was very young, mom gave me a carburetor,” McCoy said.

It all started when Bob took Shawn to the Petaluma Speedway when his son was 2.

“After that, all I wanted to do was go to the races,” Shawn said.

As the driver of the No. 60 Super-Stock at Petaluma Speedway, McCoy loves the even playing field that racing creates.

“If you put two cars with similar horsepower and similar weight and try to get to the end of the straight first, that’s a race,” McCoy said. “So try going around 25 times and add 15 cars to the mix. You can start first and finish last; you can start last and finish up front.”

McCoy said it takes more than good driving to win at the 3/8-mile-long dirt oval located at the Petaluma fairgrounds.

“It’s the driver, the set-up, the track, who’s around ya,” he said. “And luck.”

Whether it was luck or fate, or a little bit of both, McCoy met his wife at the speedway 18 years ago.

“We were pushing sprint cars,” said Becky McCoy, a Petaluma native. “We met right in the middle of the racetrack.”

Becky and Shawn still drive push trucks when the Super Stocks aren’t on the Petaluma Speedway schedule. Shawn uses his 1948 Willys truck that he has had since he was too young to drive. It’s equipped with, naturally, one of his old race car engines.

Becky McCoy acknowledged Shawn’s streak, but she said the record isn’t important to him.

“It doesn’t matter to him that it’s 800, it just matters that he’s out here racing,” she said.

McCoy said racing is his weekly vacation. The streak, now 802 races and counting, is merely along for the ride.

“It’s exciting every time,” McCoy said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”

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