Dale Coyne: Still Lovin' The Underdog

[brightline]

Here is an old article I found from the from the CART 1987-1988 yearbook I was given as a birthday gift this weekend. Here are excerpts from an article on Dale Coyne. After reading this 15 plus year old article I will be cheering for Dale Coyne louder than ever.

DALE COYNE
RUNNING IN CART'S LOW GROOVE

by Dick Mittman

In the rainbow of T-shirts at Wisconsin's Road America race course last summer, a new yellow model sprouted. Emblazened across the front in bold, black lettering was "Dale Coyne Fan Club". Not Budweiser, not Marlboro, not Domino's Pizza, not Mobil. Dale Coyne. Dale Coyne is not a wine cooler or a hot dog; he is an underdog. "Everybody loves an underdog," he maintains. And as an underdog, Dale Coyne has ranked right up there, or down there, with some renowned tail waggers. As a regular on the CART/PPG Indy Car circuit, he is just as much a part of the show as, say, Danny Sullivan.
But there the similarity ends. He doesn't live in Aspen, appear on "Good Morning America," or wear imported Boss driving gear. He doesn't drive for an 'established car owner like Roger Penske, he drives for Dale Coyne. He doesn't currently bid for the pole in qualifying or for victory in the race. He has yet to enter the Indy 500.
Dale Coyne is at the "entry level" in Indy Car racing. He is the owner, the driver, the P.R. man, the mechanical helper and the dreamer of Coyne Racing. He is also the sponsor.

He drove a year old March during the 1987 season. It was powered by a stock block Chev-rolet engine, not the new Chevy racing model with 4 cams, 32 valves and horsepower to match. The only one on the circuit, it lacked quite a few of the ponies produced by the pure racing engines and Coyne lacked funds to fully develop it. So, each race, he appeared, drove as fast as he could and hoped to grab a starting spot at the tail end of the field. Sometimes he did, often he didn't, but as a member of CART properties he did receive at least $7,000 just for showing up and making the effort; "T. shirt money" for a major sponsor. That kept his team afloat and his dreams about the future from becoming nightmares. Understandably he feels good about spontaneous fan support such as surfaced at Road America.
"I hope we're making a contribution," Coyne volunteered. "I think a lot of fans appreciate what we do. The fans are very knowledgeable, they know what we're up against. It's funny, we get a lot of fan support at every track we go to. A lot of people come by and wish us luck and that gives us a lot of encouragement. It helps keep all the guys in and the crew going. Everybody seems to like us quite a bit. I try to keep my nose clean when I run, because I know we're not the fastest car out there. I don't want to cause any problems for the fast guys. Again, I hope they respect what we're doing, that we're trying and we deserve the opportunity to be out there to try to compete even if it is only with one or two guys in the pack."
Coyne is battling to stay, and grow, in Indy Car racing with a major missing ingredient. He had no sponsors worth mentioning during the past season. How does he survive? He laughs sardonically before he answers. "A lot of hard work; a lot of persistence."

The team uses every penny of its prize money plus whatever profits Coyne steers in that direction from his landscaping business in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield, IL. "The guys who work on the car are the key. They are true racers because they do it for the love of it and not for the job," Coyne said. "That makes a big difference. You see a lot of that in sports car racing. Here it’s become so big time, full time and professional. There’s very little of that sporting approach left over.”

Coyne’ crew of helpers mostly are friends from the Chicago area. Freddie Myers is the chief mechanic. Chuck Buzjuhanov, a bricklayer, helps out in the evenings and at the races. Dave Holm takes all of his vacation days so he can contribute. Joe Boris, who's retired, acts as the gopher. Bernie Myers has a body shop and is able to get away. Dale, Bernie and Joe drive the country, towing the car in a trailer. The others fly to the races. Coyne adds a cou-ple more to the crew on weekends from Phoe-nix or Florida depending on which end of the U.S. the race is being run.

"We've struggled with this motor," Coyne related. "We've done a lot of development with the motor and we're proud of the horsepower we have. We've had to sacrifice dependability and it's hurt us. For what we've gained, we've put in a lot of work." The stock block engine has been tried by several teams in recent years without particular success. The Chevy racing engine developed for the NASCAR stockers is different from the one used in an Indy Car. "Dan Gurney tried hard with a stock block and when he finally got a sponsor, the sponsor forced him into another motor," Coyne said. "It was probably for the better, for him. The car (March) has evolved around a Cosworth power plant. The gearbox is developed for a Cosworth. You go and change all of that and you find you have a lot of problems."

So Coyne's next step, he says, is to get a Cosworth engine for the 1988 season. And to do that, he must find a sponsor that can pro-vide sufficient funds. Coyne's best sponsor-ship during the past season was an explorato-ry one with Turtle Wax, which he hopes to ex-pand. He received some product support from such firms as Valvoline that all competitors get. "As far as sponsorship with any kind of se-rious money, no, we don't have that," he said. "That's what we're trying to do. We've got a new marketing guy, Steve Schofield, and I think he's going to do a real good job." ...

Coyne sets his goals realistically. He says he isn’t competing just for himself. “There are three or four teams I think we’ve got a chance of beating. We need track time. I think we can outrun a couple of the smaller teams. All classes of racing, even Winston Cup, have guys called “low groovers” who make a living running the low groove. ...

I still feel proud. There are only 28-30 guys in the whole country who actually get out there and compete in Indy Car racing.


I hope you enjoyed this look into Champ Car past as much as I did. -brightline

[camcartfan]

Interesting. Makes me want to go get a Dale Coyne shirt made!

[BootsOntheSide]

Interesting stuff. Although he's not a front-runner like Roger Penske, and can't put competitive cars on the grid, he's a rgeat man to have in your series, and Servia and Marques are arguably both better than any of his 2003 drivers (except maybe Yoong)

[Liz]

I love a man who keeps trying although others judge him because he's not as wealthy as they think he ought to be -- because he loves what he does and wants to help other guys do what they love. Dale Coyne is the real example of the American Way -- not an opportunist like Rahal who doesn't care what he does as long as he gets paid.

If I had the time I'd start a Dale Coyne fan club too.

[Amar7605]

One thing that I can admire about Dale Coyne today is his ability to give younger drivers a chance to succeed in the series. Sure, they don't win, but Dale Coyne is a stepping stone for great things. I think that because no one would give him a chance as a driver, he is making sure today that deserving talent gets the chances that he had to really fight for.

My 100th post! Yeah!

[KC]

The guy has been involved, scraping by most of the time, in CART for a long time. Strangely enough, while some of the biggest and most successful teams jumped to the IRL Coyne sticks it out, hanging on, racing for change in the back. One of the few truly loyal team owners.

[macdaddy]

ChampWeb has posted some great pics of Coyne's new livery.

http://www.champweb.net/gallery_view...2004_pt&id=950
http://www.champweb.net/gallery_view...2004_pt&id=952

Pretty sharp, IMO.