100 wins and counting for Mercer legend Tommy Kristyak
By Mike Dutko
For 4/16/04
As we sat in Kristyak’s Korner in Sandy Lake Monday afternoon, Tommy Kristyak reflected on his racing career, and his 20-year dream to own a business like he owns today. He’s come a long way from that little garage with a couple gas pumps and a crowded service bay to the ultra-modern convenience store, and restaurant he owns today. Likewise he has come a long way from his humble beginnings in racing to where he is today. Every racer remembers his first racecar and Tommy Kristyak is no exception.
“My Dad bought me my first racecar in 1969 for $80. He wanted to keep me interested in something instead of riding my bicycle downtown and getting into trouble.” That car was a 37 Chevy Coupe with a Hudson engine. “I ran that Hudson to death, and parts were getting hard to find so I switched engines. I used to get the junk parts my Dad and Uncle Mike would take off their 292 Chevys. It was Tommy’s mother who came up with the number most people associate with Tommy Kristyak- the number 260. “At the time I started racing I was 14, so remember I needed my mother’s permission to race. Well we ran a Sunoco station and they had 260-gasoline, so she thought 260 was a good number for me, and I wasn’t going to argue. I needed her to sign the permission slip.
Saturday, Tommy Kristyak climbed from his Big-Block Modified to accept the accolades of the crowd, and a watch from Vicki Emig commemorating his 100th career win at Mercer. For Tommy Kristyak it was the culmination of a lot of years, a lot of time, and a lot of energy that earned those wins along the way. Throughout Tommy’s career he’s been kind of a lightning rod. Let’s just say he’s no stranger to controversy. Even winning races has stirred controversy for Kristyak. His 100th win is somewhat controversial.
“The record keeping at Mercer hasn’t always been as good as it is today, said the Stoneboro legend. “I actually think the win Saturday night was 120, not 100, but still it was real nice of Vicki to take the time to honor me that way.” “I actually starting racing in 1969 when I was 14 years old. I got to drive a couple races at the end of year. When I was 15, I actually won my first feature at Mercer. I won another race that year too. The next year my Uncle Mike was winning all the time, and I ran second and third a lot, but I never won a race. My third year in racing was when I graduated high school and got to run my Dad’s car, we won four races, and took the championship that year too. Every year after that we won like four, then seven, then nine, so there’s some races that probably didn’t get counted.”
I really started to win a lot of races when I switched to Bud Hardy’s #85B. When I ran for Bud in 1982 I won 38 features. We ran Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There was six weekends we won at all three tracks. Don’t you know the first thing they did at the awards banquet was give Johnny Beaber an award for winning 31 features! Supposedly he won the most features in the whole area. Well he won 31, and I won 38. They forgot all about Tommy Kristyak.
Then in 1983 Don Martin, Walt Wimer, and Rick Majors got together and made a rule up that you couldn’t run one of the three top classes, and a car in the support divisions. You couldn’t go back and forth between divisions. Well here I am running Bud Hardy’s six-cylinder and my Dad’s V-8 modified. That was the last time I drove a six-cylinder car. But that car I drove for Bud Hardy was really something. The modified I ran in 1996 that ran on three wheels and won all those races with was my favorite car. I won a ton of races with that car on big old humper tires, so they changed the rules to run these stupid DIRT tires. It’s politics like that that ruin racing. No tire rule ever put money in a driver’s pocket, only the promoter’s pocket. Man that made me mad. That was before I learned you can’t expect everything to go your way all the time. Now I know better.
So over the course of his years are there moments and feature wins that stand out in his mind? “Every feature I’ve won at Mercer is special to me. If you knew how I grew up, and how I had to earn my way to get to where I am today, I had to get through Ralph Quarterson, Lou Blaney, think about it, Vic George, all them boys. I finished second to all them boys! So I had some good teachers, don’t you think I didn’t.”
If Kristyak could change one thing about racing today it would be to eliminate all factory built racecars. “Make them all homemade again. I’ve driven all kinds of cars, and lots of different brands. I tell you they’re all good cars. It’s just what you apply to them.” For Tommy it all boils back to when he was a kid. “Little tire on the left side, bigger tire on the right side, a stiffer shock on the right front and let’s go racing! I don’t care how sophisticated it gets; if you pay attention to those little details you can still have a pretty good race car.”
Over the years Tommy Kristyak has found himself in the midst of shall we say some controversial moments, but lately the fans perception of Tommy has softened a little bit. His wife Gara Lynn thinks both Tommy and the fans both have had an effect on the change. Tommy will tell you he has gotten a lot older and has come to realize just because you get bumped out there you don’t always have to settle score in the pits.
“Maybe it was simpler then. You fought like hell with a guy one week then shared a coffee the next. Now you have to just put it on the trailer, and head home.” Putting the car on the trailer and heading home led to one of Kristyak’s most memorable moments in racing. “As you know I tow through Jackson Center on the way home, and I kind of grew up there at the corner saloon with my Grandfather and those guys, so I when I would win I would stop off there, see all my old friends and have a little toast with them.
Two years ago I won my second feature in a row, but I told Gara Lynn I wasn’t going to stop off that week; I was coming straight home, because I had to open up the store the next morning. When I did get home about two and a half hours later she didn’t really believe me that I didn’t stop, but I didn’t stop, at least on purpose.
What really happened is we made the bend at the bar and I told the guy riding with me, we were not stopping and so forth. Halfway up the hill I seen sparks flying behind me so I figured the ramp fell off. I pulled off the side of the road, and told him to slide that ramp back on the trailer. He came back up to the front of the truck, and his eyeballs were big as silver dollars!
He said, “There ain’t no car back there!” I figure he’s kidding me, so I asked him to say that again, and he told me, “There ain’t no racecar back there!” Well I got out of the truck and walked back to look for myself. Sure enough, there’s no racecar there. I told him to run down to the bar, because I figured it came off the trailer and smashed into the cars in the parking lot. So he runs down there, and I turned the truck around. Well, when I got there, there’s no racecar. No cars are smashed up, and it isn’t sitting in the fields. It just plain disappeared!
So I said, “Well if this isn’t a sign to have a beer, I don’t know what is. I ran in and got a bottle of beer, and went back outside. I said it had to be here somewhere. About that time Ron McClung was bringing his sprint car home. I asked him if he saw my car anywhere. He said no. Then he asked me where my car was, and I said I don’t know.
By this time 45 minutes has gone by, and I was sitting up on the truck having another beer. Just then a car made the turn and I caught a glimpse of something shiny. Well when we made the left turn the car somehow came off the trailer as we rounded the bend and went between a telephone pole and a tree down into the creek so far you couldn’t see anything. When I say it landed in the creek I should tell you it was more like sewer water! I had to call for my tilt bed to winch it out of the creek.
Well by the time I finally got home I had a little beer on my breath, and when I told Gara Lynn I didn’t stop off for a toast, she was mad because I had pulled a few stories in my life time with her. Once she saw the tilt bed bring the car in and she smelled it she knew it was the truth.
For months people would come by my trailer and leave me bungee cords, and tarp straps to tie the racecar on. If it weren’t for Gara Lynn I wouldn’t be where I’m at today that’s for sure! She’s been awful good to me. Most of the time it’s been just her and me in this thing. I don’t have big sponsorships. I get a little help like McCool’s Graphics who letter the car, and Fred Elder if I happen to win a feature kicks in a hundred bucks but that’s what helps drive me to win more races too I think.
Kristyak is anxious to get back on the track this week. We got a lucky draw and started up front. I don’t know how much more this car has, because we didn’t really have to pass anybody. How much more does Tommy think it has? “I’m not saying; just watch me go and see.”
Something tells this writer there’s plenty more where the first 100, or is it 120 came from.
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