Conely Motor Sports owner John Conely talks candidly about the 2004 season.
Q: The season’s under way, why are you not on the track?
A: “We’re racing in the garage.”
Q: What does that mean?
A: “What does that mean? That means that the race to prepare vehicles is the first race that we have to win. And with the limited budget of a new race team it takes a certain amount of effort, the race within the garage has to be won before we can race on the track. Our vehicles and our ability to race on the track is proven. The finances required to field and maintain and build Winston Cup (Nextel) cars is not yet available to build them quickly and our effort is to build high quality racecars at a very low cost compared to our competitors. Thusly it takes me months where it should take weeks. So we look forward to the day that the facility is fully manned and staffed with payroll employees that take direction and we can build our cars in probably the 20 th of the time. And that’s why we’re not racing. We would be racing already if the cars were done and race able but now our capital had to be re-spent to re-engineer cars that were already engineered.”
Q: How many races do you think that you can field this year?
A: “Between 5 and 10. Depending on at the racetrack conditions of the racecar after the post race, damages to the cars. Our ability to repair the cars is not that much different than our ability to prepare them originally. I believe repairing is sometimes faster than original initial preparation. But if clips get knocked off, we have body shop schedules, frame shop schedules; we’re typically last on the frame shop (list) due to the fact that we don’t have 18 cars. So we have to be willing to put up with that but we have prepared enough cars right now providing that things go reasonably well with our 5-car fleet here. We have any given time our spare car and our race car and others in process, no problem.”
Q: If the 2004 changes had not come into play for you, how many races do you think you could have realistically competed in this year?
A: “Ten races. Our first race would have been Rockingham of this year. But in hindsight we were given ample time to re-invent our cars. But again with budget limitations and sponsors not necessarily understanding that change necessary to fund it we were left at not enough time. Initially though, we should have had enough time but because of these limitations, without having full staffing and full crews to change them the bottom line was we couldn’t race. Pretty simple.”
Q: Besides ARCA in Toledo and the June and August Michigan International Speedway Nextel Cup races, where else do you want to race this year?
A: “It’s open. We will race at any racetrack that I feel we are ready to go race at. And I want to get our Michigan race under our belt and we’ll make an assessment of available talent and we’ll decide from there. But each event that we race at needs to be a successful endeavor, so we’ll let you know after we get done with Michigan. I think the team is capable of running at any track in the series. We need to focus, I believe, closer to home than too far out as for out west. These 2000 or 2400 mile one-way races are probably not what we should do. I’ve historically done 20 and 22 or 23 straight races in the truck series and have traveled week-to-week to each one of these events, some 2,000 miles from each other.
We’re experienced on that to the point that we know that is another limitation for the smaller teams to compete against the bigger teams. So our job is to produce quality racecars, not get ourselves spread out and let our quality slip on our expertise which is building these cars. We need to maintain high quality cars so wherever we go, we just need to have a really good race. We’ll get there.”
Q: How are the drivers working out? You have Bickle (Rich) and Hernley (Tom) how is Rich working out for you?
A: “Rich is a good driver. He has excellent abilities but he also expects a lot from the team he is driving for and we may not meet his expectations at the level that we are at right now. In the event that we don’t meet his expectations at this point we would field a different driver for our Cup car.
And regarding Tom Hernley, Tom’s a good driver. He’s got a proven track record in Michigan in short track racing. He’s a young guy that I believe may be for the Conely team. He was in here tonight (late April) visiting, came in got his seat finished up, sat in it and is happy with the adjustments. We adjusted the steering wheel, adjusted his belts…he’s ready to go racing. That’s a racecar driver. I didn’t ask him to come put the seat in, we put it in, but the idea is he would come in fit-it-up before race day and he’s ready not to complain about his seat feels. He’s ready to concentrate on his racing; he’s done what he can do. So I think Tom (Conely pauses, knocks on the desk twice) will give us a good effort. It should be good to try out some fresh talent. He’s not ready for Winston Cup (Nextel Cup) racing by any means but it is a beginning to see what he can do in this ARCA race for us.”
Q: A number of teams have had to work through several engine designs and have spent huge amounts of money to get where they are now in the Cup series, how will your approach to this problem differ from the current Cup teams?
A: “Engines are the easiest thing for me to do in this whole project. The development of the engines is another story. Development of engines means you make 5 sets of cylinder heads one day and one week later decide that they don’t work any more and at the cost of $10,000 a set. So we have to take and do our research between GM motor sports, between other engine builders in the field, connections that I’ve had for 30 years and listen to what’s going on in what they’re doing compared to what I think we should be do and then I have to go out and do what I think is best for our team.
Often that leaves us kind of in the middle of the game, sometimes conservative and not as high horsepower as the big guys but reliable horsepower. The old story is unreliable engines in this business don’t do anything for your reputation so we build reliable engines and I believe with adequate horsepower. Given more time and more opportunity to test and develop our engines I believe that we will get better engines than anybody we race against. But that time is not here yet. So we have to face the limitations of that limited development program on our engines. That’s just how it is. If in fact we determine that that wasn’t possible, then we would never race. There would be no opportunity to race.
In Winston Cup (Nextel Cup) now it has made it extremely hard because of the high caliber of teams for the independents to get a run at their engines. Most teams, I think there is probably 3 or 4 engine builders in the entire series that build most of the engines. I don’t know of any teams that don’t have 200 employees in their shop that don’t build their own engines. The engine groups alone are 80 to 90 employees in the engine divisions for the Winston Cup (Nextel Cup) teams. Our engine shop has two of us. Should this dream sheet come together it will be a truly good story and I think a lot of people out in the world of racing will have an interest in that. Personally I know what the limitations are of what we are doing. I know what we are missing, I know what we need, I know how they need to be put in place, but until there is the opportunity to put them into place I have to accept that we can’t be there. And that’s the way it is.”
Q: A Pontiac is still in the stable. Is that a plus, minus or doesn’t it matter?
A: “It doesn’t matter. The Pontiac is a good car, there is nothing wrong with it. They just don’t support the Nextel Cup series this year. For obvious reasons they put their effort toward their Chevrolets, General Motors has and I think that was a good move. Instead of spreading it around and not getting the job done they’ve focused primarily on Chevrolet motor division right now, you know, and they’re doing very well with it. If they spread it out and didn’t get where they needed to go and had two divisions running and both divisions did poorly what would be the purpose?
I think that Pontiac has a place in Nextel Cup racing, but I believe that it should be done just they way they’re thinking, 100% or not do it. What would be the purpose for General Motors? GM has no purpose except for to do well. They can win championships; they will win championships. Why shouldn’t they be in each model they present capable of it? When they backed, I think it was Tony Stewart won in a Pontiac, won a Nextel or Winston Cup Championship two years ago, so he won the Championship driving a Pontiac.
Obviously that showed the ability of the Pontiac body, the Pontiac motor division their ability to do aerodynamic research to an ability so high they could win the championship against every manufacturer in the U.S. domestic manufacture. That shows that Pontiac could race and win with the proper team. So, what else do they have prove? Why go down from there? I think that should be good for everybody and also the technology…they focused on wind tunnel work and the ability to build these bodies has transferred I’m sure to the other Chevrolet teams where they would have never gotten that technology in the trickle down effect. Some were running Pontiac, some were running Chevy’s and wouldn’t see as much information about their specific car now it’s all Chevrolet. So the information available to them will help them to prepare better Chevrolets as a package. If there is 15 Chevrolets then hopefully 10 of them are capable of winning the event. That’s all it is, it’s stacking how many cars you can race to change the percentage that are capable of winning. You have 10 Fords that can win and 10 Chevy’s that can win, somebody in there will win.”
Q: Team standings, do you think that the crew is what you would consider 100%?
A: “I think (of) my job as referee, not referee, but as coach and motivation getter, some have the dream without knowing how much work it is and then they realize how much work it is, don’t want to do it. Others know how much work it is, have the dream and can get to it, do it and my job is to basically focus on those guys. But they would rather be racing than building cars. So they build a car, they want to go race it. That’s a hard thing to gauge.
I would say that the team is in moderate in attitude, moderate, and they have um, but they have the willingness to do what needs to be done. And I think what would really help them the most is getting the fresh air of the speedway, running around, and seeing their cars run and hear their engines. Maybe our young driver is to be included and to have a good attitude with him because everybody likes to be treated well. Sometimes the veteran mechanics or drivers can be crappy to those that don’t know as much as they know. In this business egos seem to get in the way of progress.
For our team that’s been one of my goals is that anyone that drives for us will treat our crew decent. Anybody who works with us will treat each other decent. So hopefully that it will all ring out that, well, their attitude I think as mid-summer comes around will be at a 110% versus let’s say at 80% right now or 90. But they’re all getting here. I think the majority of the guys are gettin’ here as needed and that’s the sign of a 100% commitment…when they could be home with their feet on the coffee table, they’re here workin’ instead. So we’ll take that as positive sign.”
Q: The past year, what have the biggest hurdles been for you?
A: “The past 12 months? Develop and re-developing the engines. Also developing and re-developing of the cars, body dimensions. And also dealing with the standard thing everybody else in the industry is dealing with not just with racing but with their own businesses and dealing with increased costs in insurance, increased costs for basically all overhead…slightly decreasing margins on deals. But we’re fortunate that the companies, our companies, that I own are solid but yet I’ve had to spend a lot of time doing that so that’s the biggest hurdle we have in front of all of us. I think that over the last 12 months those things and I also have 3 awesome children and allow (the) time it takes to do that.
But in the racing specific it’s been mainly the re-doing of the cars that were already done, and professionally built. That’s a hard thing for us to have to go through where in the routine of racing that’s a normal thing to go through. So building these guys up to say, ‘oh, by the way let’s build this best car’ and then tell them ‘oh, by the way take a cutting wheel and cut it off right now’ is hard thing to tell them, especially when they spent dozens and dozens of hours making it right.”
Q: In the past year you’ve had some surprises, as any business will, who has turned out to be the biggest supporter where you had not expected it and who has been the biggest obstacle?
A: “I think Dean Biondi our engineer who came to us from one of my mechanics, it was his neighbor, walked in and I explained the situation to him, where we were at, what we were attempting to do. I asked him if he was interested in helping chair that and he said sure. He’s a Michigan Tech graduate, very bright, doesn’t know everything about a car doesn’t claim to but yet as a kind of a project manager type I think he’s put a lot of forward movement in our program.
I’ve had a couple surprises. We did an interview session and interviewed some people to put on and out of the 6 we took, I think we maintained 2 of the 6. That was the biggest surprise that I had. So, that way it was one person that would get dropped out, but four of them who I thought we’d come to and see what needed to be done and how they could contribute their skills and hopefully get something personally (from the experience) as well from what we are doing, but we lost all of them. Kind of in one shot. Mainly because I think they just didn’t see progress fast enough. They didn’t see the long-term vision of what we need to do. The bottom line of what we are attempting to do is not a short term project, this is a 5 year mission statement but it has…it has some immediate needs that some people need to see immediate production from.
For me, if I thought that I had to do it tomorrow, I would have never tried. I just keep working at it, just chipping away at the mountain. Where I don’t see anybody else in the country doing it (starting independently) so we’re kinda’ the only ones that are attempting to put together a real bonifide operation, not from scratch, but from an informed point. That’s not easy to do. It’s taken some businesses 5 years to decide if they’re going to work, some businesses know in a year, some businesses take 10 years. To really do this so that you’re gonna’ go out there and be successful you best be very patient.”
Q: How about outside of here, where have you been blocked or where have doors been opened for you?
A: “A blocker…meaning helping or hurting?”
Q: Either. Examples could be suppliers or service providers.
A: “We have lots of that. If in fact our cars are in line to be done and something else comes up sometimes our cars have to wait in the body shops. If in fact our sponsor representative commits to something that doesn’t mean that their boss comes through with it. So there is all kinds of that. That’s a continuous project. I think our cylinder head research, which we thought, would the best that there was turned out to be okay. Not bad, but not what we needed. Some of our 2-year-old cylinder heads run better than our brand new cylinder heads. Those are obstacles that for me as an engine builder are disappointing and without the time or funding to run 6 days a week on the dynos, it’s not something that I need right now.
We have to build our best engines and we have to go out there and compete often on a percentage, 5% lower on power than most the guys, and some days it looks like it’s 10%. You have to outdo them in other ways from handling to interest to the drivers, having the ability and desire to drive fast. We have to overcome any limitations that we have by superior performance in other areas. When you don’t do that it doesn’t work out.”
Q: What kind of support are you getting from NASCAR? Any?
A: “What support? Any questions you have they’ll answer. Other than that, good luck and see ya’ when you get here.”
Q: Is everybody getting that (support)?
A: “Correct. They’ll give you any technical information you need. They’ll work with you as best they can. Their finance support division, which would be kind of their sponsor seeking divison, are pretty tied up, they’re pretty well committed for the year. Everything that they’re doing in June, July, August, September they’re done of whatever year before. They’re not calling here asking for the race team to appear if that’s what you’re asking. When we ready to appear they’ll be glad to have us I’m sure.”
Q: Any OEM support?
A: “General Motors always helps the race teams in some fashion or another. We get some what I consider very important support from GM as far as technical and availability of state of the art current technology, castings, parts.”
Q: How does one become part of the Conely Motor Sports team?
A: “It would be good if they had an interest in automobiles. It would be good if they had a background in automobiles so that they could see what the opportunity is here to be involved. In the absence of a sponsor and they wanted to be involved in it, it would be good if they had a lot of money. (And) Be interested in a mission statement of several years to come. We’ve got the background in the industry. We’ve earned it we didn’t inherit it. Our guys have also earned it and so if it happens for them I believe the right person, the right characters that would want to be involved would see that. A basis that they wouldn’t find the same combination anywhere else.”
Q: On your long-term goal, what’s the status of your planned expansion to the current facility?
A: “We just got our site plan approved on our new building. We are in negotiation with some lease tenants to expand the facility for a portion of the new facility. We plan to add our own chassis dyno on site and engine dynos providing are current sponsor commitments come to be. We’ll see a NASCAR type arena here if everything works out. If not there will be a lot of nice buildings to lease out. A lotta’ nice space. A few years from now, I’m not willing to give it up yet.”
Q: Are we going to see a groundbreaking soon?
A: “Well, when we sign the first tenant we’ll see a groundbreaking on the rear of the facility. The reconstruction of the current facility as far as a rebuild on it in the next 30 days, we’re gonna’ do it in 2 phases. We’re going to rebuild our existing facility to 2004 up to specs as well as a small addition in the back. The next complete building structure won’t be done until the tenants are signed or the final sponsor stuff is signed.
We’re not going to hang our neck out that far. We’re going to hang our neck out as we have right along for the last, I’ve been self-employed for 20 years, and I’ve hung my neck every day of the 7-day week. I gauge this, and you might like this, I gauge my career like racing a car. Every day I get in a car and I stand on the gas and I head into Turn 1 and turn the wheel. Some days I have tires that are a little more worn, some day I have really good tires on and every day I’m drivin’. Sometimes I gotta’ tune the setup, other days that’s what my day is. And as self employed, I started the company with its 1 car and the grandmother answering the phone and using a beeper and so on and so forth. I believe the buildup of the race team is exactly the same.
There hasn’t been a project I’ve been on that we haven’t been successful at when we finished. So I expect this will be the same way. I thought about this building 10 years before I built it and then I put it together and we sit here today and its been the most successful thing in my entire family’s history. But I was able to accomplish. It wasn’t by myself it was a lot of good help and so on and so forth. So we’ll see if the racing can do the same.”
Q: How’s the family holding up through this?
A: “They’re wore out. The family is wore out. A lotta’ sacrifices at home, sacrifices with the children. The timing is always an issue with small kids but today I was able to squeeze out an hour and half for Science Olympiad practice, it was actually more than that, I was there at 7 o’clock this morning practicing for a project for school. And then I was there tonight at… this afternoon at 4 o’clock for another hour and a half running the gymnasium practicing with our airplane, our wheeled vehicle car, the coach and so it’s a lot of sacrifices.
My blood pressure is higher than it should be in order to get to that stuff to make sure that my kids are taken care of. I got to see my youngest daughter for maybe 15 minutes out of this entire day. Where I saw my other kids in the morning when they got up for school and went in…and so it’s tough on me and she notices. That’s the hard thing. These are sacrifices but in the long-term goal of things, you know, as you build futures, we’ll just have to see what doors open for them. Maybe there will be new doors that wouldn’t have been open by doing this for them. It’s up to them though to open them. I just want to be there to, hopefully interest them in our business. If they’re interested great, if they’re not they’ll be off doing whatever they want to do.”
Conely Motor Sports is truly a family business with the eldest member Jack Conely, a former track burner himself on the tracks here in the Great Lakes area, mentoring and supplying specialty parts to the racing garage as requested. John’s wife Jennifer runs the front office for all of the Conely businesses. As for the aforementioned Conely children, when they are not hitting the books or burning calories in a school sport, it is not uncommon to find them in the shop puttering on their own cars, or occasionally helping dad turn a wrench in the racing garage.
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