Coos Bay family races together, stays together

Published 5:00 am Saturday, July 6, 2013

COOS BAY — Mike Post said he is always nervous watching his two favorite racers at Coos Bay Speedway. That’s understandable, because one is his wife, Trina, and the other is their 15-year-old daughter Alecia.

“I worry all the time,” Mike said Tuesday night before taking his customary position at the fence to watch Alecia’s heat race in the street stock division at Coos Bay Speedway on the southern Oregon Coast.

But as a five-year veteran of racing at the speedway himself — he and Trina both started in 2008 — Mike knows the races are as safe as possible.

So he did not panic when Alecia’s car slammed into the outside wall and was then hit again near the bottom of the dirt oval. And soon enough, she was out of the car and Mike was acknowledging the end result of the crash: It was time to go to work on the car again.

Such is life for the racing family, which often spends eight or nine hours at the speedway for Saturday races.

“It’s worth it,” Mike said.

Mike grew up in Sutherlin and loved watching the races on the paved oval at the Umpqua County Fairgrounds in Roseburg.

He dabbled in drag racing when he was younger, but he did not get into racing on the track until a sprint car was on sale in Roseburg at one of the races — just the type he wanted to race.

Mike bought the car just about the same time Coos Bay Speedway owner Chuck Prather converted the track to dirt. He was not able to convert his new sprint car so that it would run right on dirt.

But he found a late-model car for sale in California and traded straight across so he could race at Coos Bay Speedway.

He was living a dream, but at first Trina wanted nothing to do with the racing lifestyle.

She warmed to the idea, though, and gave it a try that first season when a family friend let her borrow a car.

“I didn’t even know what the flags meant the first time I drove it,” Trina said.

But she fell in love with the adrenaline.

“I did it for the first time and I made (Mike) buy it,” she said.

That car is the one Alecia drives now, since Trina has moved up to the Sportsman classification.

Several other people wanted to buy the car, but Trina saved it for Alecia, who started driving carts — a smaller type of racing vehicle — when she was 13 (she will drive her cart in a competition during the Coos County Fair in Myrtle Point on July 27), and then joined the action at the speedway last year.

Success came right away with Alecia starting in the Hornet class with a smaller car.

“Her first season, she was rookie of the year and second place in points,” Trina said.

Mom didn’t do too bad, either, winning the street stock division.

Mike and Trina said they were not concerned about starting Alecia so early.

“We really pushed the safety issue,” Trina said.

It is not uncommon to see drivers start at the speedway before they are old enough to drive on the roads.

This year’s Sportsman class leader is 14-year-old Ryan Baker, and another of the best local drivers the past few years has been 16-year-old Preston Luckman.

Mike and Trina think Alecia could turn into a top racer, too.

“She’s a very good driver,” Trina said. “She’s very smooth. Very fast-reacting.”

Alecia said she loves the adrenaline rush. She also likes being a popular fixture at the raceway, especially among younger girls.

“I’m the social butterfly,” she said.

Alecia has not been deterred by crashes, like the one Tuesday night.

“I drove into the corner and the steering locked up,” she said. “I turned down trying to get the steering to work and got shoved into the wall.”

Her car then drifted toward the infield and was hit by another car.

Alecia had no hard feelings for the other drivers involved, especially the one who hit her hard at the bottom of the track.

“He had no place to go,” she said.

The car was dinged up and was not able to race in the main event later in the evening, but Alecia said her only damage was a little pain in her forearm. She said she could not wait to get back out on the track.

Alecia will be a sophomore at Marshfield High School this fall, and she plays volleyball for the Pirates. The rest of her year is about racing.

“Eventually, Alecia wants to go to a sprint car,” Mike said.

Her parents would like to see her race in the Sportsman or Late Model class first, or send her to a driving school for a few weeks to get better instruction on racing the faster cars.

“I know she has the potential,” Trina said. “That’s her lifelong goal.”

For now, Mike is teaching as best he can, aided by a video camera Alecia got for Christmas that sits just behind her left shoulder in the car to record each race from her perspective.

“We’ll go over her videos after races,” he said. “She’s improving every race.”

Racing is a family activity, but the Post clan has pulled in several friends, too.

Mike does nearly all the mechanical work preparing the cars, but friends help as pit crews on race days. It usually takes one extra person per car, he said.

The family has tried to find sponsorships to help pay the expenses. Alecia is sponsored by a local 7-Eleven store because her best friend is the granddaughter of the owners.

Mike spends his week as a manager at United Rentals, and Trina works as a flagger for road projects.

And on Saturdays, they roll into the speedway pit area in the early afternoon and stay sometimes until midnight.

“We enjoy it,” Trina said. “It’s fun.”

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