As seen at Short Track Warriors http://shorttrackwarriors.com/ January 2008
By Joe Dunn – joe@onpitroad.com
At 35 years of age, Brian Selby of Sparta, Tn is anxious to get on the track for his 19th year of racing. Brian and his family relocated to Sparta two years ago from Joliet, Ill. and arrived in the area brimming with excitement to be in the true heart of dirt track racing.
Before moving south Brian spent 16 years up north running the ½ scale Indy cars where he enjoyed a lot of success. Starting in 1990 at the age of 16 he earned the Rookie of the Year title in the FIRA series. Over the years he ran 2 different series of the Indy cars amassing 75 feature wins. Although he never won a championship in these series he did finish second more than once. He also won the National Short Track Championship twice as well as the Golden Sands Open and the Little Car Nationals.
Brian’s inspiration to get into racing was from three people, Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip and Richard Selby, his dad. As a youngster he watched a lot of Nascar races on TV with his dad, as dad explained the various effects and setups to Brian. Dad always wanted to race but over the years one thing or another held him back. By Brian’s 16th birthday he and dad had a ½ scale Indy car ready for Brian to start racing. To this day Mike is on hand with Brian in the pits every race night along with Brian’s wife Kathleen.
Brian’s first run on the dirt was in a Front Wheel Drive at Crossville that included a spectacular roll over. After only a few races, he got himself into a Street Stock, completing his second season in 2007 at Crossville. With 5 Street Stock wins to his credit he will be returning to Crossville in 2008 in the Pro Street class. If everything goes according to plan this will be the final year with a Limited Late Model coming in 2009.
That will not be the end of the story for Brian Selby, his dream is to someday move up to the Super Late Models and a chance to compete against the BIG names. Of course all the plans require one thing over all others, and as Brian says, “The hardest part about racing is the money, or the lack of it.”
I asked Brian what he thought the outlook was for local dirt tracks, and he was quite optimistic. “I see the local tracks emerging as a big driver development area that will spotlight the area. This spotlight will be a catalyst to bringing bigger and better races to this area and with that will be the countries biggest names in Dirt racing.”
“If I was able to dictate one change in the local tracks, it would be to bring in more big sponsored shows to the local tracks. The idea of being able to develop some $25-50K shows that would attract the top names to our tracks.”
It’s pretty cold out there on this January evening in east Tennessee, but that is hardly noticeable when you hear the enthusiasm in Brian’s voice. He had a pretty good 2007 season at Crossville finishing second in the Street Stock class and has a real positive outlook for success in 2008. Ok racers and fans, order up that early spring and we’ll see y’all at the local dirt tracks.
