Chris Rickett in his Street Stock ride
Chris Rickett only got back into racing a short time ago, but just one look at the results this east Tennessee Street Stock racer has posted would seem to indicate that he never left the sport at all. Indeed, the Morristown driver has piled up wins at several area tracks and is hoping to continue that trend this weekend at the Volunteer Speedway.
“It’s sort of like one of those deals where you think somebody’s going to pinch you and you’ll wake up to find out that you’ve not done as good as you thought you were,” Rickett said in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We do work hard to go fast and we try hard. I work on my car and people ask why we do that since we’re winning so I tell them that all the guys behind us are working hard on their cars to go fast also.”
Rickett believes that those who sit still run the risk of getting passed by.
“Every week we try to change a little something to go as fast as we possibly can,” the driver explained. “I always tell my crew guys that no matter whether you win a race or not, there’s always something you can do to a race car to make it go faster.”
Then Rickett added with a laugh, “but there’s more things that will make it go slower.”
Even with his success on tracks such as 411 Motor Speedway and Volunteer Speedway, Rickett surprised himself this past Saturday when he collected a win at Smoky Mountain Speedway.
“We were a little surprised at Smoky Mountain because I’ve not got the motor everybody thinks I’ve got,” Rickett declared. “I have got a good motor, obviously, but it’s not the one I would really like to have.”
Rickett believes that having a good basic setup is essential for a Street Stock racer to be able to succeed on more than one east Tennessee track.
Chris Rickett won in the Street Stocks on Saturday at SMS.
“What I’ve tried to do with my car, after I looked at all the race track rules, is build a car that would fit in between all of them,” he said. “That way I can go every place and race without having to change a lot on my car.”
He would like to see more unity in the rules for support classes on area tracks.
“It’s so aggravating because I don’t understand why they won’t unify their rules,” Rickett declared. “It would be so much better for all the Street Stock racers, and racers in other classes, if all the tracks in this area had the same rules. Race tracks want to build a fence around their cars so they can keep those ten cars there, but they could have an opportunity to have thirty or forty cars to come race with them.”
Rickett just got back into racing following an absence of several years. After driving open-wheel cars for some time, he got out of the sport following the death of his mother in 2005. But it was after a visit to a track last year that the itch to drive returned.
Since that return, Rickett has applied his determined work ethic to his racing efforts.
“I tell the guys that work with me that we need to think like we’re running a $10,000-to-win race every week, no matter if it’s really a $300-to-win or a $500-to-win we need to go prepared as if we’re running for big money every week,” he explained. “When I started racing I thought that I might not be able to out drive some guys, but I can out work some guys.
“I feel like I’m better at working on race cars than I am at driving race cars, which makes my driving easier because I am pretty good at working on them.”
