Craig Vosbergen
A look at the driver roster for any of this year’s Southern Nationals events will reveal hometowns from a number of expected locales. Drivers list Tennessee, Georgia or perhaps the Carolinas as their place of origin. However, one hometown stands out in stark contrast to the others as Perth, Australia is listed as the residence for racer Craig Vosbergen.
On occasion, the driver who speaks with a very distinct Australian accent makes the journey to the United States to do something he fell in love with in his own country. And over the next two weeks, the Ray Cook promoted series will provide the opportunity for plenty of racing over a relatively short period of time.
“It’s unique for me, it’s hard,” Vosbergen said in an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com prior to the Southern Nationals opener at Wythe Raceway. “I can’t expect to race a season points deal because I have two jobs back home to pay for all this. I can’t be on the road all the time so it’s great to do this series and have it all over and done with and be able to compete on a level playing field with the other guys in the series. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.”
When Vosbergen does get the chance to cross the ocean for racing, he tries to make the most of his time here in order to learn in the place where this form of the sport is most known.
“Over home we race the Dirt Late Models exactly like we do here,” the 48-year-old explained. “It’s just one of those things. We started coming in 2007 and each year we’ve sort of ramped up our number of shows we attend. This will be my third time here at Wytheville, I think the first time was a Lucas Oil race then last year we did the Southern Nationals and now we’re back here again this year.”
Dirt Late Model racing has become quite popular in Australia with fans and drivers alike enjoying the sport on a regular basis, even in a place almost half a world away from its roots. As a matter of fact, American drivers such as Steve Francis and Jimmy Owens have made trips ‘Down Under’ to ply their trade.
“Speedway racing is like the biggest fan base sport in summer, including cricket, which is like your baseball,” Vosbergen pointed out. “We get more fans to speedway meetings as a whole over a season than some of the ball sports so it’s a pretty big deal. When those guys come down everyone sort of steps up a little bit. We just don’t get the laps these guys get. We run a maximum of twenty race meetings a year and our feature races are 25 or 30 laps, not 50, 75 or 100. We sat down with Steve one time and worked out the laps he does in a season compared to ours and he is like tenfold of what we would do. And it’s all about seat time in these things, and he’s got that over us well and truly.”
Vosbergen’s No. 8 Rocket
The cars that Vosbergen will be racing have been nurtured by the capable hands of Shannon Buckingham as they awaited their driver’s arrival.
“They’ve been awesome,” Vosbergen said of Buckingham and his father Tom. “I met Tom Buckingham on the Lucas deal about three years ago when he was working with John Blankenship, and then I got to know Shannon, who is also a pretty good shoe in Late Models. He hasn’t driven for a while but he still has his race shop so we just figured out a deal and here we are.”
Vosbergen competes in Rocket Chassis, which is set up and tuned by his own crew and the former driver who brings a vast array of knowledge and leadership to the team.
“We’ve got two cars and a really good team,” Vosbergen declared. “They know what they’re doing, they’ve got the runs on the board from working with Blankenship and Shannon in his own right. I’m really lucky to have someone like that on my side so we can roll up to these unfamiliar places and at least have half an idea of what to do. And with him being a driver, he can give me some tips too – and that’s priceless with me being here on such a steep learning curve. It really does help me out, big time.”
