Boom Briggs

RICK ‘BOOM’ BRIGGS, JR

NO VACATION FOR CREWS !

By Doc Lehman

Rick “Boom” Briggs, Jr., crew chief for Chub Frank, has been working overtime, which isn’t too unusual for any crew member of a professional, touring dirt Late Model team. Being part of a championship team is tough, tough work but hard work and long hours isn’t something that scares Briggs off – he dives right in and relishes it.

But he likes to win.
And during their week at East Bay Raceway for the annual ‘Winternationals”, Briggs found it a sometimes frustrating, sometimes rewarding, week of racing. But that is the name of the game in this deal.

“It’s been a struggle all week,” offered Briggs Saturday afternoon. “We have that brand new car we brought down here and struggled with it all week trying to find a balance on it. The win the other night definitely helped but we struggled Thursday night and last night and we’ll throw something different on it tonight. I think by the time we get to Volusia we’ll be a lot better with it. It’s just been a fight. I think we’ll be a lot better at Volusia with it on that type of racetrack. When it rubbered up the other night it (East Bay) was real good. It just lacks for a little bit of traction.”

For those novices or lay people who think being a part of a championship dirt Late Model team is all fun and games, it’s not. The cold hard reality is its work, work, work. There’s no time for beaches and bikinis or rounds of golf or trips to Disney World.

“This week down here is a tough week,” informed Briggs. “It’s a long week. “I’m about wore out. It’s definitely no vacation when you come down here to race for a week.”

There was one aspect of the week that was uplifting and put some gas into the crews’ tank, Chub Frank’s midweek feature win.

“It makes the hard work pay off,” said Briggs. “All the hours you put in and hard work, to get a win down here is pretty special.”

Photo Courtesy of Rick Schwallie

And what made the win even sweeter was that it was Frank’s career first win at East Bay and the first time he won a Renegade race this early in a season.

“We were just talking about that,” stated Briggs. “Never before has he gotten a win this early in the season in a points race. It’s sometimes been late June before he got a point win. It’s a good way to start the year off but this track down here, it’s hard to gauge the whole year on because it’s a funny racetrack. Even though you’re here six nights in a row you actually race on a different surface every night. You never know what the track is going to do. It meant a lot the other night to get that first Renegade win this early in the year.”

“The other night we ran from hot laps to qualifying to the heat race to the feature and put four different set ups on the car. You have to adjust the car every time the track changes. It’ll fool you. It constantly changes.”

Yet, Briggs will never give up trying to conquer the tracks, trying to make his cars work right and making sure his driver reaches victory lane. And his story echoes that of 80 other crew chiefs who spent six days “in the office” hard at work. His office? The pits at Any track USA.

©2003 Doc Lehman/Dirt America

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